On February 24, 2023, on the stage of the Olympia in Paris, Director David Fincher received the Honorary César Award of the 48th César Ceremony, broadcast live by Canal+.
The films of David Fincher, including a brief look at The Killer (2023).
Belgian-French actress Virginie Efira, who later won the César for Best Actress, presented the award and introduced a surprise guest, Brad Pitt, who showed his love and admiration for his longtime friend with a touching speech.
Fincher was accompanied by his daughter and his wife and Producer Ceán Chaffin.
Brad Pitt’s speech and David Fincher’s acceptance speech.
The critically acclaimed score for David Fincher‘s Mank from Academy Award™ winners Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. Featuring 90 minutes of new compositions in the style of orchestral, big band, and foxtrot music of the 1940s.
3xLP pressed on 180-gram vinyl in a deluxe hinged box set. Foil-stamped canvas spine.
Tracklist
Side A 1. Welcome to Victorville 2. Trapped! 3. All This Time 4. Enter Menace 5. First Dictation 6. A Fool’s Paradise 7. Once More unto The Breach 8. About Something 9. Glendale Station 10. What’s at Stake? 11. Every Thing You Do
Side B 12. Cowboys and Indians 13. Presumed Lost 14. (If Only You Could) Save Me 15. Means of Escape 16. All This Time (A White Parasol) 17. M.G.M. 18. A Respectable Bribe 19. I, Governor of California 20. A Leaden Silence 21. San Simeon Waltz 22. Time Running Out
Side C 23. Mank-Heim 24. Lend Me A Buck? 25. You Wanted to See Me? 26. In Your Arms Again 27. The Dark Night of The Soul 28. Clouds Gather 29. Way Back When 30. An Idea Takes Hold 31. Marion’s Exit 32. Absolution
Side D 33. Scenes from Election Night 34. Election Night-Mare 35. All This Time (Dance Interrupted) 36. All This Time (Victorious) 37. I’m Eve 38. A Rare Bird 39. Look at What We Did 40. Menace Returns 41. Forgive Me 42. Final Regards 43. Where Else Would I Be?
Side E
44. The Organ Grinder 45. All This Time (Not No More) 46. Costume Party 47. Dulcinea 48. Shoot-Out at The Ok Corral 49. The Organ Grinder’s Monkey 50. An Act of Purging Violence 51. All This Time (Happily Ever After) 52. A Rare Bird (Reprise)
Now, Christmas week is just about to get a whole lot cooler, as we welcome Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to Soundtracking for a second time
Edith LOVES talking to this dynamic duo about film music, and the good news is we have two of their scores to unpack: the first being for Luca Guadagnino‘s Bones And All and the second for Sam Mendes‘ Empire Of Light.
They also confirm that they have scored The Killer for David Fincher.
Follow the fourth season of Michael Fassbender’s journey to compete at the world’s ultimate motorsport event in this weekly YouTube series.
Starting at minute 2:14, there is a three-minute clip of Fassbender shooting car process scenes for The Killer with Fincher and his team on Sound Stage 2 at Triscenic Production Services. Andrew Kevin Walker, the screenwriter of the film, is also visiting.
The actor discusses working on the film during the off-season of his other passion, car racing:
I had the great privilege and honor of working with David Fincher on The Killer. I have the lead role in his film. To have a small window of opportunity to go to work and then to be able to work with one of the best filmmakers out there was just a dream come true.
It felt really good to go back to work. The film that I’ve done before was just before lockdown. But that was 2019, so I was definitely ready to go back to work.
With somebody of David’s caliber, it was a very special opportunity for me: quite a few locations over a five-month period.
What was interesting for me was taking the experience from what we’re doing on track and bringing it on set, especially with somebody like David who films very precisely and everything is dealing in fractions in terms of how you deliver things and movement and exactly how the frame is occupied.
You have to step on and deliver in a period of time. And David is looking for perfection and to do that within a take, however long that take is. It might be 40 seconds. It might be six minutes long, but within that time frame, you’re looking to do everything exactly as it should be.
You’ve taken on board all the notes and there’s plenty of them to digest, but in the moment when you’re trying to deliver those notes, you’re not thinking at all.
It was a real honor. I felt like I learned a lot from him. It was a full-on shoot, very long hours sometimes six-day weeks. So there was literally not enough time for me to get into car and do any training whatsoever.
So we wrapped up the film in L.A., end of March, and I got directly on a flight the next day and then came straight to the track.
Award-winning director of photography Erik Messerschmidt, ASC has a natural eye for arresting and spellbinding images, thriving in a role that allows him to combine his love of art, craft and science. Recently, he lensed Devotion for director J.D. Dillard, based on the real-life story of a Black naval officer who befriends a white naval officer during the Korean War, with both becoming heroes for their selfless acts of bravery.
He also finished shooting Michael Mann’s biographical film Ferrari, starring Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, and Penélope Cruz, and David Fincher’s The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton.
Previously, Messerschmidt shot Fincher’s passion project Mank, chronicling the screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz’s turbulent journey to write Citizen Kane alongside Orson Welles. Messerschmidt’s meticulous and striking black and white recreation of the period’s aesthetic earned him the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, an ASC Award for Outstanding Cinematography in a Feature Film, a BSC Award for Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature Release, a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Cinematography, as well as Best Cinematography award nominations from the San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics Choice, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.
In addition, Messerschmidt co-lensed several episodes of the HBO Max original series Raised by Wolves from producer Ridley Scott. He also shot the first and second seasons of Fincher’s hit thriller series Mindhunter for Netflix, earning a 2020 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (one-hour) for episode 206.
With a background in the fine arts world, Messerschmidt honed his skills while working with such renowned cinematographers such as Dariusz Wolski, ASC, Jeff Cronenweth, ASC, Phedon Papamichael, ASC, Claudio Miranda, ASC, and Greig Fraser, ASC. Messerschmidt now lives in Los Angeles and is a member of IATSE Local 600. He is represented by DDA.
Has any cinematographer had so fast an ascendancy as Erik Messerschmidt? While no newcomer—his IMDb dates back to 2001, his first cinematography credit from 2003—work on Gone Girl earned the attention of David Fincher, by whom Messerschmidt was then enlisted to shoot his Netflix series Mindhunter. (Impressive then, all the more sterling since as an example of streaming television that doesn’t look or move like streaming television.) Which led into Mank which led into The Killer, Fincher’s much-anticipated thriller arriving next year.
Somewhere along the way Michael Mann called. I talked to Messerschmidt at ENERGACamerimage, where he was promoting the new feature Devotion and mere weeks from wrapping Ferrari, Mann’s first feature in longer than you’d believe and a passion project of equal gestation—nothing you leave in the hands of an amateur. Certainly not if you’re as obsessive, fastidious, demanding as Michael Mann. Meeting in Toruń’s CKK Jordanki, we were quick to start.
In this video, I’m lucky enough to sit down with Andrew Kevin Walker! Screenwriter behind projects such as SE7EN, the David Fincher directed crime thriller, starring Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman! Andrew is also the screenwriter behind Brainscan, Nerdland, he co-wrote Windfall, and he also wrote an episode of hit TV Show, Love Death and Robots! It was such an honour to chat with Andy!
Winner, Theatrical Feature: Eric Weidt, for ‘Mank’
The award for the grading of a theatrical feature went to Eric Weidt, who worked with DoP Erik Messerschmidt on ‘Mank’. Shot on an 8K REDcamera, the movie is striking for its 30s Hollywood look combined with the crystal-sharp resolution.
Weidt also talks about his projects with Fincher for 2022.
In this episode, we talk with director David Fincher’s favorite colorist Eric Weidt about the art and craft of color grading.
Eric has an incredible list of credits that includes Mank and Mindhunter. His works on these projects extend far beyond traditional tasks of color grading, incorporating complex look modeling and incredibly detailed adjustments on virtually every frame.
The techniques and insights he shares in this episode are unique and includes topics such as how to sculpt the viewers experience with textural and spatial tools, the lens treatment techniques used on Mindhunter, the process and swan curve treatment behind the day-for-night shots on Mank, advanced grain work and so much more.
This episode is sponsored by Pixelview, an industry standard and affordable streaming solution for editors and colorists.
The Fincher Analyst 