Category: 2023. The Killer

Austin Film Festival 2025: Andrew Kevin Walker on SE7EN

Andrew Kevin Walker Interview: Austin Film Festival

Brian Taylor
October 30, 2025
The Cine-Men

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).

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Se7en Q&A, with Andrew Kevin Walker

Andy Volk
May 6, 2026
Austin Film Festival’s On Story

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.

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‘Zodiac’: David Fincher Won’t Deny The Obsessive Rap, Says It “Should Have Been Weirder” & Teases ‘Cliff Booth’ “Big Surprises”

Bong Joon Ho’s Academy Museum conversation with David Fincher turned into a sharp look back at Zodiac and a brief but revealing update on Netflix’s Quentin Tarantino-written Cliff Booth film.

Rodrigo Perez
April 20, 2026
The Playlist

Very few crime movies get more revered with age. David Fincher’s 2007 thriller Zodiac, written by James Vanderbilt and following the way the Zodiac killer case pulls inspectors, reporters, and cartoonist Robert Graysmith into a years-long spiral of obsession, did. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Robert Downey Jr. anchoring that descent, the film opened as a chilly, meticulous procedural and has kept growing in stature over the years, less because it offered closure than because it turned uncertainty, fixation, and spiritual erosion into the point. So it made perfect sense that Bong Joon Ho would be the filmmaker hosting a 4K screening at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and a post-film conversation with Fincher recently as part of the museum’s A Weekend With Bong Joon Ho series.

Bong Joon Ho made that admiration plain right away. After recalling how immaculate Fincher’s office was—even down to the colored pencils arranged by shade—he got to the question underneath that story: whether Fincher’s obsessiveness really matched its reputation. Fincher did not deny it. If anything, he leaned into it, saying, “No, I mean… Look, I feel like you should do everything in your power to be as clear in what you’re trying to communicate as you can possibly be.”

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Watch the full conversation and read the transcript

A Weekend with Bong Joon Ho: “Zodiac” with David Fincher

April 11, 2026
Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

Since his feature debut in 2000, filmmaker Bong Joon Ho has become a crucial contributor to the tremendous growth of South Korean cinema and its globalization. Known for his inquisitive mind and meticulous eye for detail, Bong’s creations, which span both realistic and fantastical realms, continue to impact the evolving atmosphere of the South Korean film industry as well as art and culture around the world.

For one weekend in April 2026, Bong returned to the Academy Museum to create exhilarating memories on stage. On April 11, director David Fincher joined Bong for a conversation and screening of Fincher’s Zodiac (2007), a masterpiece thriller showcased via an original poster in the current exhibition, Director’s Inspiration: Bong Joon Ho.

Watch the full conversation and read the transcript

Beyond Limits

The Use of “Previs” in Panic Room

Nicholas Russell
January 22, 2026
Reverse Shot (Museum of the Moving Image)

There is always a class of filmmakers perennially itching for the next technological leap forward: James Cameron and Steven Soderbergh come to mind as two directors with opposing working styles but similar ambitions for the efficiencies and reality-bending possibilities of digital technology. The transition from the photochemical film process to digital production—from cameras to visual effects to editing within the early part of the 21st century—represents one of the most profound flashpoints in cinema history. David Fincher, just as technically savvy and game to test out the latest toys, has been less has received less fanfare, but if one has paid attention to Fincher’s career for any length of time, a sentimental affinity for the medium lags far behind the more practical desire to move on to the next project. It’s one of a panoply of oft-stated advantages with digital filmmaking, the ability to move quickly and dexterously, without the literal weight of film to slow you down. But Fincher’s work, inclusive of his time in television advertising and music videos in the ’80s and ’90s, illustrates a director’s desire at first to uphold and then transcend the strictures of the camera itself.

There are two competing perspectives of David Fincher: that of a hard-driving auteur who demands perfection and challenges his audiences with provocative material while still working comfortably within the commercial constraints of the Hollywood studio system; and that of the technical savant, an artist who, from a young age, steeped in the filmmaking culture of the 1970s (George Lucas was his neighbor in northern California for a time), absorbed every part of the cinematic production process, from developing film for director John Korty to working in the matte department at Industrial Light & Magic (Fincher worked under both Korty and Lucas on the 1983 animated feature Twice Upon a Time). Both views run parallel to one another throughout Fincher’s career, a gun-for-hire with an insatiable curiosity for process, a defining feature of his style and the narratives of his films.

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How Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails Changed the Sound of Movies

After Reznor brought industrial grind into the mainstream, he became an in-demand film composer—and from Natural Born Killers to Tron: Ares, he’s done some of his best, most adventurous work for the screen. A definitive guide to Nine Inch Nails on film.

By Laura Wynne
Photograph by Danielle Levitt
October 17, 2025
GQ

Nine Inch Nails founder Trent Reznor can’t have known how different a line like “I don’t believe in your institutions” would sound decades later. Nine Inch Nails have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Reznor and his composing partner Atticus Ross have an Emmy, a Bafta, two Grammies, three Golden Globes, two Oscars (they’re just a Tony away from an EGOT), and a Country Music Award. In some ways Reznor is now the kind of establishment figure he always despised, a respected elder statesman to goths and queers everywhere. With Nine Inch Nails, he married industrial aesthetics to pop instincts; Prince and Bowie were always more important to the recipe than Skinny Puppy. Reznor and Ross won their second Oscar for a Disney movie, and might win for another one at next year’s ceremony. The institutions believe in them.

It makes a lot of sense that someone whose audience is wide enough to include every strain of angry queer teen and the staff of Pixar would embrace these contradictions as he got older, got sober, had children, and became close friends with the people he grew up admiring (Bowie, David Lynch, John Carpenter). There is something in Reznor’s voice that speaks to millions of people, something indefinable that has nothing to do with hooks or record-label muscle behind him. The subject matter has always been lacerating and bleak. On his albums, Reznor was a one-man band plus hired hands until around 2016, where he officially made Atticus Ross a full member. Contradictorily, when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame he submitted every single touring musician as a band member and was forced to negotiate down to 7.

The Tron: Ares soundtrack, released a few weeks ago in advance of the Jared Leto-led threequel, is the first Nine Inch Nails album in five years credited to the band (as opposed to Reznor and Ross) and the first NIN release with sung vocals since 2018’s excellent but brief Bad Witch. It comes on the heels of a tour that everyone you know and admire went to, featuring startling production and the seamless incorporation of acoustic pianos and new collaborator Boys Noize. The pair have announced upcoming projects ranging from a new Naughty Dog video game to starting a production company that wants to branch into film production and fashion. Tron Ares, out today, isn’t even the only movie with a Reznor/Ross soundtrack in theaters right now—they also scored Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt.

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Frame & Reference Podcast Extras: David Fincher’s Directors of Photography

Kenny McMillan
August 12, 2025
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.

This is a compilation of selections from past interviews with David Fincher‘s Directors of Photography, discussing their experiences working with him: Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (2022), Erik Messerschmidt, ASC (2024), Eigil Bryld (2023), Tim Ives, ASC (2021), Igor Martinovic and Vanja Černjul (2024), Jeff Cronenweth, ASC (2022).

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Cinematography Style: Erik Messerschmidt

Gray Kotzé (Director of Photography)
June 30, 2024
In Depth Cine

Let’s get into how Erik Messerschmidt does what he does, by unpacking his thoughts and philosophy on photography and looking at what gear he chooses in this episode of Cinematography Style.

00:00: Introduction
01:04: Background
02:06: Visual Language & References
03:44: Perspective & Camera Movement
05:40: Post Production
07:15: Lenses
09:05: Cameras
10:51: Grips
11:33: Lighting
12:28: MUBI

Music:
Ottom – ‘Hold On’
Stephen Keech – ‘Grand Design’
Nuer Self – ‘Dawn’
Liquid Memoirs – ‘Distant Dream’
Joley – ‘Night Stroll’
I Am Alex – ‘Bonfire’
The Soundkeeper – ‘The View From The Attic Window’
Sero – ‘Mid August’
Chill Winston – ‘The Truth’

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

In Depth Cine: Website, Official IDC Merch, Patreon, YouTube, Instagram, Discord, Facebook

Gear I use: YouTube Gear, Editing Software, Music

DISCLAIMER: Some links in this description are affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with these links I may receive a small commission without an additional charge to you. Thank you for supporting my channel so I can continue to provide you with free videos!

Filmmaking Masterclass: Recreating THE KILLER with Anamorphic DZO PAVO Lenses

June 21, 2024
Media Division

With The Killer, David Fincher created a masterpiece of cinematic storytelling.

In the first act – the Paris hit – Fincher and his team combined three sets in post. They also added typical artifacts like horizontal flares and distortions to give The Killer an anamorphic vibe.

To learn and explore, we set out to recreate the climax of the first act of The Killer, BUT to do it for real: One real location and real anamorphic lenses. We even developed a way to do film through a real rifle scope – anamorphic of course.

This was possible as DZO just introduced three new focal lengths to their awesome PAVO lineup of 2x anamorphic lenses, a 135mm, a 180mm, and a 65mm Macro. This new focal length and the general short minimum focus distance of the PAVO made them the ideal companions to shoot our short.

We take you behind the scenes, share our experiences with you, and, of course, show you the result: “The Killers” gives the original a slightly different spin…

Disclaimer: We collaborated with DZOfilm and got the full PAVO set of 9 lenses to shoot our short. As always, we strive to give you our honest opinion based on our experience and tests.

Please join the ranks of the Media Division: YouTube, Instagram, Facebook

Links to Collaborators and Partners: Morty Films, Chris Karibu (behind the scenes footage), Matthias Herrmann & Valentin Loustalet (location visit in Paris), Tim from Lemac Film and Digital (rentals for the Fujinon images), Artemple (VFX Breakdown).

00:00: Intro & Contents
02:48: The Killer / A Cinematic Masterpiece
03:44: Subjective Camera Movement
05:00: Subjective Sound Design
05:41: Subjective Edit
06:25: Paris: A Real Fake Location
10:08: Faking the Anamorphic Look|
12:14: Reimagining The Killer
15:49: Gear: The Lenses
23:18: The Rifle Scope
25:01: Gear: The Cameras
27:45: Feature: The Killers
31:08: A Second Killer & Verdict
33:16: Thank You
34:02: Member Shout Out

Prop Talk: “Finer Points of the Killer”, a Conversation with James & Kelsi Eddy

Chris Call & Michael Trudel
May 23, 2024
PMG (Property Masters Guild)

On this episode of Prop Talk, we sit down with PMG member and Local 44 Property Master James Eddy and his daughter, Local 44 member Assistant Property Master Kelsi Eddy, to discuss their relationship and experiences working for Directors like David Fincher in Mindhunter and The Killer.

Hosts: Chris Call, PMG Founding Member & Local 44 Property Master with Michael Trudel, PMG Secretary & Local 44 Property Master.

Watch the whole conversation on YouTube

Listen to the podcast version

Visit our website for more information on “Prop Talk” and The Property Masters Guild. Follow us on Instagram for more cool prop content!

David Fincher and Erik Messerschmidt, ASC Target V-Raptor to Shoot “The Killer”

April 10, 2024
RED Digital Cinema

In David Fincher’s Netflix darkly comic thriller The Killer, Michael Fassbender is the nameless assassin who goes on an international hunt for revenge while insisting to himself that it isn’t personal. 

The film marks the second Fincher-directed feature shot by Erik Messerschmidt ASC, following the Citizen Kane drama Mank, for which he won the 2020 Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

It is also the latest in a long line of Fincher movies since The Social Network to be shot on RED.

“There was not a conversation about using another camera system – there never is with David,” Messerschmidt says. “RED as a partner have been enormously collaborative with us in terms of helping us develop new ideas and solve problems. RED is absolutely creative partners to David’s process and certainly to me.”

Read the full profile