Oscar and Emmy winner Alberto Mielgo tells IndieWire about returning to the anthology with an animated original about a golden siren and an armored knight.
After nearly 40 years in the entertainment business, 3-time Oscar-nominee, David Fincher, has seemingly done it all. From his early years directing music videos for Madonna and Aerosmith, crafting memorable films like Seven and The Social Network, and working on acclaimed TV shows such as House of Cards and Mindhunter, Fincher’s resume appears to be complete. But what about animation?
With the launch of Volume 3 of Netflix‘s mind-bending Love, Death and Robots anthology series, Fincher can finally check animation off his bucket list with his episode, titled “Bad Travelling.” In this seafaring horror story, a group of Jable shark hunters on a far-away planet are attacked by a giant crustacean. With the sailors’ lives in jeopardy, chaos and mutiny ensue.
Although Fincher has decades of experience working behind the camera on live-action projects, we wanted to know if animation brought any new challenges to the seasoned director.
“Ultimately, directing comes down to understanding context and sculpting time, light, and behavior with that innate understanding,” Fincher told IGN. “In some cases, like in the case of motion capture, there are people in onesies with ping pong balls hanging off them, and you’re going, ‘Okay, now remember the ship is rocking and all…’ You’re there to add a little imagination sauce to all the other shit that they’re trying to keep in their heads. I mean, it does tend to look a little like Saturday Night Live. It’s a ridiculous thing to be asking somebody to do a one-act play, dressed in pajamas. So that aspect of it, it’s the same thing. You’re playing dress up, right? And you’re trying to say, ‘Look, from the audience’s standpoint, this needs to happen a little faster here, a little… This can go a little slower. Find that word.’ It’s all the same shit.”
If you’re a fan of David Fincher and Love, Death + Robots, you’re about to be very happy. Not only is Love, Death + Robots Volume 3 now streaming on Netflix, David Fincher directed one of the episodes, Bad Travelling, and it’s fantastic. Written by Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, it’s about a giant crustacean and a shark-hunting sailing vessel. I’d love to tell you more…but the best thing about Love, Death + Robots is not knowing anything about what you’re going to watch and just letting it happen.
Shortly after watching the episode, I was able to get on the phone with Fincher for a deep dive conversation about directing Bad Travelling and the making of Love, Death + Robots. During the sprawling conversation, Fincher talked about his history with animation, how he decided on the style of animation for his episode, how they decided where something should end, how everyone involved in the series is doing it for the love of the genre, and if they’ve thought about making a Love, Death + Robots feature film or doing a live-action version. In addition, he talked about his love of director Alberto Mielgo’s Jibaro (another Love, Death + Robots Volume 3 episode) and how he’s “never seen anything like it. I’ve never been that mesmerized.”
Trust me, if you’re a fan of Fincher and this amazing series, you’ll learn a lot about how it’s made.
Love, Death + Robots Vol 3. EXTREMING TOMORROW. May 20, 2022 ❤️💀🤖
Alan Watts – “Dream” Music: Apache – Lord & Master
Emmy-winning animated anthology LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS returns with a third volume executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and David Fincher (MINDHUNTER, Mank). Terror, imagination and beauty combine in nine new episodes which stretch from uncovering an ancient evil to a comedic apocalypse, telling startling short stories of fantasy, horror and science-fiction with trademark wit and visual invention.
The director made his first animated short for the new season of this Netflix anthology. “It was an incredibly freeing, eye-opening, mind-expanding way to interface with a story,” he said.
Before David Fincher became an A-list director and multiple Oscar and Emmy nominee — lauded for of-the-moment films like “Fight Club” and “The Social Network” and the TV series “House of Cards” and “Mindhunter” — he was one of the co-founders of the production company Propaganda Films. Propaganda was known for its visually dazzling TV commercials and music videos, and Fincher honed his craft in dozens of miniature movies made in myriad styles.
Yet until recently, he had never directed animation, even though he loves the medium so much that he signed on a few years ago to be an executive producer of the Netflix anthology animation series “Love, Death + Robots,” which returns for its third season on Friday.
“Love, Death + Robots” sprung from the ashes of a project Fincher had been developing with the “Deadpool” director Tim Miller since the late 2000s: a revival of “Heavy Metal,” the animated movie series inspired by the adults-only science-fiction and fantasy comics magazine. The first season of “Love, Death + Robots” debuted in 2019, featuring 18 episodes (ranging in length from 6 to 17 minutes) that adapted short stories by genre favorites like Peter F. Hamilton, John Scalzi and Joe Lansdale. An eight-episode second season followed in 2021.
Despite his involvement, Fincher never made a short of his own until Season 3, when he and the screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (who wrote Fincher’s crime thriller “Seven”) tackled a tale by the British science-fiction author Neal Asher called “Bad Travelling.” Set on the high seas on a distant planet, the story follows a merchant ship as it is tormented by a giant, intelligent crab that manipulates the crew members and then eliminates them one by one. Fincher described the short as “like a David Lean movie crossed with ‘Ten Little Indians.’”
This month will see the return of “Love, Death + Robots” on Netflix, which is produced by Tim Miller and David Fincher. With the third volume arriving, something special is happening. Fincher will be helming his first animated short for the anthology streaming series.
Netflix has released a new trailer and announced Fincher is directing the segment “Bad Travelling” which was written by screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (“Se7en”) and based on a short story by Miller’s longtime pal, author Neal Asher. This marks Fincher’s first time directing something for the streaming series.
Netflix has also included a synopsis that reads as follows:
“A jable shark-hunting sailing vessel is attacked by a giant crustacean whose size and intelligence is matched only by its appetite. Mutiny, betrayal, and ventriloquism with a corpse.”
Emmy-winning animated anthology LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS returns with a third volume executive produced by Tim Miller (Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate) and David Fincher (MINDHUNTER, Mank). Terror, imagination and beauty combine in nine new episodes which stretch from uncovering an ancient evil to a comedic apocalypse, telling startling short stories of fantasy, horror and science-fiction with trademark wit and visual invention.
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.
The Unmaking Of Movies. In-depth accounts of the ‘Greatest Movies Never Made’, Prominent ‘what ifs?’. Behind the scenes looks at canceled movies, lost projects, and the reasons why some projects went down in flames of development hell… Superman, Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, He-Man, Aliens, Hellboy, Robocop,and many more!
David Fincher has long been signed to produce a movie adaptation of Eric Powell‘s cult comic book: The Goon, published by Dark Horse, to be co-directed by Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler of Blur Studios with an original screenplay by Powell.
Video contains test animation for the David Fincher / Blur Studios / Dark Horse Entertainment produced film The Goon. Based on the Dark Horse Comic series by Eric Powell. Clancy Brown and Paul Giamatti provided the voices for this test. All artwork & footage belongs to its respective creators.