Closer look at a Director - David Fincher

David Fincher - Director

• Fincher's excessive take count tells me that he is an actor's director. He has a clear vision and is not afraid to work with his actors until he can get the performance that he wants. 

• He is also known for his impossible camera moves & lengthy tracking shots. Starting with Seven and going through Panic Room and Fight Club, each feature camera's that go through walls, through ducts, down buildings and into garbage cans. 

• These moves not only convey a wider sense of geography in the scene, they are also very stylish and show the viewer something they hadn't seen before (or often).

• Fincher's background in music videos give his films a very glossy look, but also feel realistic and edgy. He always uses a similar colour palette, muted tones and lots of darkness/ contrast.

• His use of shadows to hide character's faces is a clever way to have the character appear in the film but obscure their identity from the audience.

• Finally he is known for inserting blink and you'll miss it single frames into sequences, a technique carried over from his days directing music videos and commercials. In Fight Club he included frames of pornography (alluded to in the story), as well as glimpses of the Tyler Durden character before we actually meet him.

• He also used this technique in Se7en & Zodiac.

I'm going to write the first draft of the script now. 5 weeks to go...

Shooting wrap up and post production

Additional shooting

We finished shooting last week. We had the final scene where our main character is back home eating fried chicken after his successful hit on his target (scene 6). We also finished scene 4 where the weapons get dropped off in a bag. This was severely cut down in the final edit due to time.

 Our rough cut came in at over five minutes and required a lot of trimming. Lawrence and Shiv worked on the edit over the last week or so, choosing where to trim and sending the rest of the group various cuts for feedback. 

ADR & Sound

Our recorded audio for most of the footage we shot was unusable for various reasons; wind noise on the running scene, rustling on the one scene we used the lapel microphone, various buzzing or humming noises in the locations we shot in.

For this reason we decided to seek permission to use the recording booth in Jennison to loop the dialogue. We sought the assistance of one of the technicians to show us how to operate the equipment and after some technical hiccups we were ready to start. Unfortunately our sound man couldn't attend this session due to other commitments.

I suggested to the director that the actors needed to watch the playback of the scene in the booth on the laptop while they tried to match their lip movements, however he thought this unnecessary so the actors repeated their lines sans playback.

We did try recording sound effects in the booth such as the wallet opening and other sounds that we needed due to the originals being unusable, however I don't think the right type of microphone was set-up as the subtle noises weren't getting picked up. It was agreed that we would use library sound effects where necessary and concentrate on re-recording the dialogue.

 

Shooting

Shooting has been ongoing for the last couple of weeks.

We started with the interior scenes; Frank's living room & bedroom. We did some test footage on my DSLR and compared it against the same shot filmed with the Sony video camera.

The director decided he would prefer to shoot on the DSLR for various reasons:

DSLR Pros

• Superior image quality

• Compact size - allows us to get more varied shots and the increased availability due to not having to book the camera out, just the lenses.

DSLR Cons

• Less control over white balance - (my Nikon DSLR only has white balance pre-sets, no manual option)

• Sound could not be monitored in real time due to the lack of a headphone socket.

The director decided the pros outweighed the cons so we have shot everything with the DSLR, using wide, macro,18-55 mm and telephoto lenses.

A lot of the footage has required post production colour balancing to fix white balance issues but the footage has come out looking pretty good overall.

As the cameraman I have been trying to think of imaginative shots, always trying to keep in mind the law of thirds and the 180 degree rule. I have also tried pulling focus on a few shots with some pleasing results.

I thought about the atmosphere of the shot and tried to think of a shot style that best matched it.

Examples of shot types employed

• The shot of Lawrence against the tree after the knife fight, when he pulls out his gun, I used a Dutch angle to try and convey confusion and tension on Lucas' part.

• The shot of Frank hiding behind the logs wondering what to do next, I decided on a slow handheld arc around Frank from the opposite side of the log pile- again to keep the shot tense and interesting.

I had discovered by the woods filming that focusing the subject where they would end up in frame using the viewfinder before switching to the live view on the screen helped keep correct focus as I found it hard to see if focus was correct on the small screen, particularly with the wide lens which has a lot of focus range available.

The correct aspect ratio is also not displayed until recording so I recorded rehearsal takes to practise my framing.

On the third day of filming after shooting 2 days of interiors we moved to the office scene. We shot the office in the morning before our editor assembled a rough cut at lunch. We then did a pick up shoot in the afternoon.

Shooting the office scene

After more work on the edit we had to go back for additional pick-ups to fix certain continuity problems. Where an actor changed body position between shots we inserted a wide 2 shot, which also helped establish the geography of the scene after the opening first person shot.

We also did a pick up shoot for the woods scenes to fix similar issues.

As producer it has been my role to book equipment out and make sure that people are ready at certain times. This has proved challenging trying to make sure people don't sleep in or aren't late.

A typical shooting day has been starting at half ten and working through to around 4. After trial and error this was the earliest time that I can ensure most of the crew will be awake and ready to shoot.

As we stand today, out of a total of six scenes we have 3 completely shot, (the office, the woods & the kitchen) & 3 shorter scenes remaining (The bag drop off, the pc interaction and the celebratory final scene).

Editing has been carried out concurrently with shooting to enable us to identify any issues with our footage and shoot pick ups.

We are hoping to finish shooting tomorrow.

Practise sequence and subsequent pick ups

Last week we were charged with shooting a simple sequence around Jennison.

In my group were:

Liam De Costa - Actor
Chi-Yin Wong - Actor
Brian Wong - Sound
Myself - Cameraman/ Producer
Lawrence Thomas James Maskell - Editor/ Director

We were allocated the production studio & workshop to shoot in.

I came up with a quick story sequence on my phone:

We shot everything we could in the two hour session. We thought we had all the shots we needed.

However when the sequence was edited together it had several issues:

• For the first ten seconds nothing happened. There was a slow pan across an empty room dissolving to an empty chair and desk. The pacing was too slow.
• Every cut was a dissolve. Dissolves are normally used to denote the passage of time however our sequence was happening in real time.
• We were missing several close ups, for example when Chi see's the phone on the desk after walking in, we were missing a close up of the phone.
• We were missing key continuity shots which meant that people jumped around locations and confused the audience.
• Our sequence didn't have an ending.

Unfortunately our editor deleted this version of the film and used the Premier file to carry on working on the second version, so a direct comparison is not possible.

The next week we came back and after critiquing the first version we had 40 minutes to shoot pick ups.

Again I made a quick list of what we thought we needed:

• We decided to shoot a new establishing pan which ended with our protagonist already sitting at the desk. This avoided shooting an empty room and picked up the pace slightly.
• We shot a new medium close up of our phone-less hero working.
• We needed a shot of the two characters passing so that the audience weren't left wondering why they didn't see each other on the way out.
• We didn't have a shot of Chi entering the room so we shot that. We also shot an insert of his feet walking for coverage.
• Once we got outside we were very pushed for time so I went handheld and we quickly shot an ending to our sequence. All the exterior pick up shots were done in about ten minutes. 

The final version after pick ups:

The latest version is much improved. It has a cohesive story and is easy to follow. It's pace is much better and it works.

Note: The file was exported at quite a low resolution from Premier which is why it looks quite soft on YouTube.

There are still a few ways it could be improved. Some from the shoot and others in the edit:

• 0:09 The close up of the phone is cropped out of a shot we had slowly zooming out and so is noticeably grainy.
• 0:13 The shot is exposed for the bright monitor screen leaving the rest of the shot too dark. Additional light was necessary. 
• 0:27 The footsteps are too loud.
• 0:51 Again the shot is too dark apart from the blown out monitors. Given time I would turn them off, light the scene and comp them back in.
• 0:55 Chi is slightly cropped at top of frame. I would pull the framing back a bit to get both the desk and his whole head in.
• 1:01 Continuity. Chi is holding the phone high in the previous shot then in this shot it is low again.
• 1:19 Slightly over exposed. Would turn down brightness in post.
• 1:36 Dialogue isn't loud enough. Sound man wasn't using headphones at this point due to time constraints.
• 1:36 Sharp contrast between sunny and non sunny areas. Sunny areas slightly blown out.
• 1:40 Shadow of crew visible in window.
• 1:43 White balance changes as Chi enters sunny area. 

I'm pretty happy with it overall given the time constraints and I think Lawrence did a great job editing it into a narrative sequence.

Shot List

I have composed the shot list for scenes 1-4 of the script.

Shiv, the director has agreed to compose the shot list for scenes 5 & 6. 5 is the fight scene which is being scripted by Lawrence before we discuss it as a group. 6 is the final scene in the bedroom which has been scripted.

There are around 40 shots on the list for scenes 1-4. I have linked shots with letters which are separate in the script but use the same camera set-ups.

I thought it simpler to list shots chronologically and link set-ups rather than list the shots by location and shoot out of sequence. I think for continuity, sequential shooting is the better option.

Location Scouting

It was a nice day yesterday so we went location scouting for a wooded area where we could film our fight scene. The location scout hadn't come through with any locations thus far so we went as a group.

We found an area that was suitable:

• There wasn't much through traffic

• It was far enough away from any roads and buildings

• The background sound was birds and insects rather than traffic and noise.

There were also multiple different settings near each other if we want the scene to take place over multiple locations for variety.

 An open wooded area













Am area with creepy spaced out trees

Safety

Accessing the site for safety turned up some possible hazards:

• It was muddy in places so trips could be hazardous, particularly for the camera man concentrating on the viewfinder during a take.

• There were potential tripping hazards in the form of roots and branches that needed to be kept in mind.

Lighting

• The location was obviously outdoors so changeable weather could be an issue.

• The time of year meant shooting in sunshine, cloud cover or rain were all possibilities in one day of shooting.

• If shooting in sunshine shadows could be a potential issue, both for matching their angle for continuity and for making sure no crew or equipment shadows were visible.

First draft of the script is complete

:-)

I don't know why we chose a fight scene to do.

Fight scenes are hard...