Fincher look

[Mihnea Snooker]

I'm not a fan of David Fincher look as I think his motivation for using those colors is..."not strong enough" but I'd like to know how does he get that look. And I'm taking about that green look of tungsten, but in combinaton with pure blue of daylight or the normal color tungsten in the same frame (i attached some examples where could be seen green tungsten and normal daylight, or green tungsten and normal tungsten). It could be done sometimes very easy with secondary cc, or simply using plus green or light with green spike, but I found thousands of answer for every scene but i'd like to know if anyone knows what is his way of doing this. Thanks!

[Michael LaVoie]

If you listen to the commentary on Fight Club you can hear Ed Norton complain about being underlit in the airplane scene. He points out that Brads hair reads as black when it clearly isn't. David just sighs. I think he's heard it a lot.

 

A lot of it looks like toplight with very little fill. Motivated practicals. When you want to know specifics on certain films you can try looking it up on American Cinematographer. -Thats a link to the article there on Gone Girl.

 

That mag is a great window into the techniques and tools applied on both Hollywood blockbusters and to a lesser extent, indie and foreign arthouse films.

[Jeff L'Heureux]

I'd personally say the "Fincher look" you're describing belongs as much to Jeff Cronenweth, or at least equally for both when they work together. The films where he didn't have Jeff as DP don't look the same as Fight Club, Gone Girl, Social Network etc. Se7en does not look like the above, nor does Panic Room or The Game. On the other hand though, films like Hitchcock and K19 were DP'd by Cronenweth, and don't look anything like his work when he's with Fincher, so it seems when they work together they like that look.

[David Mullen ASC]

As for whether the green cast is timing, gels, or fluorescents and/or LED's with a green spike, I'm sure it's a combination of all of the above -- I doubt that every green-tinted scene is lit the same way, with the same instruments.