AS Media Production Pre production.

1. Influential figures

2. Why David Fincher?
• We have chosen Fincher because he is one of the worlds most prized and
credited directors of all time. He has made many great films which has inspired
us to look into the type of film that we want to produce. He has a particular style
of filming a scene and capturing emotion and tone that is very gripping in his
films such as Gone Girl and Zodiac that other directors may struggle to achieve.
• His way of filming is differentiates from other directors in the way in which he
lays out the narrative for the audience. His use of visual story telling is excellent,
the way in which he uses color theory to his advantage so the audience can
distinguish the tone of one scene to another without and narrating or dialogue.

3. About Fincher
• David Fincher is an American director and producer,
notably for films, television series, and music videos
• His most notable films include : Zodiac, Gone Girl,
Se7en and most notably Fight Club.
• He was born on August 28th in Denver, Colorado
• He has won numerous awards for his most notable
films these awards include: A Golden Globe for the
Social network, An Emmy for House of Cards, He has
also been nominated for two Academy awards for his
work on The social network and The Curious case of
Benjamin Button
• Overall he has been nominated for 103 Awards and
overall has won 59 Awards.

4. Examples of his films
• These are some examples of his films that we want to take inspiration
from because of their editing, camerawork or sound.

5. Colour theory
Colour theory is the theory in which a director or editor used
background colours or saturation and colour to create a certain type
of tone or mood in a piece of media.
David Fincher is very well known for his use of colour theory in film
and Television. He uses it well because it helps the narrative of the
film. From the colours shoes on the screen the audience can
distinguish the mood of the scene or the type of characters that are
being shown.

6. Example of colour theory
• The first example of colour theory we will look at is in the hit TV show
House of cards directed by David Fincher.
As we can see in the shot the colour gradient is a very pale blue. Blue is a very cold colour and almost
makes the scene look ill due to its lack of other colour, this connotes that the characters or the atmosphere
is cold and distressing. The colour almost takes the energy out of the scene.

7. House of cards example #2
As we can see in this shot, the lighting is very bright, almost a
yellow colour. In comparison the other shot we see that this
scene contains more energy due to the bright lights and the
colour of yellow. Yellow connotes happiness however it can
also connote caution. The theme of caution is also enhanced by
the performance of the character in the scene where she has a
worried look on her face. Facial expression and performance is
also a type of visual storytelling.

8. How has this theory influenced us?
• The colour scheme from Gone Girl and House of cards has heavily
influenced us because it will allow us to create a certain atmosphere for
the piece without having much dialogue to help the narrative.
• The use of a bleached colour pallet is what we want to achieve because it
differentiates for other student work. A lot of the past student work that I
have seen has been drowned in saturation and low key lighting, we want
to use the bleached look to our advantage by differentiating our work
form others and therefore creating something more original.

9. Tone and Mood
• The mood in a lot of Fincher movies changes quite regularly. For example in
Gone Girl the mood at the start is very slow and aggressive because the first line
of dialogue says “I picture cracking her lovely skull unspooling her brain to get
answers” this creates a tense and aggressive atmosphere for the audience. The
fact that the narrating protagonist is wanting “Answers” suggests that their
relationship is unstable and secretive, this adds to the tension between the two
characters. Although the dialogue is aggressive, the manner that the character
says this in is very subtle and almost like he means it in a romantic way which
contradicts the aggressive mood.

10. Extract from Gone Girl showing the colour

11. Interview

12. Editing
• In this clip we learn that to edit Fincher's film Zodiac they used “Final Cut Pro”
• He did this because he says that it has all of the tools that he needs for the
editing and it is something that you can just buy online.
• One of the editors who works for Fincher says “Use the tools that you can just
buy in a store. Why use specialist equipment that only does the same thing?”
• We are going to use final cut pro to edit our media because it offers a lot more
compared to iMovie where you are limited to what you can achieve in terms of
editing.