'Choice' - David Fincher Influences

As mentioned previously, the screenplay will be largely influenced by the work of Arron Sorkin (The Social Network), Robert Graysmith (Zodiac) and Jim Uhis (Fight Club). With Jim Uhis being the main inspiration.

I aim to direct 'Choice' in a similar style to David Fincher. This post is going to explain exactly what that entails.

David Fincher began his career creating popular abstract music videos for popular artists of the day such as Michael Jackson and Madonna. His music videos were widely acclaimed for how different they were and how memorable they were. 

After many successful music videos Fox Studios hired Fincher to create the next film in the highly acclaimed 'Alien' series. Fincher had a vision and a dream to create one of the most tense films in the series, he wanted to bring it back to the horror that began in the first film of the series and stray away from the all-out-action James Cameron kead the series with in the second installment.

However, not everything went as planned as Fox constantly reduced the budget, scrapped sets and asked for constant changes from the director himself. All of these cutbacks and stress lead to a mediocre first feature by Fincher that was panned by critics and the viewing audience. Upset by this, Fincher disowned the film and refused to accept it as his debut. What I learnt from this is that your vision can be sacrificed if you work for the wrong people.

It was only 3 years later however that New Line Cinema took a risk and allowed him to film 'Se7en' with an all star cast of Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. This film brought back the Noir genre that began decades earlier and carried on the tradition of neo-noirs like Roman Polanski's Chinatown with Jack Nicholson. The film was directed beautifully with visual elements that told the story without being spoonfed details. Fincher captured the growing relationship of Pitt and Freeman's character brilliantly by using his subtlety such as how they were positioned, how did they sit when the other was around, he was standing when they spoke? who had the control of the scene? another great example of where fincher did this is at the very end of the film. When Pitt learns about 'what's in the box' when the camera is on him it shakes slightly as he frantically panics, whereas when it cuts to Kevin Spaceys character the camera is steady with no movement whatsoever to indicate he is stable and he has control. I love this attention to detail he has with the films.

Finchers next film paired him with the extremely talented Michael Douglas in the conspiracy-thriller 'The Game'. This film threw plot twists at the audience and kept them guessing until the end. Despite what some may argue is a weak ending the journey that David Fincher takes you on with Douglas in the front seat is an exhilarating ride. The ending of Se7en taught me a lot about suspense in film and thrillers, and this film continued that. It was also the first screeenplay I had ever read, written by John Brancato. It taught me a lot about dramatic beats in a screenplay and how to structure them so the next one is always bigger than the previous to grow the tension and each have a satisfying pay-off. 

Finchers fourth film in my opinion, is his magnum opus; Fight Club. This was the film that introduced me and a lot of people to the work of Fincher. It was the first time I had ever watched a film with controllable depth and layers. The film, stripped of everything, subliminal messages, Easter eggs, hidden hints to the narrative is still a brilliantly directed thriller however, Fincher went one step further with this one. He added hints throughout the entire film revelaing the infamous plot twist, he added a Starbucks coffee in every scene at least once to take a giant stab at commercialism and corporations (a common theme of the film). This film taught me that a screenplay, despite being a visual storytelling element is not enough, if you want to achieve greatness you need to go one step beyond and visually create the world needed for your film, film is a visual medium so it can't just be heard it has to be shown.

 I am borrowing  lot of themes and conventions from this film and Jim Uhis' screenplay as well as Chuck Palanuik's novel. Fight Club explores the themes of duality and conflict, media conglomerates and capitalism, wanting to be something else but wanting to know when to stop. The first one is definitely a theme I will be exploring in 'Choice' with Tony as we finish writing the screenplay.

Finchers digital work has proved to only enhance his abilities. When he jumped to digital when working on The Social Network with Jesse Eisenberg he created a film that got me into the work of cineamatographer Jeff Cronenworth. He acted as the director of photography on The Social Netowrk and since then I watch anything he works on. The cinematography in this film was incredible. The lighting immaculately reflected the mood of any scene, even if there were contradicitng moods from differing people in the room, rule of thirds was used brilliantly in this film to allow for symetircal shots that look great on film, and the art direction gave the film a unique feel that changes as Eisenbergs idea grows and grows. For example, I always associate the start of the film with dark colours and low key lighting, however, once Facebook gets started you start to see bright colours and high key lighting being introduced into the film. Showing how the cinematography changes with the narrative but it's extremely subtle you barely notice.

Fincher is known for his extensive amount of takes (mirroring the work of Kubrick), perfectionism and being difficult to work with however, despite this he always manages to create brilliant cinema. This shows that perfectionism can pay off once you have the reputation. I agree to the perfectionism behind the camera and can understand how that may lead to difficulties behind the camera but I also agree that it gets results. From all of Finchers conventions I am aiming to to use his passion for eveything in the shot being important, every last detail in my film I am hoping to have some meaning, it helps immerse the audience and allows them to believe the world is real. For exmple we are planning to film in a hospital waiting room, however if this is not possible we will have to use a spare room and dress is up like one, if this is the case I can put this convention to the test and make sure the room feels believable by focusing on what is in the shot. I can add health posters, fire safety notices, quit smoking flyers, magazines. Anything to make the setting more believable.

Source: http://www.slashfilm.com/trivia-for-gone-girl-david-fincher-averaging-nearly-50-takes-per-scene/

In conclusion I feel Fincher is a shining example of a great director. He's inspired me greatly to want to one day produce films of his quality, and hope to begin to do so with this short film for our production.