David Fincher

David Fincher

Born on August 28, 1962 (age 53) the American director was one of the first mainstream film directors to emerge from music video. David finches has a very distinctive style, a director of photography plays a big part in how something looks but Fincher's work stays consistently dark and gritty. Production design is usually either stark and modern, or dark and heavily decaying. His work carries a distinct visual stamp regardless of who is shooting it. At the age of 18 Fincher went to work for John Korty at Forty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at Industrial Light and Magic from 1981-1983. When he left ILM he moved on to directing TV commercials and music videos with N. Lee Lacy in Hollywood. He later founded Propaganda in 1987with fellow directors Dominic Sena, Greg Gold and Nigel Dick. Some of his clients include Nike, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Heineken, Pepsi, Levi's, Converse, AT&T and Chanel. When directing music videos Fincher has worked with the likes of Madonna, Sting, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, George Michael, Iggy Pop, The Wallflowers, Billy Idol, Steve Winwood, The Motels and more recently A Perfect Circle. As a director he has seen huge success with Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999) and, Panic Room (2002).

David Fincher has a certain style and his movies often features several single frames that flash on the screen in the middle of a scene such as in Fight Club (1999). Fluid tracking camera which can access anywhere; a digital age innovation in camera movement pioneered by David Fincher and Kevin Tod Haug along with BUF Paris. Frequently he has characters in the shadows where you cannot make out their face (Kevin Spacey in Se7en (1995) and Brad Pitt in Fight Club (1999). His films often end in a suicide, either attempted or successful and his films often have low-key lighting with green or blue tinted color temperature. David Fincher also loves a good flashback and often refers to the band 311 (poster in Fight Club, cop car radio calls in Zodiac) He often displays end credits as slide shows (Fight Club, Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) or scrolling downward (Se7en) rather than the traditional upward scroll.

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