April 19, 2022
Netflix
From the streamer that brought you The Crown (Winner 21 Emmy® Awards) and The Queen’s Gambit (Winner 11 Emmy® Awards), comes the return of the 11-Time Emmy® Award-winning (yes, look it up!) LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS.
EXTREMING soon.
Global release date: May 20, 2022
Watch LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS on Netflix
Read the series guides:
2019. LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Volume 1
2021. LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS. Volume 2
Kenny McMillan
April 7, 2022
Frame & Reference
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.
In this episode, Kenny talks with legendary cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, ASC about the Oscar Nominated film “Being the Ricardos.” You likely know Jeff from his work on films such as “Fight Club“, “Gone Girl“, “The Social Network” & “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”
Listen to the podcast:
Support the podcast on Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee
Follow Frame & Reference: Twitter, Instagram
Follow Kenny McMillan: Instagram, OWL BOT
Kevin Tod Haug, the VFX supervisor of ‘Panic Room’–the film is now two decades old–shares key moments from its production.
Ian Failes
March 30, 2022
befores & afters
David Fincher’s Panic Room turns 20 years old this week. The film starring Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart featured a somewhat memorable troubled production history, partly because the original principal actor Nicole Kidman had to pull out of the project after shooting had began, among other events.
From a visual effects perspective, however, the film is memorable for different reasons. One is the incredible approach taken to extremely long takes inside the main location–a New York brownstone townhouse built on a stage in Redondo Beach–featuring ‘deliberately’ impossible camera moves. These were the result of meticulous previs, motion control and other camera work and a photogrammetry approach to VFX orchestrated by BUF, which had done some similar work on Fincher’s Fight Club.
Another memorable aspect of the film is its unsettling opening titles in which cast and crew names appear as giant lettering framed within New York buildings and locations. The work here was done by Picture Mill and ComputerCafe.
Overseeing those two key visual effects components of Panic Room was visual effects supervisor Kevin Tod Haug, who had also worked with Fincher on Fight Club. He revisits the production in this anniversary chat with befores & afters, looking back at the planning, previs and shoot, and the approach to those impossible camera moves and the unique titles.
Rob Lowe
February 10, 2022
Literally! With Rob Lowe (Team Coco)
It’s Showtime! When Steven Soderbergh joins Rob, the two friends get to ask the questions they’ve never asked one another. In this episode find out about Steven’s new film Kimi, and how he thinks Sex, Lies, and Videotape now feels like a Jane Austen novel.
Listen to the podcast:
Mario Sikora and TJ Dawe
March 21, 2022
Awareness to Action
The Enneagram in a Movie Podcast is a fun and informative way to take a deep dive into understanding the Enneagram.
Join your Season 2 hosts, Mario Sikora and TJ Dawe, as well as their special guest hosts throughout the season, as they discuss how the themes of the Enneagram are reflected in the work of great film directors such as Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, Michael Mann, and others.
Mario and TJ analyze the films of David Fincher in two episodes to explore Enneagram Type 5, “Striving to Feel Detached.” They discuss “Seven”, “Fight Club”, The Social Network” and “Girl with a Dragon Tattoo.”
Listen to the Part 1 podcast:
Apple Podcast
Simplecast
Audible
Listen to the Part 2 podcast:
Apple Podcast
Simplecast
Audible
SBIFF 2016. Cinema Vanguard – Rooney Mara Talks David Fincher
… and the Enneagram.
Author Robert Graysmith, director David Fincher, producer Brad Fischer, and screenwriter James Vanderbilt (Photo: Margot Graysmith)
Caleb Hammond
March 2, 2022
MovieMaker
James Vanderbilt wrote the screenplay for 2007’s Zodiac on spec — meaning he wasn’t commissioned to write it. So he began cutting it down before he sent it out to studios.
“I was just like, ‘This script is too fucking long. No one is going to read it.’ And I think the original script they sent out was 150 pages. It’s the thing you shouldn’t do, is write a 150-page script,” Vanderbilt tells MovieMaker about the film, released 15 years ago today.
Even when David Fincher agreed to direct the project, Vanderbilt was still concerned about its length. But much to his surprise, scenes were often added in development, not removed.
“In the spec, I had written the whole sequence with Brian Cox, and the morning show where Zodiac calls in, and then I cut it before sending the script out,” Vanderbilt says.
“And then one day Fincher was like, ‘You know, Zodiac might have called this morning show?’
“I was like, ‘Oh, I wrote it.’”
Fincher, who had spent months doing his own research on Zodiac, was impressed.
“You did?” he replied.
So Vanderbilt sent him the previously-cut 15 minute sequence.
“And he goes, ‘Well, this has got to go back in,’” Vanderbilt says. “And so it just kind of kept growing.”
Eventually Fincher sat Vanderbilt down and told him to “stop worrying about the length. I’m going to just make everyone talk very fast,” Vanderbilt says.
True to his word, “if you watch the movie, it is very bip, bip, bip, bip — everyone is talking very fast,” he adds.
David Fincher’s legendary attention to detail on the serial killer film inspired plenty of on-set drama.
Christian Zilko
March 03, 2022
IndieWire
This week marks 15 years since “Zodiac” was released in theaters, and save for the actors looking 15 years younger than they do now, the film still feels like it could be released today. If anything, “Zodiac” feels more like a product of 2022 than 2007. The country is more obsessed with serial killers than ever before, with true crime podcasts and documentaries continuing to draw massive ratings, Zodiac killer memes being used in presidential primaries, and the latest Batman movie taking the form of a serial killer drama.
That makes it a great time to revisit “Zodiac,” as well as a good opportunity to take a deep dive into the making of the film. “Zodiac” attracted as much attention for its painstaking production process as it did for the finished product, as the always detail-oriented David Fincher went above and beyond to make sure everything in his film was historically accurate. Sometimes his methodical process hurt his relationships with the cast, but one thing is for certain: They made a great movie.
Read the 15 facts about the making of “Zodiac” that you may not have known.
Jeff Cronenweth, ASC on the set of his most recent feature, Being the Ricardos.
The cinematographer’s career exemplifies how talent, versatility, opportunity and collaboration can combine to result in bold camerawork.
Jon Silberg
February 25, 2022
American Cinematographer
Directors who have worked with Jeff Cronenweth, ASC observe that he is quiet, centered, and possesses a very dry sense of humor. Working in an eclectic mix of genres and styles, he quickly zeroes in on central concepts, often exceeding expectations with the results. His career as a feature cinematographer began auspiciously with David Fincher’s eye-popping Fight Club (AC Nov. ’99), and his filmography since then includes The Social Network (AC Oct. ’10), Gone Girl (AC Nov. ’14), One Hour Photo (AC Aug. ’02) and the Amazon miniseries Tales From the Loop (AC April ’20). Cronenweth has also shot stylistically bold, groundbreaking music videos for David Bowie, Taylor Swift, Janet Jackson, Nine Inch Nails and many other top artists.
Jeff with his father, Jordan Cronenweth, ASC.
It wouldn’t be at all hyperbolic to say Cronenweth was born into filmmaking. His great-grandfather owned and operated a photographic-equipment store in Wilkinsburg, Pa.; his grandfather Edward worked as a portrait photographer for Hollywood studios during the peak of that unique specialty, earning an Academy Award for his work; his grandmother Rosita was a Busby Berkeley dancer; and his father, renowned ASC member Jordan Cronenweth, served as director of photography on Blade Runner (AC July ’82), Peggy Sue Got Married (AC April ’87), Altered States (AC March ’81), Gardens of Stone (AC May ’87), and many classic music videos for leading artists of the 1980s and ’90s.
Taking this lineage a step further, Jeff Cronenweth has also collaborated with his brother Tim, a successful commercial director, on more than 500 spots.
“A storyteller doesn’t want to tell the same story over and over, and I don’t want to, either. I always want to find something new and challenging to work on.”
— Jeff Cronenweth, ASC
Mallory Andrews
January 31, 2022
Kitchener Public Library (YouTube)
Author and Film Critic Adam Nayman returns to Kitchener Public Library to discuss his latest book David Fincher: Mind Games.
David Fincher: Mind Games is the definitive critical and visual survey of the Academy Award– and Golden Globe–nominated works of director David Fincher. From feature films Alien 3, Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl, and Mank through his MTV clips for Madonna and the Rolling Stones and the Netflix series House of Cards and Mindhunter, each chapter weaves production history with original critical analysis, as well as with behind the scenes photography, still-frames, and original illustrations from Little White Lies‘ international team of artists and graphic designers. Mind Games also features interviews with Fincher’s frequent collaborators, including Jeff Cronenweth, Angus Wall, Laray Mayfield, Holt McCallany, Howard Shore and Erik Messerschmidt.
Grouping Fincher’s work around themes of procedure, imprisonment, paranoia, prestige and relationship dynamics, Mind Games is styled as an investigation into a filmmaker obsessed with investigation, and the design will shift to echo case files within a larger psychological profile.
Cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth talks to Cooke Optics TV about working on the iconic 90’s movie Fight Club. A long-time collaborator with director David Fincher, Cronenweth reflects on how they work together, giving insight into how some of the most recognisable scenes were shot, and revealing a surprising inspiration for the look of the movie, a Prada fashion campaign.
Glen Luchford – Prada 96-98 (Idea, Second Edition)
Thank you to the British Society of Cinematographers (BSC).
Filmed with a Sony FS5 and Cooke Mini S4/i Lenses.
Produced by ImageNova.
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The Fincher Analyst 