![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mindhunter1.jpg\")
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In the Season 1 finale of Netflix\u2019s MINDHUNTER<\/em>, a disturbed FBI Agent, Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), bursts wildly from a hospital room, as a handheld camera gives chase. The move begins as shaken as Ford is, but, as it lands with the agent, who collapses in the hallway, it\u2019s as if the camera has floated to a butter-smooth stop inches from the floor, the maneuver executed like it was on a perfectly balanced jib arm, crane, or even Steadicam. But it\u2019s none of those. What can viewers assume from this?<\/p>\n For this series about a pair of agents working in the FBI\u2019s elite Behavioral Sciences Unit in 1979, and attempting to understand the mind of a serial killer, Fincher used a number of leading-edge technologies \u2013 interactive LED lighting, custom built high-resolution cameras, and, as in the shot with Agent Ford, image stabilization\/smoothing in postproduction \u2013 to keep the viewer visually embedded. Fincher\u2019s aim with MINDHUNTER, which has no graphic violence, is for viewers to \u201caccess their own attics. There\u2019s far scarier stuff up there than anything we can fabricate,\u201d the filmmaker insists. \u201cI wanted people to register what\u2019s going on in [characters\u2019] eyes and where the gear changes are taking place. At what point do I [as the viewer] feel like, \u2018OK, I\u2019ve got an insight,\u2019 and at what point do they feel like: \u2018oh, I\u2019m being sold something. It\u2019s all about the nuance in how the balance of power is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n Fincher\u2019s longtime postproduction supervisor, Peter Mavromates, says he creates an \u201cexperience of omniscience,\u201d similar to Kubrick\u2019s A Clockwork Orange<\/em>, \u201cwhere you\u2019re in a straitjacket with your eyelids pinned open, and David\u2019s forcing you to watch these horrible things.\u201d In fact, the show\u2019s unique visual process began more than a year before production started in Pittsburgh (on area locations and on stages at 31st Street Studios, a former steel mill), with the development of a unique RED camera system.<\/p>\n Christopher Probst, ASC \u2013 who shot MINDHUNTER\u2019S<\/em> pilot and second episode \u2013 was asked for his input on a RED prototype system, which had been designed by Jarred Land and RED\u2019s Chief Designer Matt Tremblay according to Fincher\u2019s specific needs. \u201cDavid wanted to take all of the different exterior add-ons that create a jungle of wires, and put them inside the camera body,\u201d Probst explains.<\/p>\n Fincher puts it even more directly: \u201cIt just seems insane that we\u2019ve been bequeathed a [camera] layout [dating back to] D.W. Griffith and Charlie Chaplin that looks like some bizarre Medusa. [The camera] should be something that people want to approach, touch, and pick up.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the custom system built for Season 1 [Land created a 2.0 version being used in Season 2] had an RTMotion MK3.1 lens-control system, Paralinx Arrow-X wireless video, and Zaxcom wireless audio (with timecode) integrated into the RED body, with the only visible cable being to control the lens. Slating was all but eliminated, with clip-number metadata being shared wirelessly between the camera and the script supervisor, who used Filemaker software to associate takes and clips. An audio scratch track from the mixer was recorded onto the REDCODE RAW R3D files and received wirelessly.<\/p>\n The base camera was one of RED\u2019s DSMC2 systems, the then-new WEAPON DRAGON, with its 6K sensor. The shell design, accommodating the added gear inside, with its angular shape and heat venting fins on top, had a \u201cXenomorph\u201d appearance (\u00e0 la Alien<\/em>), and was dubbed as such by Land and Fincher. \u201cWhen the camera arrived in Pittsburgh, they had actually engraved \u201cXenomorph\u201d on the side,\u201d Probst says.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid would stand there with me,\u201d describes A-camera Operator Brian Osmond, SOC, \u201cand say, \u2018Show me what you got.\u2019 Then he would just look at that side monitor, and I would look at my own. People could walk up to the right side of the camera, take a glance, and say, \u2018Okay, I see,\u2019 and walk away. It was a really efficient way to work.\u201d<\/p>\n The design was a favorite with assistants as well.\u00a0 \u201cIf you\u2019re in a tight spot, like inside a car, it was nice not having to remove the transmitter or MDR and reconfigure everything,\u201d recalls A-camera 1st AC Alex Scott. \u201cEverything was built in, no cables \u2013 just a really clean form factor.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Fincher had used Leica\u2019s Summilux C Series lenses on Gone Girl<\/em>,<\/strong> Probst tested them on RED\u2019s 8K VistaVision-sized Dragon prototype to determine where each focal length covered the various possible resolutions. Fincher and Probst then decided the lenses would work best on a 6K system, to avoid any portholing effect.<\/p>\n \u201cI love those lenses,\u201d says cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt, a former gaffer and Fincher veteran who replaced Probst on Episode 3 and shot the remainder of the first season. \u201cThey\u2019re fast and sharp, and the color is consistent, from lens to lens.\u201d<\/p>\n Messerschmidt says the series was filmed almost entirely on 29- and 40-mm lenses, which, Osmond adds, fit well with the show\u2019s aesthetic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked close and wide, which is really true to life,\u201d the operator notes. \u201cIf you want to see somebody close up, you walk over to them, you don\u2019t change the focal length of your eyes, and those lenses perform well in that way.\u201d The series is also shot in 2.21:1 aspect ratio, which Fincher used on House of Cards<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s the equivalent of 70mm 5-perf widescreen spherical.\u201d Fincher notes. \u201cWhich is a good aspect ratio for 16:9 displays. To me, 2.40:1 feels chopped in the middle once it gets into a display. It\u2019s a less obtrusive letterbox, and still gives the viewer a widescreen feel.\u201d<\/p>\n As noted, Probst shot the pilot and second episode, and helped develop the look of the series. Messerschmidt served as a consultant during the prep of the show (he was unable to serve as gaffer due to a commitment to Claudio Miranda, ASC, and suggested his former lighting technician, Danny Gonz\u00e1lez, be MINDHUNTER\u2019S<\/em> gaffer). When Messerschmidt took over DP chores, he brought on Focus Puller David Edsall, B-camera operator David Richert, and Key Grip Paul Goodstein. Scott, fellow A-camera assistant Gary Bevans, and Dolly Grip Dwayne Barr were already in place from the pilot and worked the entire season.<\/p>\n \u201cDavid wanted a low-contrast kind of seventies look,\u201d Messerschmidt recalls. \u201cBut he didn\u2019t want to hit the audience over the head with the period; production design and costume design can do most of that work for you.\u201d<\/p>\n Gonz\u00e1lez supports that thinking, noting that, \u201cwe were constantly adding practicals and lights in the frame, using that to motivate with, and sometimes just using that,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez recounts. \u201cWe would always have lights we could put in the frame, and then augment, hiding our sources outside of frame.\u201d<\/p>\n An example would be an expected overhead light purposely left powered off, even though it\u2019s visible in frame, in favor of a lamp. Another would be, in the case of FBI Unit Chief Sheppard (Cotter Smith), lighting mostly from outside the blinds of his large office window. Gonz\u00e1lez utilized T8 Technologies\u2019 daylight-balanced Luma Panels (above the window and on the ground), bounced into muslin or gray cloth, to provide a general ambience. Green screen was also used, lit with Cineo HS2 fixtures \u2013 panels of uncoated LED emitters, in front of which can be placed panels of phosphors of whatever color is needed. \u201cThe HS2s give a rich, saturated green,\u201d Gonz\u00e1lez adds. \u201cAnd if you get a more saturated green, you don\u2019t need as much light, which helps with spill.\u201d<\/p>\n The apartment of Ford\u2019s girlfriend, Debbie, has numerous 1970\u2019s practicals, courtesy of set dresser Tracey Doyle, who Probst notes, \u201cwas excited about recreating the environment of her hippie youth.\u201d Instead of hard ceilings overhead, LiteGear LiteMats were placed above stretched muslin for an out-of-frame ambient source to augment the practicals and other custom-made LED sources Gonz\u00e1lez would hide. \u201cIt gave us a bit of that Conrad Hall \u2018room tone\u2019 aesthetic, which worked well for that set,\u201d Messerschmidt adds.<\/p>\n Fans of MINDHUNTER<\/em> know the agent\/serial killer interviews,<\/strong> all done inside the prisons, are at the core of the viewer experience. Scenes with killers Ed Kemper and Jerry Brudos were photographed at Westmoreland County Prison in Greensburg, PA, subbing for California Medical Facility in Vacaville, CA and another in Oregon. Key to the cold and sparse Kemper look were 400 5000K fluorescent bulbs (\u201csuper cool whites,\u201d as Gonz\u00e1lez calls them), along with pre-rigged lighting that offered three different looks. The closed \u2013 and very creepy \u2013 West Virginia State Penitentiary in Moundsville, WV sat in for Joliet prison, for visits with murderer Richard Speck [the interview set was built on a stage in Pittsburgh]. \u201cDavid said: \u2018It should look like Dracula\u2019s breakfast nook,\u2019\u201d Messerschmidt laughs.<\/p>\n With so many road-trip conversations between the main characters, Fincher wasn\u2019t about to ruin the experience by using a cheap process methodology. Instead, he used an ingenious combination of realistic, multi-angle plate photography and plate projection on stage as interactive lighting, later comped in post. Far from a \u201cpoor man\u2019s process\u201d photography, the high-tech approach produced an uncanny realism.<\/p>\n Probst set 11 RED EPIC cameras on the plate vehicle (a Mercedes Metris SUV), representing all pre-visualized angles for conversation shots inside a car. He then catalogued the lens height and angles (in loaded vehicles) of the many picture car autos to be used, making a \u201cDenny\u2019s menu\u201d book of information. The cameras were mounted on sliders from Modern Studio Equipment, with vertical scales and rotation angles printed onto \u201c80\/20\u201d modular rails, on which the cameras would be raised or lowered to the correct height and angle for the subject car.<\/p>\n After capturing shots of the actors \u2013 using the Xenomorphs \u2013 arriving or driving through particular locations in their car, another pass was made using the plate vehicle, to easily capture the plate material in the same location, at the same time of day and same lighting that would be used on the process stage.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to reset, circle back for two miles, deal with police escorts and closing streets or \u2018Listen, we can only do this two times,\u2019\u201d Osmond notes.<\/p>\n Returning to the process stage, the same vehicle was then placed on jacks (allowing realistic wheel turns) and surrounded by green screen. The editorial department would select footage from the plate shoot, from which Fincher dialed-in his final selects. That was played back on large WinVision Air 9-mm video panels, with shower-curtain-type material placed in front, to diffuse the image. The panels are placed high enough to be out of sight of the camera, but low enough to allow reflection of the blurry, but accurate, content onto window glass, chrome, and the actors\u2019 faces. The result is true interactive lighting: timecode synched, to allow the very same footage to be comped-in behind or ahead of the actors. \u201cIf a white truck passes the guys in the plate, there\u2019s a white reflection passing along the chrome of the car,\u201d Messerschmidt describes.<\/p>\n Adds Fincher: \u201cWe started using [interactive] LED\u2019s on Zodiac<\/em>. Now, the LED\u2019s are so efficient and bright, and the color\u2019s so good, they can push completely into the car.\u201d<\/p>\n The process has been perfected in Fincher\u2019s Hollywood offices, which contains a VFX department, editorial, and even color timing on a Baselight by in-house colorist Eric Weidt. Working from Fincher\u2019s notes, compositor Chad Peter uses tracking software (SynthEyes) to export data to Adobe After Effects \u2013 used to reanimate the camera operation. \u201cIt gives it a stabilized and machine-perfected look,\u201d Mavromates adds. Probst and Messerschmidt would shoot the show in a 5K-protected frame within the Xenomorph\u2019s 6K frame, leaving 1K worth of border for Mavromates to correct for even the smallest compositional imperfections Fincher or others would identify. But Fincher adds, \u201creframing is a bad misnomer. To me it\u2019s just combing through [the footage] to remove distracting misses or miscues.\u201d<\/p>\n Although one (or both) processes were used in every shot in which the camera moves, the scene with Agent Holden in the hospital put the methodology to the test. Osmond shot Groff sitting on a butt dolly pulled by Barr in true handheld mode \u2013 a rarity for Fincher, who says he only uses handheld \u201cwhen it\u2019s not in the service of making something cheaper.\u201d As Messerschmidt describes: \u201cDavid was interested in letting the anxiety of the character take hold \u2013 that\u2019s why we ran handheld down the hallway with him. But then, as he completely falls apart, the frame becomes very stable. So it appears to go from handheld to almost Steadicam to motion control.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDavid wanted it physically rough at the start, and then we flew down the hall, and I did my best toward the end of the shot, to hold it as steady as I could, as he hit the ground,\u201d Osmond adds. \u201cI can say I shot handheld for David Fincher \u2013 it does happen!\u201d<\/p>\n Messerschmidt puts it best when describing Fincher\u2019s singular approach to moviemaking. \u201cHe\u2019s a very purposeful filmmaker. The frame is sacred; what we choose to include is intrinsic to what the audience thinks is important. They are one and the same.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n by Matt Hurwitz<\/em> <\/p>\n Directors of Photography<\/strong> Erik Messerschmidt A-Camera Operator<\/strong> A-Camera 1st AC<\/strong> B-Camera Operator<\/strong> B-Camera 1st AC<\/strong> B-Camera 2nd AC<\/strong> Additional AC<\/strong> Loader<\/strong> Still Photographers<\/strong> Visualizing the daring and often scary world of David Fincher requires new technologies and processes rarely attempted in series television. In the Season 1 finale of Netflix\u2019s MINDHUNTER, a disturbed FBI Agent, Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff), bursts wildly from a hospital room, as a handheld camera gives chase. The move begins as shaken as Ford is, but, as it lands with the agent, who collapses in the hallway, it\u2019s as if the camera has floated to a butter-smooth stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7853,"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],"tags":[493,300,492,36,37,40,491,379],"class_list":["post-7852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-christopher-probst","tag-david-fincher","tag-erik-messerschmidt","tag-icg","tag-icg-magazine","tag-local-600","tag-mindhunter","tag-netflix"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mindhunter2.jpg\")
\nA 7-inch RED monitor was mounted atop the shell for the operator\u2019s use (eyepieces were rarely used, except for occasional bright exteriors). Fincher requested another 7-inch monitor be integrated into the side of the camera for those who might otherwise ask the operator for a quick view.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mindhunter3.jpg\")
\nMesserschmidt also brought in a unique visual perspective, having worked as an assistant to renowned still photographer Gregory Crewdson. \u201c[Crewdson\u2019s] work lives right on the edge between reality and surrealism,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe audience knows what you\u2019re making is fake \u2013 so it\u2019s riding that knife\u2019s edge between telling a real story without letting it be too theatrical.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mindhunter4.jpg\")
\n\u201cRiding in a car next to somebody you can see how much the light changes on their face,\u201d Fincher notes about the approach. \u201cWe\u2019re so used to seeing these car chases, with 1200-watt Pars blasting into one side of the character\u2019s face, it\u2019s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/mindhunter5.jpg\")
\nAs noted, Fincher\u2019s work often has a unique sense of omniscience.<\/strong> The very precise and deliberate work the Local 600 camera team creates for him on-set is typically augmented or enhanced in postproduction through motion smoothing or stabilization. Fincher first used post-smoothing in 2002\u2019s Panic Room<\/em> and has refined the process through recent projects like Gone Girl<\/em>, House of Cards<\/em> and now MINDHUNTER<\/em>. By removing even the slightest bump or unwanted motion in a jib arm or dolly move, Mavromates explains, \u201cthere\u2019s no reminder a human is involved. You\u2019re floating, almost godlike, because the camera is perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe same process was also used for reframing.<\/p>\n
\nphotos by Patrick Harbron & Merrick Morton, SMPSP<\/em><\/p>\nLOCAL 600 CREW LIST<\/h3>\n
\nChristopher Probst, ASC
\n(Pilot, Episode 2)<\/p>\n
\n(Episodes 3-10)<\/p>\n
\nBrian S. Osmond, SOC<\/p>\n
\nAlex Scott<\/p>\n
\nDavid Richert<\/p>\n
\nDavid Edsall
\nRick Crumrine<\/p>\n
\nGary Bevans<\/p>\n
\nPaul Toomey<\/p>\n
\nBill Crumrine<\/p>\n
\nMerrick Morton, SMPSP
\nPatrick Harbron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"