<\/p>\n
\n
Consider this promotional material for the 1969 assassin-at-a-crossroads<\/strong> film Hard Contract<\/em>: \u201cEverything they do is 97 percent control and 3 percent emotion.\u201d Compare that with the mantra from the nameless lead character in The Killer<\/em>, director David Fincher\u2019s newest feature for Netflix, shot by Oscar-winner Erik Messerschmidt, ASC. \u201cStick to your plan. Anticipate, don\u2019t improvise. Trust no one. Never yield an advantage. Fight only the battle you\u2019re paid to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n It sounds pretty much the same, right? Both help illustrate the heart of a broad subgenre of films that includes Anton Corbijn\u2019s The American<\/em> (shot by Martin Ruhe, ASC), the aforementioned Hard Contract<\/em> (shot by Jack Hildyard, BSC), The Eiger Sanction<\/em> (shot by Frank Stanley, ASC, former IATSE Local 659 president) and Fred Zinnemann\u2019s The Day of the Jackal<\/em> (shot by Jean Tournier.) The common locus revolves around the assassin as a high-functioning sociopath, able to operate effortlessly in various circles without being found out. Given the inherent complexity of such a character type, it is easy to see how Fincher was able to attract Michael Fassbender to take the lead role.<\/p>\n Derived from a long-running graphic novel series by author Alexis \u201cMatz\u201d Nolent, The Killer <\/em>had been in gestation by Fincher for close to fifteen years. Depicting a murder-for-hire gone awry and its aftermath, the film is viewed through the eye of a seasoned assassin (Fassbender), who now finds himself a target and must seek out not only his erstwhile employers but also those they have deployed against him.<\/p>\n Messerschmidt\u2019s history with Fincher began as Chief Lighting Technician on Gone Girl<\/em> [ICG Magazine October 2014<\/a>] before going on to shoot his Mindhunter<\/em> series and then, in 2021, winning the Oscar for Mank<\/em>. Messerschmidt had also shot episodes of Fargo<\/em>, Legion<\/em> and Raised by Wolves<\/em>, and, more recently, the WWII aerial epic Devotion <\/em>[ICG Magazine December 2022]<\/a>. \u201cWhat I initially found interesting about the script was how it is almost wholly absent of dialog,\u201d Messerschmidt describes. \u201cThere is a significant amount of voice-over, a lot of which was present in the first script, but very little is spoken on screen \u2013 so in a sense, it\u2019s like a silent film. This meant the way we told the story with the camera was that much more important. It\u2019s an adaptation of a graphic novel, which are told in a similar way. I was fascinated by that kind of challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Like Fincher\u2019s protagonist in Fight Club <\/em>(shot by Jeff Cronenweth, ASC),<\/strong> The Killer<\/em>\u2019s lead character proves to be something of an unreliable narrator at times. \u201cThe story we tell with the camera is sometimes different from what the audience hears in voice-over,\u201d adds Messerschmidt. \u201cSo, we were precise with choosing our angles and camera movement to support our character\u2019s headspace. The killer has a mantra he repeats to himself that he uses as a personal affirmation, and slowly over the film he seems that he is contradicting it with his actions. In a way, we see him progress from having the mantra as a form of self-validation to the point he seems to question his \u2018workflow,\u2019 if you will. Not many movies you\u2019re going to see that revolve around the fallacy of self-confidence!\u201d<\/p>\n Fincher had his DP rewatch Jean-Pierre Melville\u2019s Le Samoura\u00ef<\/em> (shot by Henri Decae), a 1967 classic featuring Alain Delon as a too-cool-for-school contract killer. \u201cWe looked at it, but as an abstract reference,\u201d Messerschmidt observes. \u201cDavid liked the cold tone, and there was nihilism at the heart of that character, which is an oversimplification. Some of our film\u2019s style comes more from the graphic novel in terms of composition and staging.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rest of the film\u2019s style \u2013 much of the tone and palette \u2013 came out of our locations,\u201d he continues. \u201cDavid and I went on a series of scouts and the movie revealed itself, rather than us imposing our ideas on the various sites. It birthed itself in front of us, and then once we had homed in on these choices, we had to figure out how to make each one distinctive, yet remain cohesive with the others.\u201d<\/p>\n Another recurring collaborator in Fincher\u2019s work has been Production Designer Donald Graham Burt, of whom Messerschmidt notes, \u201cWhen I do a movie with David, I spend the vast majority of prep in Don\u2019s office. We\u2019re in constant conversation, discussing the aesthetics, which soon turns into logistical\/practical aspects revolving around sightlines and field of view. David is such a good communicator about his intentions and needs, we would go off and work up solutions for those intentions that we could then present.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fincher has been a staunch user of RED\u2019s camera systems <\/strong>over the years, and this continued with The Killer<\/em>, which marked his first use of their newest unit. \u201cThe RED V-RAPTOR [8K W and XL] addressed some color issues we had experienced in the past,\u201d says Messerschmidt, \u201cplus it was small enough to go anywhere and was a good match with the KOMODO, which we also used. We also changed up by going 2.35, as scope seemed more appropriate given our location work and many of the shots featuring the killer and his prey together in the frame.\u201d<\/p>\n A-Camera 1st AC Alex Scott was afforded several weeks of prep at Keslow Camera, readying ten cameras for Paris and shipping twelve cameras for plate views down to the Dominican Republic. \u201cThere was only limited second-unit work,\u201d Scott reports. \u201cFor driving shots in the DR and a splinter unit for New Orleans [DP\u2019d by Tucker Korte]. The plate cameras had full-frame Sigma Zooms. They determined the necessary angles, and then we\u2019d measure things out with the corresponding vehicle and a stand-in on stage in prep so the plate camera could match our notes.\u201d<\/p>\n The globetrotting scope of The Killer <\/em>tracks with other contract killer stories. As Messerschmidt notes: \u201cThe movie is told in chapters, with the character in a different locale each time, progressing from Paris to the DR, Florida, Chicago and New York City. Perhaps sixty or seventy percent of the interiors were shot on stage in New Orleans.\u201d New Orleans also stood in for Florida, with St. Charles, Illinois filling in for N.Y.C. scenes. Shooting finished in L.A., where additional shooting was done months later.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cThe tone and visual aesthetic was established and maintained on the set,\u201d adds Messerschmidt. \u201cWe\u2019ve had the same post supervisor and same colorist [Eric Weidt] for some eight years, and have developed a very streamlined color-management workflow on set: a single show LUT, no CDL\u2019s, no LiveGrade. We monitored in HDR on-set with Sony 17-inch monitors and had HD dailies \u2013 editorial had HDR as well \u2013 in DCI-P3 and Dolby PQ Gamma.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had some abstract conversations about what these various parts of different countries looked like and felt like,\u201d he elaborates. \u201cDavid was emphatic that the audience experience each one as a discrete and different environment. To me, Paris always feels cool and blue, especially at night and even in summer. That cool shadow, yellow highlight look was a big part of the night work there, and it developed from stills we took while scouting.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The film begins in the City of Lights as the Killer<\/strong> awaits the appearance of his target. \u201cThat whole first section of the film, when he is waiting to make a kill and watching for his prey, made for great opportunities, both with composition and storytelling,\u201d Messerschmidt observes. \u201cThe film is very much about point of view, \u00e0 la<\/em> Hitchcock\u2019s Rear Window<\/em>. We\u2019re [looking on] in a voyeuristic way when we\u2019re over his shoulder as he sights in on the target. As we get into his head, we would tend to go very long, with Fujinon Premiere PL zooms [24-180, 75-400]. Two-hundred-millimeter, 300-millimeter, and 400-millimeter lenses. Leitz Summilux-C again, for the third time after Mindhunter <\/em>and Mank<\/em>. We pop back and forth between his POV and a more omniscient perspective, as I mentioned, the \u2018objective ghost.\u2019 We bring the audience into a space where no one ever gets closer than the character would allow anyone to get to him. In those situations, we\u2019re generally with 29- and 25-millimeter lenses.\u201d<\/p>\n From his nest, the assassin makes a study of the street around the hotel. \u201cA lot of the first 20 minutes that the killer is waiting for his target to show up is exterior POV\u2019s of what he is looking at,\u201d adds Scott. \u201cThere were seven cameras looking out from the fifth story of this apartment building and watching the action happening on the street and capturing the same action from other perspectives.\u201d<\/p>\n The ten shooting days in Paris included a motorcycle chase (also shot by first unit), with the opening sequence including location and stage work. \u201cThe interiors are complex,\u201d Messerschmidt states. \u201cAn interesting mix of stage and location elements were integrated, blending VFX plating in Paris and location work in New Orleans. There was the Killer\u2019s nest as he stakes out the target across the way in a Paris hotel, but the rooms inhabited by the target were done as stage elements in Louisiana and comped into the empty Paris hotel fa\u00e7ade. It\u2019s quite an elaborate magic trick, a culmination of four months of shooting and a ton of preplanning.\u201d<\/p>\n The office-cum-sniper\u2019s nest set also made use of playback screens. \u201cThe Paris shoot got us some plates, and we played those on these video panels,\u201d reveals Chief Lighting Technician Danny Gonz\u00e1lez. \u201cDon Burt did an awesome job, so when our main character is targeting his subject, Michael was able to watch these video panels and get the timing for how his prey is moving around. They worked for lighting as well as for performance-assist.\u201d<\/p>\n Gonz\u00e1lez devised an ingenious in-camera solution for interactive lighting as the Killer eyes his prize. \u201cFor the scope of his high-powered rifle, we had a prop house build an LED with a light engine on it so it could be animated to create an interactive effect,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt gave the impression that the image he saw through the scope was throwing light back onto his eye \u2013\u00a0a cool and subtle piece of work.\u201d<\/p>\n The sniper\u2019s eyelight is indicative of how, by involving all of his crew in the thought process, Fincher can work so efficiently yet still shoot a large number of takes when he deems it necessary. \u201cThere were something like 500 scenes in the movie, so you could have a single line, like \u2018the killer watches,\u2019 and that was half-a-day\u2019s shoot,\u201d reports Scott. \u201cBut we had 90 shoot days, so we had the time to do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDavid has a sign in his office that says, \u2018Fix it in prep,\u2019 notes A-Camera Operator Brian Osmond, SOC. \u201cIt\u2019s a great mantra, and [Fincher\u2019s] very big on minimizing surprises. With everybody in that mind space, we can head off problems of not having room to rig and things of that nature. No matter how much you prepare, something will invariably go wrong. But if you\u2019re prepared, then it won\u2019t be a complete surprise, and you\u2019ll be able to deal with it. There are films where you simply aren\u2019t allowed to put a camera in the desired position because the permission wasn\u2019t obtained beforehand, but that tends to not ever happen on a David Fincher project, because we\u2019re always so prepared. David and his team want the crew to know what is going on. They don\u2019t want anybody surprised, because that will impact on his time to make the film with his performers.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the action switches to the killer\u2019s home base in the<\/strong> Dominican Republic, a conversation between director and DP led to a surprising innovation. \u201cYou probably couldn\u2019t ever sell a desaturated look for the Dominican Republic, but David did get me to speculating when he said it should look humid,\u201d Messerschmidt recalls. \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be fun to experiment with heavy diffusion? We liked some of our test results, but the look wasn\u2019t quite there in terms of specific control. Light veiling, flare and double reflections made for situations that caused me to be suspicious about relying on something in front of the lens. I\u2019ve had as many if not more unsatisfying experiences with diffusion filtration than positive ones. I find it hard to judge in changing lighting conditions how well the filters are going to work across a whole scene. Whereas addressing these matters after a cut sequence emerges is an ideal time to apply this kind of look.\u201d<\/p>\n Then a solution presented itself. \u201cI stumbled across a plug-in for DaVinci Resolve called Scatter<\/em> [from Video Village], a diffusion emulator that can be applied in the DI,\u201d Messerschmidt continues. \u201cI sent it to [Eric Weidt] and asked if we could try this out. They were grading in BaseLight but wound up doing a separate pass on Resolve, and it got used at various places throughout the film. I was very pleased with the control we had with the results. You can tone it to the specific shot and render it out as needed, plus you can change it. You can say: \u2018See how it looks with BlackMagic ProMist or Glimmer Glass.\u2019 The latter is something that usually works better with a practical physical filter than through an emulation. Being able to art-direct the thing in DI was extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n The location offered two distinctly different looks, with city work in Santo Domingo contrasting with the beach feel of the island\u2019s north side. \u201cWorking on location, there\u2019s obviously the issue of getting the light in a way that supports the storytelling,\u201d states Gonz\u00e1lez. \u201cBut there\u2019s also the logistical aspect of what you are permitted to do \u2013 which hopefully gets resolved ahead of time. David figures out what he wants to shoot, and we are in the background attending to logistics, making it work for him. If there is a difficulty, we might bump that up the chain and tell him, \u2018This might be a big problem.\u2019 Usually we can make things work, sometimes just changing out existing fixtures for our own lamps.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re primarily LED, probably 90 percent,\u201d he continues. \u201cWe still use tungsten if there is an in-frame light intended to be incandescent, or if we have a night exterior and just need to light up trees in the background, I will use it there as well. HMI\u2019s for day exterior augmentation. One night parking-lot shoot had plenty of light from the existing units, but we extended that look back with 4K\u2019s deep in the background. David and Erik are very smart and responsible when it comes to these things. If we\u2019re only going to be at a location for a half day or less, then they may elect to do things a little more down-and-dirty to move things along. If we can rig early in the morning, then we can shoot and move on and have a clean-up crew in that evening, so we\u2019re done in one.\u201d<\/p>\n Gonz\u00e1lez offers an example of a more elaborate pre-rigging.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were at the airport in New Orleans \u2013 it\u2019s the old original airport, presently not functional, but they\u2019re in the process of reworking and rebuilding it for some use \u2013 for two-and-a-half or three shooting days,\u201d he adds. \u201cEvery location we shot at was its own scene, and it would make up maybe ten seconds in the final cut. All of them had to be lit, and there were hundreds of bulbs to switch out. But we had a rigging team get there about a week in advance to address these changeovers, plus set up a data network so we could control the lighting on our shooting days. We pretty much always try to patch all lights over to a lighting console, even on the smallest location.\u201d<\/p>\n The value in such an approach, Gonz\u00e1lez shares, is simple: \u201cSpeed and efficiency. When we need to bring something down in intensity, or if there is a dimming cue or a color change, this is the best way to keep the day on track. The ability to address all this with my programmer on the fly is tremendous, as opposed to the older way of Erik asking me to do something, which means I have a guy go in there with a ladder, which would have had David freaking out,\u201d he chuckles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a way, The Killer<\/em>\u2019s lead character reflects Fincher\u2019s<\/strong> determination to work efficiently to enable the best results. Messerschmidt says, \u201cthe film is very much about precision, control, and process. When Michael\u2019s character is in command of the situation, the camera is in lockstep with him. He and Brian Osmond became ballet partners along with Dolly Grip Dwayne Barr. They were practically connected mechanically in some situations. But when things go sour for the character, and he is not in a place of comfort, the camerawork gets looser and less mechanical, often through handheld work.\u201d<\/p>\n Osmond found the percentage of handheld work surprising given Fincher\u2019s inclination to avoid that route, though he felt fully supported by Scott\u2019s ability to pull focus in tricky situations. \u201cAlex is always thinking about his part of things and considering when might be the perfect moment to go for a focus pull if the person in the foreground makes a certain move,\u201d Osmond shares. \u201cIt is more than just \u2018the guy is six-two and leaning in slightly,\u2019 it is about contributing to the storytelling. I cannot do the job I do for David and Erik without Dwayne Barr and Alex. Those two guys are so great at what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n Scott finds that over the eight years working with Osmond and Barr they have developed an ability to anticipate that the film\u2019s main character might find admirable. \u201cIt\u2019s a treat to have this kind of continuity, and we each understand how things might go if something changes during a particular take,\u201d Scott reflects. \u201cMichael Fassbender was wholly on board with the need to coordinate with us, and he was always very consistent with his movements. We shot a lot of it pretty shallow, with figures silhouette-y as I saw them on my monitor, so pulling focus,\u00a0 especially with all the moving camera and handheld work, was interesting. Just reading the script, I could tell it was going to be a challenge because the assassin was such a perfectionist that we would all have to exhibit that same attention to detail.\u201d<\/p>\n The AC says he learned to pull focus on a 17-inch monitor as Fincher often stood behind him watching the action on the large, calibrated image. \u201cThere were occasions when our locations were just too tight, so we also had a 7-inch for those shots,\u201d he adds.\u201d I\u2019ve been using the LightRanger, which was a new tool for David. I talked with Erik about it in the beginning, given the director\u2019s expectations. We had to kind of sell him on that because he was trying to concentrate on the scene and didn\u2019t want the green bars to be distracting for him. I don\u2019t think I could have done the movie as well without it. We might do thirty takes for a given shot, and he wants every single one to be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even with a reputation for technical innovation, Fincher<\/strong> relies mainly on established means when possible. \u201cDavid and Erik use simpler tools than most people might expect,\u201d offers Osmond. \u201cWe use PeeWee dollies and mostly primes, a fluid head. Much of the work is done traditionally \u2013 though we do it at the highest level possible. We\u2019re not afraid to get technical \u2013 but you\u2019ll only see stabilized heads if that is what we need to get that shot. The last scene in the film was an elaborate dolly shot \u2013 it wasn\u2019t a oner in the end, but it did endeavor to tell a lot of the scene \u2013 and we had custom dolly track made \u2013 the grips getting involved with vendors in bending the track! To make this work, you need to really know the dimensions of the location.\u201d<\/p>\n Another scene that spanned stage and location occurs when the Killer engages with another assassin. \u201cThat took more than seven days to shoot, and was a very elaborate fight scene,\u201d Messerschmidt recounts. \u201cWe had conversations around how to do this, not wanting to do the classic long-lens handheld disorienting fight coverage that is such a staple of modern American cinema. This idea that the audience will feel the action is more exciting if the visuals are disorienting is \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Messerschmidt trails off, then continues to explain the battle. \u201cA gun gets lost early on, but then the hand-to-hand takes them all through the house until minutes later when they wind up where they started and the gun is retrieved. David wanted to make sure the audience understood the geography, so they\u2019d realize what he was going for just as he sees it. This involved screen direction, composition, and blocking, worked out with, again, precision \u2013 we were giving the audience the knowledge to understand what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Extensive stunt-vis and intensive rehearsal were needed to convey the brutality of the extended combat, and Messerschmidt says he felt the results were something they were all proud of. Gonz\u00e1lez contributed to the aftermath, which included a Molotov cocktail effect and subsequent fire explosion on the house caused by the Killer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n During postproduction, it is typical for post-stabilization to be<\/strong> employed on recent Fincher projects. \u201cThat\u2019s to finesse some frames,\u201d Messerschmidt adds. \u201cIn this case, we did a lot of post de<\/em>stabilization, because Brian is just too good of an operator, so we needed to screw the work up a little bit. A lot of that is, again, dependent on what emerges in the cut, so you can finesse the levels according to the pitch of the scene. It\u2019s truly an amazing storytelling tool.\u201d<\/p>\n Working with Weidt, Messerschmidt completed the HDR finish first. \u201cIn part that is because it is easier to work that way \u2013 always easier to condense than to expand in grading,\u201d he relates. \u201cThe Dolby Vision\/theatrical release offers a wider dynamic range finish than the SDR theatrical. So, we establish our reference points and set the hero version of the film in the picture. We\u2019re not <\/em>taking the audience to a thousand nits all the time. If anything, the HDR works more on the shadows than the highlights. In the early days of HDR, people started to get obsessed with showing off the image, upping LUT\u2019s, and the pushback from cinematographers was that it might be some kind of technical achievement but doesn\u2019t necessarily look good. Now that we\u2019ve had time with the medium, we have worked out what works well and what doesn\u2019t within the HDR realm.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the very first things we shot after coming back from the new year,\u201d Scott concludes, \u201chad the Killer waiting to get into an office and counting seconds while watching how long it takes for a door to close. It was a simple hallway set, but with the way David planned and executed it, it will play pretty spectacularly. Even with all the wonderful locations, to me, that little scene felt like such genuine filmmaking.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Killer – Local 600 Camera Team<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Director of Photography: Erik Messerschmidt, ASC<\/p>\n A-Camera Operator: Brian S. Osmond, SOC<\/p>\n A-Camera 1st AC: Alex Scott<\/p>\n A-Camera 2nd AC: Jonathan Clark<\/p>\n B-Camera Operator: Mick Froehlich, SOC<\/p>\n B-Camera 1st AC: Brian Wells<\/p>\n B-2nd AC: Matt Gaumer<\/p>\n C-Camera 1st AC: Chris Wittenborn<\/p>\n Second Unit Director of Photography: Tucker Korte<\/p>\n Plate Van Technician: Patrick Moynahan<\/p>\n Additional 1st AC: Dave Edsall<\/p>\n Additional 2nd AC: Liam Doyle<\/p>\n Unit Still Photographer: Miles Crist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oscar-winner Erik Messerschmidt, ASC, draws a bead on the mind of an assassin in David Fincher\u2019s\u00a0The Killer by Kevin Martin \/ Screengrabs Courtesy of Netflix\u00a0 Consider this promotional material for the 1969 assassin-at-a-crossroads film Hard Contract: \u201cEverything they do is 97 percent control and 3 percent emotion.\u201d Compare that with the mantra from the nameless lead character in The Killer, director David Fincher\u2019s newest feature for Netflix, shot by Oscar-winner Erik Messerschmidt, ASC. \u201cStick to your plan. Anticipate, don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-web-exclusive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/MATZ_R1_47_20221201j_v8_DoVi_20221215.0100765.jpg\")
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taking the audience to a thousand nits all the time. If anything, the HDR works more on the shadows than the highlights.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n