March 3, 2021
Netflix Film Club (YouTube)
Mank visual effects supervisor Simon Carr walks you through his team’s subtle work in David Fincher‘s award-winning film and the use of time-tested techniques like rear projection to bring Hollywood’s Golden Age to life on screen.
March 10, 2021
Netflix Film Club (YouTube)
Two-time Oscar®-winning film editor Kirk Baxter takes you through his decision-making process for an early sequence from David Fincher‘s Hollywood Golden Age drama, which features the interplay of a number of central characters and relationships.
March 11, 2021
Netflix Film Club (YouTube)
Mank makeup department head Gigi Williams explains her work on David Fincher‘s black-and-white dip into Hollywood lore, particularly the way she captured the eponymous screenwriter during an exhausted, overworked state.
March 4, 2021
Netflix Film Club (YouTube)
Mank actors Gary Oldman and Amanda Seyfried sit down with casting director Laray Mayfield to discuss their work in David Fincher‘s acclaimed film. Oldman discusses tapping the vulnerability of the eponymous screenwriter and using his actual physicality for the portrayal, while Seyfried speaks to Marion Davies‘s legacy and how it shaded Seyfried’s depiction of her.
March 11, 2021
Netflix Film Club (YouTube)
Mank star Amanda Seyfried sits down with costume designer Trish Summerville, makeup department head Gigi Williams and assistant head hair stylist Colleen LaBaff for a deep-dive discussion of their efforts in bringing Marion Davies to life on the screen for David Fincher‘s black-and-white ode to Hollywood’s Golden Age.
February 23, 2021
Ollin VFX
Mar 17, 2021
Industrial Light & Magic
Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of MANK
Take a look behind the invisible visual effects of ‘Mank’. ILM contributed a series of shots to the film including the various animals housed at the Hearst Castle private zoo. We created a host of photo-real CG animals to complete the scenes featuring capuchin monkeys, giraffe, elephants, and their environs such as the ornate wrought-iron victorian-era monkey’s enclosure and the gated grass area housing the roaming elephants and giraffe.
Director: David Fincher
ILM Visual Effects Supervisor: Pablo Helman
ILM Animation Supervisor: Mathew Cowie
ILM Associate Visual Effects Supervisor: Sherry Hitch
ILM Executive Visual Effects Producer: Erin Dusseault
ILM Visual Effects Producer: Flannery Huntley
ILM Associate Vfx Producer: Andrew Poole
ILM Studios: San Francisco, Vancouver
Rajendra Roy
March 17, 2021
MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art)
Gary Oldman joins MoMA‘s Chief Curator of Film Rajendra Roy for a discussion about the 2020 film Mank.
Gary Collinson
March 12, 2021
Flickering Myth
You would be forgiven for thinking production designer Donald Graham Burt works exclusively with David Fincher. His talents are visible in confirmed classics including Zodiac, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for which he received an Oscar. Beyond that his work can also be appreciated in Donnie Brasco, Christian Bale headliner Hostiles and most recently Outlaw King featuring Chris Pine.
In conversation Donald is self-deprecating, effortlessly engaging and eloquent on his process. Mank appears to be the culmination of a professional relationship spanning more than a decade, which uses Citizen Kane as its backbone to explore broader issues. Adorned in the garb of a Thirties film noir, Mank is masterful at evoking a bygone era. Much of that success comes through the pitch perfect production design, which would have been impossible without Donald Burt.
Following on from his nomination at the British Academy Film Awards, he took time out to talk to Flickering Myth’s Martin Carr about what was required to bring Mank to life, as well as what a collaboration with David Fincher really involves.
Elyse Roth
March 12, 2021
Backstage
Nobody but Laray Mayfield could have cast Netflix’s “Mank.” She saw the first version of the script back in the late ’90s thanks to her long-standing working relationship with director David Fincher, which dates back to making music videos in the ’80s. Her work in film alongside Fincher and beyond has earned Mayfield both critical and popular acclaim. An expert at building ensembles and finding new faces, she again worked her magic on “Mank,” which chronicles Herman J. Mankiewicz’s writing of “Citizen Kane.” Here, she shares her advice for actors and illuminates how she works with Fincher after all these years.
How did the ensemble for “Mank” come together?
We spent a lot of time reading and meeting actors. Of course, we offered it to Gary [Oldman] first, and that was a pivotal piece of our casting. And then we went to Charles Dance. For everything else, we jumped in and started doing lots of auditions, running lists, and talking to David about different actors. We did that for seven months.
“If somebody really wants to be an actor, they should take acting classes. They should go to school for it. It’s a training. It’s like dancing, it’s like painting, it’s like playing football, it’s like playing guitar. You don’t just decide one day you’re going to be an actor.”
The Fincher Analyst 