Lawrence Sher, ASC
April 18, 2021
Shotdeck
We’re extremely excited to share with you the latest addition of our Shot Talk interview series. Legendary filmmaker David Fincher and his incredible cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt sit down with cinematographer Lawrence Sher to discuss their 10x Oscar-nominated film Mank.
This episode has the kind of technical deep-dive discussions that you’re not gonna get anywhere else, including the philosophy of black and white vs. color cinematography, detailed FX breakdowns on several important scenes from the film, and why Fincher avoids Steadicam at all costs.
Along with the interview, we’re also releasing a bunch of great shots from the film, so you can start adding them to your decks and getting inspired right away!
But before you dive in and watch the filmmaking mini-masterclass above… make sure to go check out Mank, streaming now on Netflix.
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The Fincher Analyst 
Very cool discussion.
I actually created my own (poor man’s) version of ShotDeck 😉 I use software called Eagle. There you can create your own library of reference materials. I use it to store my collection of movie screen caps that I tagged for different things like shot types, aspect ratios but also for vfx reference (lens flares, screen surfaces for screen replacements, examples of fire, sparks etc.). It’s not as complex as ShotDeck and you have to do everything yourself… but you can add whatever you want and have complete control over your library 🙂 It can also store movie clips, so I have whole scenes there for editing inspiration. And of course everthing Fincher 😉
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