Special Makeup Effects – The Fincher Analyst

David Fincher Talks To Us About Brad Pitt’s Crazy Schedule, The Complicated Sloth Makeup, And The Infamous Box As SE7EN Turns 30

The making of a masterpiece.

Sean O’Connell
January 2, 2025
CinemaBlend

Rain drenches an anonymous street in Los Angeles, which is standing in for an anonymous city that won’t be named. Two A-list actors, playing polar opposite detectives assigned to a frightening and ominous case, stand around and wait for their turn to step on set, where they’re poised to discover the next atrocity left for them by a mysterious serial killer named John Doe.

But in this specific moment, director David Fincher is just trying to figure out how to get the body of character actor Michael Reid McKay, transformed into the victim we’ll come to know as Sloth, onto the set without disrupting the man’s intricate makeup job.

That’s just one of many unexpected challenges facing David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network, Zodiac) as he labored on SE7EN, the mesmerizing dark-noir thriller that cast Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as cops tracking a killer whose victims are modeled after the Seven Deadly Sins. It’s an ingenious hook, designed by screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. But it was Fincher’s meticulous execution of the crimes that burrowed under the skin of moviegoers back in 1995, and helped make SE7EN an unforgettable achievement that earned its place in the pop-culture pantheon of contemporary masterpieces.

I’m not sure Fincher knew he was creating a masterpiece at the time of filming. The former music-video director was coming off of a disastrous shoot with Alien 3, was focused on establishing himself and his own voice, and had to deal with a difficult schedule attached to one of his leading men. (More on that in a second). And then, there was this damn Sloth body… the one that wakes up mid-investigation, and scares the daylights out of John C. McGinley (Scrubs).

Speaking with CinemaBlend on behalf of a 30th anniversary 4K UHD release of SE7EN (which arrives on January 7), Fincher started reminiscing about that particular Deadly Sin.

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‘It Kind Of Is A Young Man’s Game’: David Fincher’s Blunt Comments On Retirement Bum Me Out As My Generation of Filmmakers Starts Calling It Quits

Sean O’Connell
January 7, 2025
CinemaBlend

David Fincher talks remastering SE7EN and reveals what was really in the box

The filmmaker says the rumor that the infamous box contained a prosthetic head is “entirely ridiculous.”

Wesley Stenzel
January 2, 2025
Entertainment Weekly

SE7EN turns 30 this year, and to commemorate the anniversary, director David Fincher has overseen the 4K remaster of the seminal crime drama.

The serial killer mystery — which stars Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kevin Spacey — first shook up the crime genre in 1995 with propulsive, precise craft and unprecedentedly nasty crime scenes that have influenced everything from Saw to The Batman. The film now has a higher-resolution look that will debut on IMAX screens on Jan. 3 before releasing on 4K UHD Blu-ray Discs and on digital Jan. 7. Fincher and his team painstakingly recreated the film as it was originally printed in 1995, utilizing some AI tools to enhance the image and fix visual mistakes that weren’t visible in previous scans of the film.

Entertainment Weekly chatted with Fincher to discuss the new version of SE7EN and reflect on his memories of helming his feature directorial breakout 30 years later — including what’s really in the box.

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Netflix FYC: Mindhunter. Scene Stealers with Damon Herriman and Kazu Hiro

Jenelle Riley
Editor – Variety
July 2020
Netflix

Actor Damon Herriman talks about tackling the role of Charles Manson (again) in Netflix‘s Emmy®-nominated series Mindhunter. Oscar®-winning makeup designer Kazu Hiro, meanwhile, details the actor’s physical transformation from mild-mannered Aussie to iconic cult leader.

For Your Emmy® Awards Consideration

Prosthetic designer Kazu Hiro breaks down his process

July 2, 2020
Vanity Fair

Kazu Hiro breaks down his process of using special effects to transform actors physical appearances. Kazu demonstrates the techniques he used to turn ‘Bombshell‘ cast Charlize Theron into Megyn Kelly, Nicole Kidman into Gretchen Carlson, and John Lithgow into Roger Ailes, ‘Darkest Hour‘ cast Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill, and ‘Mindhunter‘ cast Damon Herriman into Charles Manson, and Olive Cooper into David Berkowitz.

Watch the transcripted video on Vanity Fair

‘Mindhunter’: How Kazu Hiro Transformed Damon Herriman Into an Uncanny Charles Manson

The multiple Oscar-winning special effects makeup wiz is the Emmy favorite for helping Damon Herriman with his spot-on, riveting Manson.

Bill Desowitz
July 1, 2020
IndieWire

Last year, Australian actor Damon Herriman did his spot-on performance of Charles Manson not once, but twice: the teasing cameo in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and the riveting interview with FBI agents Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Tench (Holt McCallany) in Season 2 of David Fincher’s “Mindhunter.” Although they were shot within weeks of each other, the more demanding portrayal in the Netflix crime drama came first.

And, thanks to the deft physical transformation applied by the multiple Oscar-winning special effects makeup wiz Kazu Hiro (“Bombshell,” “Darkest Hour”) — who first worked with Fincher on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” — Herriman gave the definitive Manson portrayal for the streamer. But we’ve come to expect nothing less from Hiro, the master at reconstructing iconic historical figures. It’s all the more impressive when there’s no physical resemblance, which was the case here with Herriman nearly five inches taller than the diminutive Manson and possessing different facial traits.

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Charles Manson sculpture over a Damon Herriman life cast

How Crafts Amplified Berkowitz, Watson, & Manson Scenes in ‘Mindhunter’ Season 2

A look at the crafts behind the killer interrogations, including cinematography, sound editing, prosthetics, editing, and rerecording mixers.

Megan McLachlan
June 20, 2020
Awards Daily

Awards Daily’s Megan McLachlan and the technical team behind Netflix’s Mindhunter Season 2 (cinematography, sound editing, editing, prosthetics, and rerecording mixers) break down why each killer interview is completely different.

Mindhunter Season 2 starts with a “doozy” of a sequence.

“You’re not sure where you are,” said Mindhunter re-recording mixer Scott Lewis.

The opening sequence reacquaints us with the mind of a killer—in this case, specifically the BTK Killer (Sonny Valicenti), who we’ve been following in Season 1 through vignettes. BTK’s wife comes home to discover him tying himself up in the bathroom while wearing a mask. Lewis and his re-recording mixer partner Stephen Urata went back and forth about how the sound of the door, bumping from BTK’s aggression, was supposed to sound from down the hall.

“[Director] David [Fincher] gave some vague directions for that,” said Urata. “We tried to keep it really mysterious. We started with really dreamy, big reverb, did some fabbing, and [the wife] starts picking up on those knocking sounds. We took our liberties with it. The knocking sounds probably wouldn’t be that loud.”

It had to compete with Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home a Heartache,” something they had to find the right timing for with the knocks. When it came to editing the sequence with the music, editor Kirk Baxter felt like he was working on a music video.

“The track was predetermined, so I could plot everything to the music, when it was gonna hit,” said Baxter. “So much of the reaching, the hand, it was based around being stretched so the door opened at the exact beat I needed it to. To me, it was like a Christmas present. When you’ve got all of the angles and coverage, you can expand the tension and manipulate the hell out of it.”

The Crafts Behind the Madness of Mindhunter Season 2

It’s specific technical details like this that take Mindhunter to a new level of creepy with each episode. And though these elements are subtle, they add so much to each and every scene, especially when Holden (Jonathan Groff) and Tench (Holt McCallany) interview the killers.

While they might seem like they’re similar in format, each interrogation scene is completely different and tells you so much about the killer they’re questioning, with precise engineering and great care that goes into them. Let’s look at how Berkowitz, Tex Watson, and Manson are all completely different from each other.

Featured crafts:

Kirk Baxter, editing
Kazu Hiro, prosthetics
Scott Lewis & Stephen Urata, rerecording mixers
Erik Messerschmidt, cinematographer
Jeremy Molod, sound editor

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Original Benjamin Button Model by Kazu Hiro

Click for a full screen view:

Clay sculpture (Kazu Hiro, 2006)

Silicone head for CG (Kazu Hiro, 2006)

Rick Baker’s Cinovation Studios deliver the aged Brad Pitt silicone heads by Kazu Hiro to Digital Domain to be digitally scanned. Top center: Kazu Hiro and Rick Baker. Top right: Eric Barba, Visual Effects Supervisor for Digital Domain (Kazu Hiro, 2006)

Sculptor and Special Make-Up Effects Artist
Kazu Hiro (Make-Up Artist Magazine, 2018)

kazustudios.com