I've always loved David Fincher's films, but until I saw this video about his directing style, I never knew exactly why. His films are often about topics that don't immediately interest me (serial killers, fighting), but for some reason they're always compelling. This video explains how Fincher's direction makes them so:
I'd never really noticed that he rarely uses handheld shots, but it really makes sense now how he's always been able to meld CGI and live-action seamlessly: his own real-world camera moves blend right in with the motions of a CGI camera. (If you have the DVD of Fight Club, don't miss his directors commentary. For a movie so early in the CGI era — 1999 — it has many CGI shots, most of which you probably don't even realize are there.) In Tony Zhou's video above, don't miss the way that targeted use of handheld makes the end of Se7en so compelling, or how the framing of a scene of three poeple simply talking heightens the drama in ways I'd never realized. (You can even see some of these techniques in Fincher's music videos for Express Yourself and Vogue.)
(By the way, title of this video comes from one of Fincher's famous quotes: "People will say, 'There are a million ways to shoot a scene', but I don't think so. I think there're two, maybe. And the other one is wrong.)
So that's my plan for this weekend: go and see his new film, Gone Girl. Enjoy yours, and we'll be back on Monday.
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