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DVD Set kindly donated by Joe Frady
MINDHUNTER. S01: Emmy FYC DVD Set
Category: 2017. Mindhunter. Season 1
‘Mindhunter’: The David Fincher Look is All About Power and Control
Merrick Morton / Netflix
Fincher was very particular about conveying control and dominance through lighting and production design in his Netflix FBI crime drama.
Bill Desowitz
June 18, 2018
IndieWire
David Fincher brilliantly pushes his cinematic formalism in “Mindhunter,” Netflix’s 10-episode crime drama that explores the FBI’s fledgling Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia, in the late ’70s. But, for the dialogue-heavy creepy interrogations with imprisoned serial killers by agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), executive producer/co-director Fincher manages to visually convey constant power shifts.
“It’s about control and dominance and also about misogyny,” Fincher said. “People forget that this goes all the way back to Jack the Ripper.”
And Fincher’s collaboration with production designer Steve Arnold (“House of Cards”) and gaffer-turned cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (“Mad Men”) was crucial to the authentic ’70s look and dynamic blocking of the interrogation scenes, particularly those involving Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton), who captivates and mentors Holden.
Set Decorators Society of America: MINDHUNTER
June 15, 2018
SDSA International (Set Decorators Society of America)
In the late 1970s two FBI agents expand criminal science by delving into the psychology of murder and getting uneasily close to all-too-real monsters.
Catching a criminal often requires the authorities to get inside the villain’s mind to figure out how he thinks. That’s the job of FBI agents Holden Ford [Jonathan Goff] and Bill Tench [Holt McCallany]. They attempt to understand and catch serial killers by studying their damaged psyches. Along the way, working with Boston University psychology professor Wendy Carr [Anna Torv], the agents pioneer the development of modern serial killer profiling.
The crime drama has a strong pedigree behind the camera, with Oscar-nominated director David Fincher and Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron among the show’s executive producers, and Fincher directing the first episodes. — Netflix
Add in Production Designer Steve Arnold and Set Decorator Tracey Doyle SDSA, and you know it will have a carefully curated stylized realism mixed with fully realized layered reality. Sets that could be paintings, except they seem so real.
We checked in with the duo for snippets about the making of MINDHUNTER, Season 1…
Cameron Britton Transforms Into Disturbed Killer Ed Kemper
Patrick Harbron / Netflix
Netflix (YouTube)
June 14, 2018
Cameron Britton pulls back the curtain to reveal his process as he transforms from nice guy actor into disturbed serial killer Ed Kemper.
Emmy FYC Spot directed & DP’d by Mindhunter DP Erik Messerschmidt.
Patrick Harbron / Netflix
‘Mindhunter’ Breakout Cameron Britton Taps Into Psychology & Cold Intelligence Of Real-Life Serial Killer Edmund Kemper
Matt Grobar
June 14, 2018
Deadline
Breaking through with his first guest star role on David Fincher’s Netflix crime drama Mindhunter, where he would play terrifying serial killer Edmund Kemper, Cameron Britton found both an incredible artistic opportunity and a challenge that would daunt any actor, coming face to face with one of the industry’s most formidable auteurs.
In his first experience playing a real-life figure, Britton couldn’t have found a more deliciously complicated character than Kemper, who is still alive, living out his remaining years at California Medical Facility. Towering over his victims at 6’9” (Britton is 6’5”), Kemper’s dominance wasn’t only physical. Murdering 10 people, including his mother and his paternal grandparents—before desecrating their bodies—Kemper also possessed great intelligence and a knack for manipulation that made him a nightmare for his opponents, in life and in prison, where FBI agents (played in the series by Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) tried to come to grips with his psychology.
“What drew me to the role was this dynamic where he’s this horribly violent, narcissistic, selfish person with no remorse, and yet he’s well spoken, he’s polite, he’s engaging,” Britton explains. “That sort of ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick’ concept, it’s always been interesting to me. If you are threatening and your opponent knows it, why flaunt it? Why not offer them the path of least resistance?”
To play Kemper effectively, Britton would have to dig uncomfortably deep into the psyche of a murderer who viewed himself as the hero of his own story, figuring out what it was that baffled psychologists—what made him tick.
Patrick Harbron / Netflix
Cameron Britton Breaks Through Playing Real Life Serial Killer Ed Kemper in Mindhunter
Hugh Hart
June 14, 2018
MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), The Credits (Profiles Below the Line)
Netflix true crime drama Mindhunter moves efficiently in tracking the origins of forensic science as experienced through FBI odd couple (Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) until midway through its second episode. Then, Cameron Britton makes his entrance. Playing real-life 70’s-era serial killer Ed Kemper, Britton strolls into an interrogation room and takes the show in utterly unnerving new direction through his embodiment of folksy evil incarnate.
Actors on Actors: Jonathan Groff & Maggie Gyllenhaal
Variety (YouTube)
June 8, 2018
Los Angeles Times (YouTube)
June 7, 2018
Before Jonathan Groff Could Nail Mindhunter, He Had to Stop Smiling
ANATOMY OF A CHARACTER
The stage and screen star discusses leading David Fincher’s pitch-black serial-killer series.
K. Austin Collins
June 14, 2018
Vanity Fair
THE CHARACTER: HOLDEN FORD, MINDHUNTER
If you’ve seen classic David Fincher films like Seven, Zodiac, or even The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, you know the infamously exacting director has a type: the obsessive who tries to solve a crime in the library or the archives, nimbly combing through databases and warehouses full of forgotten evidence. The Fincher obsessive starts their work unblemished—but by the end, it has upended their lives.
In the case of Fincher’s 10-episode Netflix series Mindhunter, that obsessive is Holden Ford, played by Tony-nominated actor Jonathan Groff. Holden starts as a textbook Groff character: neat, bookish, pretty, an F.B.I. choirboy who becomes a teacher and researcher after a hostage situation goes wrong. But soon, alongside behavioral scientist Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and anthropologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), Holden falls down the rabbit hole of a new line of thinking about killers, one that brings him a little too close to the murderers themselves.
Production Value: Erik Messerschmidt Rises To Become David Fincher’s DP With ‘Mindhunter’
Matt Grobar
June 7, 2018
Deadline
Erik Messerschmidt first worked with David Fincher as a Gone Girl gaffer—in collaboration with DP Jeff Cronenweth. But Messerschmidt got his chance to mine the auteur’s rich, iconic aesthetic as cinematographer of Netflix’s crime drama Mindhunter.
Created by Joe Penhall, with Fincher on as a director and executive producer, the 1970s-set series follows two FBI agents (played by Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany) who look to expand criminal science by delving into the psychology of murder, coming uncomfortably close to the real-life monsters who would later be deemed “serial killers.”
Messerschmidt has been praised this season for the striking, atmospheric visuals he brought to Mindhunter—his first full series as a DP— though he prefers that his work remain invisible, operating beneath the surface:
“The second the audience is aware that a human is operating the camera, subconsciously there’s an awareness that someone else is in the room. Hopefully, the audience doesn’t notice the operating, they don’t notice my work, they are only seeing what’s happening on-screen between the characters. That’s the goal.”
How David Fincher Nailed ‘Mindhunter,’ from Charlize Theron to Jonathan Groff
Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, Erik Messerschmidt (Director of Photography), Laray Mayfield (Casting Director), Cameron Britton, Jonathan Groff, Jennifer Starzyk (Costume Designer), Steve Arnold (Production Designer), David Fincher (Director/Executive Producer). (Patrick Lewis/Starpix for Netflix/REX/Shutterstock/IndieWire)
Take some people obsessed with serial killers, and a detail freak like David Fincher, and the alchemy is undeniably compelling.
Anne Thompson
June 4, 2018
IndieWire, Thompson on Hollywood
There are manifold reasons why Netflix’s chilling series “Mindhunter” breaks the mold, from David Fincher to the bromantic chemistry between boyish FBI agent Holden Ford (“Hamilton” star Jonathan Groff) and gruff, chain-smoking G-man Bill Tench (Fincher veteran Holt McCallany). Here are a few factors that pushed this series to the top of the competitive drama Emmy contenders.
1. Charlize Theron
The series may never have existed if executive producer Charlize Theron hadn’t recognized a fellow serial killer buff in Fincher. When the actress was researching her Oscar-winning role as sociopath Aileen Wuornos in Patty Jenkins’ “Monster,” she read John Douglas’s “Mindhunter,” about the groundbreaking ’70s FBI unit that pioneered research into serial killers.
“This guy had an incredible life,” she said. “What he does is so rare and mind-blowing. I’m fascinated by books on neurology and brain development and why people are sociopaths: They cut off all emotion in order to do horrible things. I bought the rights to his book. I thought about Fincher, who loved ‘Zodiac’ and ‘Seven’ [and thought] ‘He must be obsessed with this stuff too; he must know who John Douglas is.’ People said, ‘You have never produced television.’ I asked David to lunch and he knew about Douglas and was on board: ‘Let’s make it into a series.’ Dream big, motherfuckers!”
Fincher and Theron, after their meeting in 2012 (Bauer-Griffin, AKM-GSI)
MINDHUNTER: ATAS/Netflix FYSEE panel highlights
Ted Sarandos (Netflix Chief Content Officer), David Fincher (Director/Executive Producer), Anna Torv, Jennifer Starzyk (Costume Designer), Steve Arnold (Production Designer), Erik Messerschmidt (Director of Photography), Cameron Britton, Laray Mayfield (Casting Director), Holt McCallany, Jonathan Groff. (Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)
‘Mindhunter’: David Fincher Shot a 9-Minute Take 75 Times and Didn’t Let Cameron Britton Talk to Anyone on Set
The notoriously fastidious director discussed his process for the Netflix original series during a panel discussion Friday night.
Ben Travers
June 2, 2018
IndieWire
“Why 75 takes? Cos I’m motherf***ing David Fincher, that’s why” (Eric Charbonneau, REX/Shutterstock/IndieWire)
Jonathan Groff And David Fincher Revisit ‘Mindhunter’ As Emmy Beckons
Gregory Ellwood
June 2, 2018
The Playlist
Fincher being “Rorschached” at the MINDHUNTER Netflix FYSee space (Eric Charbonneau, REX/Shutterstock/IndieWire)
MINDHUNTER at NetflixFYSEE
Panel tweets and photos from 6/1/18 event
Diane Gordon (Twitter)
June 2, 2018
Wakelet
Fincher surrenders to the cuddly, adorable, and “hot” bear Cameron Britton (Eric Charbonneau, REX/Shutterstock/IndieWire)
The Cast of Mindhunter in Conversation
Vulture (YouTube)
June 1, 2018
Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv, and Cameron Britton sat down with Vulture‘s Abraham Riesman for a conversation about the critically acclaimed series’ first season, the series’ real-life inspirations, and exactly what level of creepiness fans can look forward to enjoying in season two.
The Mindhunter Cast Knows How to Spot a Sociopath
Abraham Riesman
August 21, 2018
Vulture
Despite being a 1970s period piece, Mindhunter feels eminently of the present moment. We’re living in the midst of a true-crime renaissance, and the David Fincher–helmed Netflix series stands out not only as a (heavily fictionalized) example of the genre, but as a critique of it. As FBI agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) and psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) delve into the brains and motivations of serial killers — especially real-life murderer Ed Kemper (Emmy nominee Cameron Britton) — we’re given a window into why humans have such a fascination with individuals who engage in death and destruction. But just as interesting as the tales on the screen are the tales of what it takes to tell them, as an audience learned during a panel discussion with Groff, McCallany, Torv, and Britton at this year’s Vulture Festival. Over the course of the conversation, the actors talked about Fincher’s notorious obsessiveness, whether Ford is a sociopath, and how Britton learned to play Kemper partially thanks to his own time as a schoolteacher.
‘Mindhunter’: David Fincher and Editor Kirk Baxter’s Dance of Death
Cameron Britton as serial killer Ed Kemper in Episode 10 (Patrick Harbron / Netflix)
Film Editor Kirk Baxter
The FBI crime drama about early behavioral profiling is a Fincher Master Class in blocking and montage, with an assist from Steven Soderbergh.
Bill Desowitz
May 29, 2018
IndieWire
With Netflix’s “Mindhunter,” executive producer David Fincher delivers a gripping crime series about the early days of FBI behavioral profiling in 1977 without any grisly murders. (Fincher directed the initial two episodes as well as the concluding two.) And for Oscar-winning editor Kirk Baxter (“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “Social Network”), this dialogue-heavy walk and talk between agents Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) was a gift.
“The skill that David has with blocking scenes is what’s most enjoyable,” Baxter said. “With 25 different angles of different set ups, it’s very dense and takes a lot of man-hours in perfecting, but a walk and talk with an A and B camera, all I have to do is pick the best take.”
The Fincher Analyst 