Bobby Miller
January 11, 2024
Creative Industry Insight
In this episode, we welcome VFX Editor Casey Curtiss who joins us to talk about his work on The Killer. Casey walks us through what the role of a VFX editor entails and how those skills were used on The Killer.
Listen to the podcast:
Executive Produced by Daniel Miller and Monika Ditton. Artwork Designed by Piotr Motyka. Music by ELPHNT.
Follow Creative Industry Insight on Ex-Twitter and Instagram.
Edward Douglas
January 9, 2024
Below the Line
The last few years have been a whirlwind for Erik Messerschmidt, ASC. He had been working his way through the camera department for nearly two decades, including as a gaffer on David Fincher’s Gone Girl, before he began acting as DoP on a number of high-profile shows, one of them being Fincher’s Mindhunter for Netflix.
When Fincher decided to make Mank, his biopic about Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, as played by Gary Oldman, he brought Messersschmidt along with him to shoot the film in black and white. The movie was slightly hobbled by the pandemic that kept it from playing theatrically, but Messerschmidt won the Oscar for Cinematography, as well as the feature film category for the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).
Last year, Messerschmidt reunited with Fincher for his adaptation of the graphic novel, The Killer, starring Michael Fassbender as an assassin on a streak of vengeance after a job goes wrong. He also teamed up with the great Michael Mann to shoot his racing biopic, Ferrari, starring Adam Driver.
Below the Line spoke with the cinematographer a few months back when he was in Poland for EnergaCAMERIMAGE, although we got on Zoom with him from the States.
Tomris Laffly
October 28, 2023
David Fincher discusses the making of The Killer with Sound Designer Ren Klyce, Editor Kirk Baxter, and Writer Andrew Kevin Walker, after the screening for the press in New York. Hosted by Tomris Laffly.
(Video clips recorded with a phone from the audience, with not very good audio and, for some reason, with each video clip edited in twice).
Rian Johnson
November 15, 2023
Netflix: Behind the Streams
Director David Fincher and actor Michael Fassbender discuss making The Killer with moderator Rian Johnson at The Academy Museum in Los Angeles.
Watch The Killer on Netflix
October 27, 2023
Netflix: Behind the Streams
David Fincher discusses the making of The Killer with Writer Andrew Kevin Walker, Editor Kirk Baxter, and Sound Designer Ren Klyce, after the “Tastemaker” screening for The Academy at the Whitby Hotel in New York.
Watch The Killer on Netflix
Elvis Mitchell
October 24, 2023
Netflix: Behind the Streams
Director David Fincher, Editor Kirk Baxter, Writer Andrew Kevin Walker, Sound Designer Ren Klyce, and Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt, discuss their film The Killer with moderator Elvis Mitchell at The Academy Museum in Los Angeles.
Watch the conversation with subtitles in French, Spanish, and Italian.
Watch The Killer on Netflix
Froilan Fuentes
Jim Hemphill
November 9, 2023
West Coast POPCast (YouTube)
The Egyptian Theatre re-opened in Hollywood with a special screening of The Killer, followed by a Q&A with Director David Fincher and Sound Designer Ren Klyce hosted by Jim Hemphill.
Frédéric Bonnaud, Director of the Cinémathèque française
Anaïs Duchet, Interpreter
October 13, 2023
Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française (French Cinematheque) hosted a David Fincher Retrospective from October 13 to 22, 2023, in Paris (France).
Supported by Netflix, Patron of the Cinémathèque, it opened with a preview screening of The Killer followed by a Q&A with Director David Fincher, and Director of Photography Erik Messerschmidt, ASC.
The next day, a screening of Zodiac was followed by a discussion with the director about the film and his career.
Erik Messerschmidt talks about his approach to very different but equally excellent new films: “The Killer” and “Ferrari.”
Jim Hemphill
December 28, 2023
IndieWire
David Fincher‘s “The Killer” and Michael Mann‘s “Ferrari” are two of the most visually sophisticated films of the fall season, though their approaches are as different as those two directors’ sensibilities. “The Killer” is icy and deglamorized where “Ferrari” is smoking hot and visceral; Fincher puts his character under a microscope for the audience to study like a microbe, while Mann wants the audience in the driver’s seat with his passionate and committed characters. What the two films have in common is an attention to light, color, and framing as expressive tools that is exceptional in its precision; few movies in recent memory have guided the viewer’s eye in such an intentional and affecting manner. That’s because of something else these movies share: cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt.
Just seven years ago, Messerschmidt was a respected gaffer on series like “Mad Men” and “Bones.” That changed when, on the set of “Gone Girl,” Fincher recognized Messerschmidt’s taste and talent; he promoted the gaffer to director of photography on his Netflix series “Mindhunter,” which led to Messerschmidt’s collaboration with Fincher on “Mank.” Messerschmidt’s shimmering black-and-white photography on that movie earned him some well-deserved attention — and an Academy Award for his first cinematography credit on a feature film.
Unsurprisingly, Fincher returned to Messerschmidt when the time came to make “The Killer,” though the director of photography says the initial conversations were quite different. “It was unique because we didn’t really talk about the way the movie was meant to look at all,” Messerschmidt told IndieWire. “We talked about pace and structure and how he wanted to handle the voiceover and structure the scenes. We talked about the movie much more abstractly than when we were talking about ‘Mank.’ The palette and aesthetic came much later in the process.”
Jennifer Walden
December 13, 2023
Mix
Join Mix’s Jennifer Walden as she speaks with the audio pros behind director David Fincher’s action thriller, ‘The Killer.’ Discussing their work on the film are:
Presented by Netflix.
The Fincher Analyst 