Frame & Reference is a conversation between Cinematographers hosted by Kenny McMillan. Each episode dives into the respective DP’s current and past work, as well as what influences and inspires them. These discussions are an entertaining and informative look into the world of making films through the lens of the people who shoot them.
This week, we have the absolutely wonderful Pete Konczal, ASC, on the program to talk about his work on Black Rabbit, House of Cards, and more!
David Fincher, Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger and Night School Studio want you to die while playing the new Netflix horror video game, Unhinged.
“At least once,” according to Sean Krankel, general manager of narrative games at Netflix and studio director at Night School.
In Unhinged, players take on the role of Ava (voiced by Zoë Kravitz), a woman who wakes up during an intense storm that has knocked out her power. The game, which can be played on Netflixvia subscribers’ TVs or computers, has you use your real-life phone as your controller, which acts as your flashlight and way to call and text your best friend Claire (Sadie Sink) and building super Ben (Troy Baker), while also being the way you move around and make choices. And those choices become increasingly important as you discover a killer is afoot and coming for you and the other remaining building residents.
Developed by the Netflix-owned Night School Studio in secret collaboration with David Fincher and Zach Cregger (the two directors got a “Special Thanks” acknowledgment in the game’s credits when it was released Tuesday, but Netflix has not commented on their inclusion in the process beyond confirming their creative involvement to Variety), Unhinged is a survival game that includes “about 10 times” the player could die throughout the story, which will take you roughly more than 30 minutes to play.
Zoë Kravitz (The Batman, Kimi, Caught Stealing)as Ava Sadie Sink (Stranger Things, the Utopia series project) as Claire, Ava’s best friend Troy Baker (The Last of Us, Love, Death + Robots: Bad Travelling) as the apartment-building super, Ben
Jason Hill (Mindhunter, Love, Death + Robots: Bad Travelling): Music Ren Klyce (Every Work by Fincher): Sound Design
Most thrillers guide you with close-ups. David Fincher‘s approach to The Game (1997) goes the other direction — wide frames, a neutral camera grammar, nothing that triggers your editorial radar. In a film built entirely on manipulation, the film analysis only works if you never feel it happening.
Chapters:
00:00: How Fincher Controls Your Mind in The Game 01:19: The Game Recap 02:04: How Fincher’s Team Approached The Game 04:53: Leading Lines 06:35: Overhead Lighting 08:05: Emotional Manipulation 13:12: Takeaways
This is a cinematography breakdown of how Fincher and his collaborators — production designer Jeffrey Beecroft and cinematographer Harris Savides — built a visual system where every layer does covert work. Leading lines run through every corridor. Lighting spotlights without editorializing. An architecture of compressed versus open space communicates Van Orton‘s psychological state before a word of dialogue confirms it. From the fluorescent corridors of CRS to the hotel room ceiling pressing down, the production design in this film is doing David Fincher’s directing work silently.
What makes The Game remarkable is that Fincher runs the same operation on the audience that CRS runs on Van Orton. The wide frame withholds. The set design steers. The lighting points — without ever announcing itself as an editorial decision. None of it triggers your pattern-recognition the way a close-up would. You navigate the film exactly as Van Orton navigates the game. Once you see the system, you can’t unsee it.
If you’re drawn to production design, visual storytelling in film, or how directors control the audience without anyone realizing it — this breakdown is for you. Watch it, then try rewatching The Game.
♬ Songs used:
“Happy Birthday, Nicholas” – Howard Shore “Consumer Recreation Services” – Howard Shore “Harlequin Clown” – Howard Shore “Congratulations on Choosing C.R.S.” – Howard Shore “House of Pain” – Howard Shore “Van Orton Mansion” – Howard Shore “White Rabbit” – Jefferson Airplane “Room 277” – Howard Shore “Strange Connection” – Nobou “Attempted Murder” – Howard Shore
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Directed by David Fincher • 1997 • United States Starring Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger
The enormously wealthy and emotionally remote investment banker Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) receives a strange gift from his ne’er-do-well younger brother (Sean Penn) on his forty-eighth birthday: a voucher for a game that, if he agrees to play it, will change his life. Thus begins a trip down the rabbit hole that is puzzling, terrifying, and exhilarating for Nicholas and viewers alike. This multilayered, noirish descent into one man’s personal hell is also a surreal, metacinematic journey that, two years after the phenomenon SE7EN, further demonstrated that director David Fincher was one of Hollywood’s true contemporary visionaries.
“Can SONY market a ONE MAN SHOW (?)”wrote David Fincher in an email uncovered by the 2014 Sony hack, regarding his excitement about Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs script. “Can you guys make the LENNY of it all, the MUST SEE?” This reference to Bob Fosse’s 1974 film Lenny (whose restoration receives a spiffy 4K disc from the Criterion Collection this month) proves a revelatory window into Fincher’s mind.
The late multihyphenate has seen his legacy on the upswing even beyond the Criterion canonization. This reappreciation has recognized Fosse’s work, such as IndieWire naming his All That Jazz the best film of the 1970s last year. And it’s also shone a spotlight on the man, most notably through FX’s acclaimed miniseries about his up-and-down relationship with life and creative partner Gwen Verdon in Fosse/Verdon.
But Fincher’s been a consistent, continuous admirer in ways that are not always recognized. “I’m a big Fosse guy,” Fincher told a Film Independent event in 2014. “I don’t think the guy made a bad movie.” He backs that admiration up in his own work, most notably an extended homage to All That Jazz in his music video for Paula Abdul’s Cold Hearted.
The kinship between Fosse and Fincher is as much a spiritual one as an overtly stylistic connection. Both men arrived in Hollywood through side doors, honing their craft through other media and disciplines that would form their distinctly calibrated sense of spectacle and rhythm alike. Fosse was a creature of the stage who excelled as an actor, choreographer, and director in the heyday of the American musical. Fincher, on the other hand, began his career in visual effects before cutting his teeth on the nascent form of music videos (as well as some slick commercials).
Having to break down movement into its discrete components forged a relentless perfectionism in both men. This exact and exacting compulsion recurs in everything from the craftsmanship to their characters. “He’s ruthless with his characters,” Fincher observed of Fosse in terms that could just as easily apply to the pitiless precision of his own filmography. “They’re amazing, and they’re watchable, and they’re disgusting.”
Mark your calendars, because director David Fincher’s latest film will be coming to IMAX theaters globally for an exclusive two-week run starting November 25, before debuting on Netflixon December 23.
Brad Pitt returns to his Academy Award-winning role as Cliff Booth, only this time it’s 1977 and it’s a very different Hollywood. Directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino, the film also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Scott Caan, Carla Gugino, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Peter Weller, Matt Groove, JB Tadena, Corey Fogelmanis, and Karren Karagulian, and will be produced by Pitt and Ceán Chaffin.
In addition to Pitt and Chaffin, the film’s creative team includes Fincher’s longtime collaborators, like Erik Messerschmidt, ASC, as director of photography, and Donald Graham Burt as production designer. It’s edited by Kirk Baxter, ACE, with casting by Laray Mayfield. Trish Summerville is costume designer, Ren Klyce is sound designer, and Dave Macomber is stunt coordinator.
Come back to Tudum for more information on the movie before it comes to screens later this year.
Here’s an in depth look at an extremely rare set of high heel shoes that were sent out to selected members of the Critics Choice Association to promote David Fincher‘s MINDHUNTER in preparation of the 2018 Emmy Awards.
Shoutout to The Fincher Analyst for their original post about these shoes and a huge Thank You to Chris Evangelista, who was kind enough to sell me his set! Be sure to visit slashfilm.com for more of Chris‘ amazing work!
And if anyone has more info on these shoes or happens to have a copy of the original letter from Netflix, then pleaseget in touch with me!
Brian: Hello, Andrew. This is the first day of the Austin Film Festival, and I’m glad to sit down with you. I wanted to talk to you about your writing in your career. The first question I want to ask you is about your origin story, what made you want to be a writer, and who were some of your favorite writers growing up?
Andrew Kevin Walker: I really focused on screenwriting in college. I knew when I was a young kid that I wanted to work in the film industry. I remember, I was just talking to somebody about it because it was Jaws fiftieth anniversary, because it was so influential for me, and it really made me realize what a director does, et cetera. I was really into film early on and nerding out, reading American Film magazines and stuff in high school. I went into college studying film at Penn State, I was probably thinking I wanted to be a director but I really focused on screenwriting. There was an amazing screen writing teacher that was there at the time, I think he may still be teaching at Temple, his name is Jeff Rush. It was at Penn State that I focused on writing. Some my favorite writer’s? William Goldman is probably my favorite screenwriter of all time. My favorite novelist is [William] Somerset Maugham, which is not too surprising, I guess, there’s a couple of Somerset Maugham references in Se7en. As far as screenwriters go, Waldo Salt and William Goldman, some of the guys who were writing real classics, you know. My favorite two movies are Midnight Cowboy and Lawrence of Arabia.
Brian: That covers a lot.
Andrew: That covers the city and the desert I guess (laughs).
This week on On Story, we’ll travel back to the 90s with a retrospective on the crime thriller Se7en, with its screenwriter, Andrew Kevin Walker. Directed by David Fincher, Se7en stars Brad Pitt as David Mills, an idealistic young detective with a short fuse, who’s still adjusting to the violence and apathy of life in the big city. Mills is paired with William Somerset, a jaded Detective Lieutenant who’s only one week from retirement, played by Morgan Freeman. Mills and Somerset are tasked with investigating a pair of homicides that are exceptionally depraved and theatrical. The detectives realize that the two murders are only the beginning of a sadistic killing spree where each crime will be based on one of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, pride, and lust. Mills and Somerset begin a desperate game of cat and mouse as they try to get inside the mind of this depraved killer and catch him before he can carry out his plan.
The film was nominated for a BAFTA award for Best Original Screenplay. Se7en was screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker’s first script to be sold. During Se7en’s three-year development period, Walker wrote the scripts for two horror movies: the sci-fi slasher Brainscan, about a troubled teen who’s seduced into committing crimes by a hypnotic interactive horror game, and the psychological horror Hideaway, about a man who survives a near-death experience and finds himself psychically connected to a serial killer. Walker has continued writing and producing in the crime thriller and sci-fi genres throughout his career. Walker wrote the script for 8mm, which follows a private detective investigating a snuff film which may depict a real murder. Walker collaborated with David Fincher again on the 2023 film The Killer, and on an episode of the animated series Love, Death & Robots. His writing credits also include Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, the animated comedy Nerdland, the crime thriller Windfall, and many more. AFF moderator Andy Volk sat down with Andrew Kevin Walker for a post-screening conversation on his experience writing Se7en based on a one-sentence logline, getting the script in front of director David Fincher, and working with the film’s production crew to craft a version of New York City lost in time.
Academy Award-winning writer and director Bong Joon Ho is busy with development for his first-ever animated feature, Ally, an animated ocean adventure co-written by Bong and Jason Yu, set to make a big splash worldwide next year.
However, after taking some time to celebrate his exhibit at the Academy Museum, where Bong got to pick David Fincher‘s brain, he spoke with Collider‘s Steve Weintraub about his favorite films from fellow filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro, why his Q&A with Fincher was so meaningful, and what’s on the agenda for the rest of the year and beyond, including an exciting update on his next live-action film.
From sparring with Rupert Murdoch to gaining David Fincher’s respect, the behind-the-scenes battle to bring Fight Club to screen was as twisty as the movie’s plot.
When Bill Mechanic was the chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, he had one simple operating principle: Get in trouble.
Though his tenure as studio head from 1996 to 2000 was filled with hits, including blockbusters like Independence Day, Titanic, and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Mechanic was also known for being one of the few who listened to his gut and greenlit material considered uncommercial.
On his watch, the studio released the gory best picture winner Braveheart, the Farrelly brothers‘ gross-out hit comedy There’s Something About Mary, and the now-beloved Office Space.
Taking risks on offbeat movies gained Mechanic respect around Hollywood, but it also ruffled feathers among his bosses.
At the time, Fox was owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., and Mechanic said the Australian-born billionaire was rarely a fan of what his studio was releasing.
“I always thought what Rupert wanted was Page Six,” Mechanic told Business Insider, comparing the mogul’s movie tastes to what showed up in the gossip column of the Murdoch-owned New York Post. “He didn’t think movies were there to challenge.”
Mechanic would famously test his boss’s patience when he gave the green light to adapt a book by a then-little-known author named Chuck Palahniuk. It was called Fight Club.
The Fincher Analyst 