‘The Killer’: DP Erik Messerschmidt, Editor Kirk Baxter & Sound Designer Ren Klyce On “The Joy” Of Working With David Fincher – Contenders London

deadline.com:

In the David Fincher-directed film, The Killer, from a screenplay by Andrew Kevin Walker, and based on a graphic novel, Michael Fassbender stars as an assassin battling his employers when a hit goes terribly wrong.

Speaking during a panel at Deadline’s Contenders London event, editor Kirk Baxter addressed a rumor that the role required Fassbender to not blink at all.

There were many times watching the dailies where he heard Fincher’s voice saying, ‘That’s terrific, but let’s see that once again without the f—ing blinking.’ Baxter added, “Not so much that Fassbender needing that direction, it’s just been a thing.” He added, “I’ve always been opposed to that idea, that if somebody’s delivering a key moment in a scene, especially if it comes with dialogue and this is the reason they did it, and if you want them to have gravitas and it’s up close, and it’s closing a scene, and if that same line is blinking all the way through the delivery it’s diluted of any power.” Asked how much the original graphic novel of the same name was referenced, cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt said, “We really looked at it from a place of composition and story structure and how we would use the frame.

The film is very much, I think, about process and procedure and state of mind and graphic novels have a lot in common with cinema in terms of how they tell a story visually.