David Fincher On Red

It was recently announced that David Fincher (Seven, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) would shoot his next film, Social Network, on the Red One camera. The film is written by Aaron Sorkin and the DoP is Jeff Cronenweth (son of the awesome Jordan Cronenweth) returning to work with Fincher for the first time since Fight Club. They are in the fortunate position of having an early version of the new Mysterium-X sensor in the cameras they are using.

At a recent Q&A session, RedUser member Michael Kontaxis got to ask David Fincher why, after shooting his last few films on the Viper, he’s decided to shoot this feature on the Red One. The full text of the reply can be read here, but what stood out for me in his reply was the statement “I really like the sense of what the picture is, I like that its not so clean that it looks like video tape, like “digital”, and when I put airquotes around it, I mean that it doesn’t have that plasticky waxworks-like look that makes faces look oddly plasticky.”

“Oddly plasticky” might not be the most technical way of describing things, but it does neatly sum up one of the biggest advantages the Red One has over other digital cinema cameras. Whether the reason is a lack of in-camera processing, the fact that no sharpening is applied to the image as happens with HD, or even if the Red is less “accurate” in it’s reproduction of colours, the fact is it produces remarkably film-like images. This is not to say that Red footage looks exactly like film, but it certainly has an aesthetic that more closely resembles film than digital.

With various groups running different tests and coming out with widely varying numbers which then get used to make arguments for and against the Red One, we think it’s good to remember that at the end of the day what’s really important is the look a filmmaker is trying to achieve and whether they have the right tools to make that happen. There are many excellent filmmakers (both well known and unknown) out there who are creating stunning images with the Red One camera and it’s great to see that someone of David Fincher’s reputation is one of them.