David Fincher:

Single frame insert: His movies often features several single frames that flash on the screen in the middle of the scene.

Fluid tracking camera: which can access anywhere; a digital age innovation in camera movement pioneered by David Fincher and Kevin Tod Haug along with BUF Paris

Silhouettes: Frequently has characters in the shadows where you cannot make out their face (Kevin Spacey in Se7en (1995) and Brad Pitt in Fight Club (1999)

His films often end in a suicide, either attempted or successful His films often have low key lighting with green or blue tinted colour temperature Wide shots Frequently casts Brad Pitt (Se7en, Fight Club, The curious case of Benjamin button) Low angles Backstories filled with flashbacks Stationary shot, unfocused background with character walking into focus Posters almost always feature close ups of characters faces Frequently collaborates with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for musical scores

(Social Network and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

David Fincher is a master of form, there is usually a reason behind every shot and cut in his movies 0 a big picture sensibility that explains every choice. That includes credit sequences,, from the brazenly spectacular sequences that open Se7en and Fight Club to the more sedate, elegant openings of Alien3, Panic Room and Zodic. Fincher cements his reputation as a big budget utility infielder, trying his hand at many different genres but always letting the story dictate how he tells it.

Studio executives Mechancic and Ziskin planned an initial budget of $23 million to finance the film but by the start of production, the budget was increased to $50 million. Half was paid by New Regency but during filming the projected budget escalated to $67 million. New Regencys head and Fight Club executive producer Arnon Milchan petioned Fincher to reduce costs by at least $5 million. David Fincher refused so Milchan threatened him further that New Regency would withdraw financing. Mechonic sought to restore Milchans support by sending him tapes of dailies from fight club. After seeing three weeks of filming, Milchan reinstated New Regencys financial backing. The final production budget was $63 million.

> Filming lasted 138 days during which Fincher shot more than 1500 rolls of film (three times average for a Hollywood film).

>There were more than 70 sets, some filmed around LA and others on the sets in the studio in Century City. The interior of Tyler Durdens house was given a decayed look to illustrate the deconstructed world of the characters. Marla Singers apartment was based on photographs of the Rosalind Apartments in downtown LA. (filming included 300 scenes, 200 locations)

Fincher hired Jeff Croeneweth as cinematographer and applied a lurid style, choosing to make people “sort of shiny”. The appearance of the narrators scenes without Tyler Durden were bland a realistic. The sense with Tyler are described by Fincher as “more hyper real in a torn down, deconstructed sense—a visual metaphor of what he’s heading into”. Heavily desaturated colours were used in the costuming, makeup and art direction. Helena Bonham Carter wore opalescent makeup to portray her romantic nihilistic character with a “smack fiend patina”. Fincher and Croneweth drew influences from the 1973 film American Graffiti which applied a mundane look to night time exterior while simultaneously including a variety of colours.

Fight Club was filmed mostly at night and Fincher purposely filmed the daytime shots in shadowed locations. The crew equipped the bars basement with inexpensive work lamps to create a background glow. Fincher avoided stylish camerawork when filming early fight scenes in the basement and instead placed the camera into a fixed position. In later fight scenes, Fincher moved the camera from the viewpoint of a distant observer to that of the fighter.

The scenes with Tyler Durden were staged to conceal that the character was a mental projection of the nameless narrator. The character was not filmed in the two shots with a group of people, nor was he shown in any over the shoulder shots in the scene where Tyler gives the narrator specific ideas to manipulate him. In scenes before the narrator meets Tyler, the filmmakers inserted Tylers presence in single frames for subliminal effect. Tyler appears in the backgrounf out of focus like “a little devil on the shoulder”. Fincher explaimned the subliminal frames: “Our hero is creating Tyler Durden in his own mind so at this point he exisits only on the periphery of the narrators consciousness.”

The film’s title sequence is a 90 second effects composition that depicts the inside of the narrators brain at a microscopic level, the camera pulls back to the outside starting at his fear centre and following the thought process initiated by the fear impulse. The sequence designed in part by Fincher, was budgeted separately from the rest of the film at first, but the sequence was awarded by the studio in January 1999. The company mapped the computer-generated brain using a I-system and the design was detailed using renderings by medial illustrator Katherine Jones. The pullback sequence from within the brain to the outside of the skull included neurons, action potentials and hair follicle. Haug explained the artist license that Fincher took with the shot: “While he wanted to keep the brain passage looking like electron microscope photography, that look had to be coupled with the feel of a night drive – wet, scary and with a low depth of field.” The shallow depth of field was accomplished with the ray tracing process.

His visual style is unique, aways dark and gothic. Always flashy and fight club is his masterpiece on that account. Its story might not be as straight forward as the on of Se7en but the style just carries you away – from a masterful opening sequence to the end. Fincher used some interesting ideas:

Voice over: Dine a lot but seldom this weel. Ed Norton comments the scens, explains and makes fun of characters etc

Back Jumps: Within the movie, the film sometimes just stops for Pitt/Notrton to ex-plain something, eg. “let me tell you something about Tyler Durden”

Reaky inserts: we see brad pitt for just one frame about 4 time sin the movie

Special effects: peguin, collapsg buildings, the interioe of the brain, a plane crash and ed Norton inside an ikea atalogue

Article I dicuss in essay:

http://www.fempop.com/2011/12/28/the-women-of-david -finchers-filmography/

Fincher doesn’t shy away from controversy in his films. He’ll happily make a silly bromance like Fight Night or an ode to male geek misogyny like The Social Network. But he also never shies away from strong women in his film. Indeed generally he embraces them. While this assessment of his filmography only discusses his film work when you account his work on music videos–especially his long-term collaborative relationship with Madonna you get a better picture of him.

Particularly his video of “Express Yourself”: a genderbending homage to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Madonna’s late 80s/early 90s persona.