Netflix To Enter Original Programming With Mega Deal For David Fincher-Kevin Spacey Series 'House Of Cards'
via Deadline
EXCLUSIVE: Video streaming juggernaut Netflix is becoming an original programming player. In what is probably the biggest gamble in its 14-year history, I hear Netflix has outbid several major cable networks, including HBO and AMC, for Media Rights Capital's drama series House of Cards, executive produced and directed by David Fincher and exec produced by and starring Kevin Spacey.
Negotiations are still going on, but I hear Netflix landed the drama project by offering a staggering commitment of two seasons, or 26 episodes. Given that the price tag for a high-end drama is in the $4 million-$6 million an episode range and that a launch of a big original series commands tens of millions of dollars for promotion, the deal is believed to be worth more than $100 million and could change the way people consume TV shows.
Ever since Liberty Media chairman John Malone in October drew a comparison between Netfix and HBO, industry experts have speculated whether Netflix would become the next HBO by venturing into originals. HBO, too, established itself as premium cable movie channel before hitting gold with original series that have now become its bread and butter. Netflix, which dominates the movie streaming market at 61%, had said in the past that it was not interested in branching into original programming. Until now.
Given the strong interest in House of Cards from multiple networks, observers had speculated that the project may get an episodic commitment, but a massive two-season order is pretty unheard of these days. Going straight to series itself is a risky proposition as attested by NBC, which recently tried it before reverting to the traditional pilot model. Besides the sandals-and-toga Rome, which was a co-production with the BBC, HBO has piloted pretty much all of its projects, including those with A-list talent such as Martin Scorsese/Terence Winter's Boardwalk Empire and Michael Mann/David Milch's Luck starring Dustin Hoffman. AMC went straight to series on The Walking Dead but with a modest six-episode order. Rome and Fox's CGI extravaganza Terra Nova started off with 13-episode orders. Starz, which has been going straight-to-series with its dramas, ordered 10 episodes of Camelot and 8 of Boss. Snatching a high-profile project like House of Cards is certain to put Netflix on the map. But by committing to air/stream and market a 26-episode original series, something it has never done before, it will also put the company to the test.
Despite its dominant position in the movie-streaming business, Netflix, which was just upgraded to "buy" by Goldman Sachs, has been feeling the heat from new competition, including Amazon.com, which last month announced it was entering the subscription streaming-media business, and Facebook, which last week announced a deal with Warner Bros. to experiment with streaming the studio's The Dark Knight directly through the social media service. In fact, on the day the Facebook/Warner Bros. deal was announced, Netflix's shares fell 6%.
Netflix has been looking to diversify beyond movies. The day Amazon.com announced its entry into the online video space, Netflix unveiled a $200 million deal with CBS for two years for nonexclusive rights to stream such shows as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, Family Ties, Twin Peaks, Cheers and Frasier. Adding original series to the portfolio seemed like a natural next step.
In August, Netflix shored up its core streaming business with a $1 billion, five-year pact for online streaming rights to movies from Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM. (It also inked a pact with Relativity Media, while renewal talks with early movie partner Starz, which has provided Netflix with access to Sony and Disney titles, are still ongoing.)
Meanwhile, MRC has built its TV business on a direct-to-series model with such projects as animated comedies The Life & Times of Tim and The Ricky Gervais Show, the short-lived series for the CW's Sunday block and the Lifetime comedy Rita Rocks, which went through pilot but in a two-pilot deal with the network guaranteeing that one of the pilots will go to series.
In his TV directorial debut, Fincher will helm the pilot for House of Cards, which is based on the book and British miniseries of the same name. Fincher is executive producing with Eric Roth, Joshua Donen as well as Spacey and his producing partner at Trigger Street Prods. Dana Brunetti. The political-thriller novel House of Cards, written by Michael Dobbs, a former Conservative Party chief of staff, is set at the end of Margaret Thatcher's tenure as prime minister and follows a British politician with his eye on the top job. In 1990, it was adapted by the BBC as a miniseries written by Andrew Davies and starring Ian Richardson. Fincher's adaptation, set in the U.S., was written by playwright-screenwriter Beau Willimon (The Ides of March).
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This is a big-fucking-deal.
biggest gamble in the company's history and they're betting on kevin "flop-machine" spacey??
they must be confusing the million times Silias streams that guy's stinkbombs every week (even though he owns them all) with an actual rock solid fan base. "the numbers don't lie, america LOVES this sad-faced man who has not chosen a hit project in more than 10 years! they'll follow him anywhere!"
and fincher must be looking for a guarranteed turd to make it clear to everyone that The Social Network was the peak of his career.
I imagine the strength of the scripts, not Spacey's star power, will drive viewership of the series. It sounds like a natural extension of the direction Fincher began heading with Zodiac and The Social Network, and I have to imagine there's some kind of stylistic angle he's going to come at this material with that will elevate it above expectations.
How they're going to distinguish it from Netflix's thousands of other streaming titles is a different story. This isn't HBO where people see the logo and think of only a handful of programming. My guess is they'll have an "Exclusive Content" or "Netflix Originals" tab or something in that order...getting people to pay attention, though. Hm. Definitely interested in how this pans out. Mountains will be moved if it's a success.
Total game changer.
The first episode is up to view even for non-subscribers at this link (http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/House_of_Cards/70178217?locale=en-US).
I hate his accent.
Okay I watched the first two eps (I think both were directed by Fincher). I don't love his accent but I do like this show. it's Shakespearean at heart, with little charming soliloquies that can range from a monologue to a little look, and it works well! Again Shakespearean influence when you see this fella manipulating Washington, Richard III springs to mind. I can't wait to watch the rest, and the great thing is, we don't need to wait week-by-week, they're all available now. It's lit and shot exactly like any other Fincher film, using the RED Epic aswell. The Washington Herald looks like an updated version of the San Francisco Chronicle in Zodiac. But most of the other scenes have the aesthetic straight out of The Social Network, to cut it short, it looks too good to be a series. I'm most interested in how this visual aesthetic will change when one of the other directors takes the helm, Fincher has talked previously that the visuals in his films have to be homogenous, I wonder if that same discipline will apply here. Anyway I recommend it.
In the Fresh Air interview, they played one clip where Spacey had that shockingly bad southern accent that rivals even Andrew Lincoln, and another clip where he seemed to have no accent at all. I'm curious to know how it turns out. I'm also curious about Robin Wright, because for me she's always had the effect of sucking the life out of every scene she's in.
Disclaimer: I'm five episodes in.
I like this show. I wasn't that crazy about the first episode, but it seems to keep getting better. Fincher has set up a good style for the subject matter, and Spacey seems to be the only person who could pull off such a ridiculous role.
Now on to what I don't like: the choice to release all 13 eps at once. I enjoy discussing television shows (especially dramas) episode by episode. Granted, that is still possible if you just get a group of friends together and decide on a watching schedule, but that doesn't change the fact that I can't discuss it episode by episode places like here.
I have nothing against binging on whole seasons of shows, and I get that people do that on netflix. I do it, you do it, we all do it. The stats they have on watching habits don't lie, but the most likely reason I'm binging on a show on Netflix (or elsehwhere) is either because I'm trying to catch up so I can watch it with everyone else when it's normally scheduled, or because I'm trying to watch the entire series that everyone else has already watched and rec'd. Neither of those apply here. I'm just watching eps wondering what episode other people are on and where they think the show is going. When I'm done I'll just be waiting for people to finish, discuss it briefly, and then wait for season 2.
Maybe I'll change my mind about this. The CEO of Netflix certainly seems to think I will, but we'll see.
Definitely an interesting perspective. It's another argument against, as is the business sense of doing things that way.
David Fincher Exclusive: The Making Of House Of Cards
via Empire
The director talks process, politics and not knowing...
The latest issue of Empire (March 2013, issue 285) includes an exclusive set visit to House Of Cards, detailing the making of the sly political drama, which has premiered to great acclaim on the streaming site Netflix.
Empire spent four days on set in Baltimore with David Fincher - as he directed the first two episodes - and then interviewed him a couple of times back in Los Angeles, while he oversaw the series as executive producer. Below is an extended extract from one of those interviews, conducted in his Hollywood offices in October, 2012. Fincher talks about the inception of the show, working with other directors, and the essential qualities of his cast. He also goes into detail about his process on set and how he has changed, as a director, over the years.
Had you seen the BBC series before you were approached with this?
I hadn't. Josh Donen, who I was looking for producing projects with, called me and said, "Have you ever seen this British television show?" So I saw it and you see Ian Richardson and just go, "Wow - how much fun is this?!" It's just so much fun, this idea, and it's so simple and so direct. The breaking of the fourth wall creates such an interesting and immediate relationship with the audience. The way it was structured was very smart. Meeting him at his lowest point and watching him gain traction as he begins to move all the pieces on the chess board. So I saw it and said, "This is pretty great... but I don't know how to take it out of parliamentary politics and move it to the US. I don't know where it should take place."
I had read Farragut North - the play - years ago, when it was making the rounds in Hollywood. I thought it was good, but I didn't realise it was Ides of March, and I read Ides Of March and thought, "How do I know this?" And Josh said, "Beau Willimon would like to come in and sort of pitch this world."
So he came in and said, "I see this and I see this. And this is how I see it transposes itself, but here is where I want to take it..." We started talking about the notion of politics for the sake of politics. Any kind of system that has this much money and there's absolute power corrupting absolutely. You know what [the author of the novel, Michael] Dobbs is talking about at the time: how - very much in the same way as Hollywood - perceived reality is reality. It has little or nothing to do with what is really going on. It's about whose righteous indignation can be stoked at any given moment; all of the corollary and ancillary disappointments and ego gratification. And heroes are made and heroes are vanquished and villains are made and villains are resurrected as heroes. And it was very smart. And the thing that Beau was talking about seemed like a very interesting and wholly American take on it. It definitely had this unbridled capitalistic bent: the appetites were very American.
So he wrote the first episode and you shopped it around?
We took it around to a lot of networks and they all loved it and they all were interested, but nobody wanted to commit to 13 episodes. So we were kind of dead in the water. In my infinite hubris, I was: "Why not? If we're gonna do it you may as well do 13." Because it's so much work. It's 100 hours a week to do a shit job. I mean there are things that I will definitely never be able to get done the way that I would want it to be. (And that happens on $150million movies.)
But television: you are in a gigantic boat that doesn't turn and you are going over the waterfall. For nine months. And you can pretend that you can steer this thing, or you've set it up so that, when it finally hits, the water is deep enough. But it is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's so much oversight and so nuanced. It requires so many collaborators at every conceivable level. You pretty much have to get five pages done every day. The question becomes, "How good can I get it? I'd really like to step outside, but we can't. We don't have greenscreen, we don't have this, we can't do that today... If we add that piece we'll never get it by lunch." You're constantly thinking "Story, story, story. Narrative, narrative, narrative." "Do I need this? What do I have to have? How do I change this up?" That aspect of it is both daunting and frustrating and also incredibly exciting. It turns you into a group of people trying to put on a show. You really do become a cheerleader. I find myself, when I watch dailies of episodes I didn't direct, I'm rooting for Kristen [Connolly, who plays Christina Gallagher]. "Kristen killed this scene!" Because it's like summer camp: all of your new friends that you went through that thing that was so intense with. I spent a good two/three months in Baltimore. It was like going on location for a movie. So that aspect of it was really amazing.
Who are the other directors?
Joel Schumacher, James Foley, Charles McDougall, Carl Franklin - awesome - and now Allen Coulter. Jamie did the first two after me and then he just did [episode] nine. It's such a great thing. I didn't know Charles' work until they started pumping me with DVDs saying "You should see this director". I didn't know who he was, but I recognised, "I remember this show. I loved this!" And Allen's work I knew because I loved his George Reeves movie [Hollywoodland]. And Carl: One False Move and Devil In A Blue Dress. Same thing with Jamie; there aren't that many movies out there from plays that are as good as Glengarry Glen Ross. He put it over the left field wall with that one. That's tough material. All these guys...
Joel has been a friend of mine for over 30 years. It happened that it was possible. I mean Allen Coulter doesn't really play a designated hitter. He shoots pilots. Charles: the same thing. We were lucky to get these guys. It's been really interesting being behind that other desk.
You see things everyday as they come in?
Every day.
Is Kirk Baxter [one of Fincher's regular editors] cutting them all?
No, there are three editors.
Are they working with the directors or with you?
No. I mean, I give notes on stuff, but I hired all of these guys by saying, my standard line is: "I hope you'll think about it if I have a note but, trust me, I know how to go fuck myself." The thing is, I would only want to work with people who are showing up to show off. I want directors to be able to come in and tear it up. It's not about just creating: filling hours of shelf space. It's not about filling a vast depository of megabits. I want people to have a sense of pride. I want people to come away going, "Wow, I got to do whatever I thought was right." I would never tell a director he should be over here. "Dude I wanna see where you'd go with it!"
I had a nice letter from Michael Dobbs, talking about the loss of his "baby" and it's true: I'm picking up from where the show ended 20 years ago. So, I said to him, "It's all our baby now and we take its development really seriously. We want to see it." And there are some odd ideas about. Beau does have some conventional ideas about television drama but then he shows up with an episode where you say: "Try it." There's this whole episode that takes place at this library that has been dedicated to Kevin's character. I would tease him and say "We're not doing Hot Lips rolling in a jeep and having a concussion. We can do that in the 18th year." But he's pushing. He's doing his thing. We're trying to do what we think is interesting. We're trying, and that's the fun part.
And he's hiring writers for the second season?
Yeah. We have a second season. We hope. Unless they tell us, "We think it would be so much better if we stopped now. It'll be so much more dramatic." But, yeah, we've already started thinking about season two.
Will you direct?
I'd love to. I really like it. I love this cast. Except for maybe two people. No, I'm teasing.
Is the script locked when you come to shoot?
No. A lot of times with read-throughs the directors come and say, "I don't like this. I don't get this." My attitude is [locking the script is] like saying to an actor, "You can make this work!" You're just teeing yourself up for heartbreak. You have to go, "Tell me why. What is it you see? What do you connect to?"
Do you rewrite on set?
There have been days like that. There have been. Hideously.
Ted Sarandos [Netflix's Chief Content Officer] said, "It's not a case of Fincher adapting to television, it's about television adapting to Fincher..."
I don't know. Certainly for the first two episodes... But no, look, it's television adapting to Carl Franklin unleashed. And it's not as if the directors show up and have four months lead-time and say, "I'd really like to do an episode in zero gravity" and you say "Great, let's work that in!" It's that they have a script and they say "This seems like bullshit to me. I don't know how to make this work." Then you scramble to make it as good as it can be.
What television do you enjoy?
I like Breaking Bad a lot. Haven't seen it recently. I liked the first couple of seasons. I TiVo'd that. I liked a lot of mid-term Sopranos. I liked the little moments, as opposed to the killing of that character or the killing of that character. I don't watch that much TV. I watched a lot when I was a kid. I like the notion of getting to know a character over longer periods of time. I like the evolution of that. I think there's something very personal about the relationship that an audience develops with somebody that they spend two or three years with, rather than two or three hours. That part of it is interesting to me.
Could you see yourself doing a movie for Netflix?
Making a movie that doesn't get to the theatre? I don't think it's a movie if you do that. For me a movie has always been the theatrical experience, going into a sensory-deprivation environment with more people than you could healthily know in your social life. Strangers. And having the lights go out and having the lights go up on a portal that gives you insight and entertainment and controls what you hear and see for two hours. That communal experience is a movie to me. That's half of the experience.
Often people say to me, I'm not sure if they're just trying to be snide but, "I like your movies better at home theatre." And you ask "Why?". And they say "It's a more subtle transaction. I feel you make movies for DVD viewing, movies to be seen again and again." That is true, but I hope on the first go round that it can play in a 45-foot screen and it can play to 500 people in proximity. But downstream of that I'm happy to make a Blu-ray or to make a high definition experience for people who have a 12-foot screen in their home. I actually like the relationship of... it's almost novelistic. Reading fiction you can set it down, go have a sandwich and think about it. You pick up your book. Read a couple of chapters, go for a swim. I like that movies can have that relationship, but I feel that relationship is better, ultimately, downstream of the theatrical.
But I can see myself... there are movies I'd like to make that cost between $15million and £30million that if Netflix said, "We'd love to see what you'd do with this..." I'd devise it for home theatre, because it is a different thing. Shooting for the iPad: it's so odd. The monitors we use on set are bigger than that. When you think of the idea of this thing being crushed down to this tablet I do get wistful. But it also helps. You think "They're not going to see that the focus pull was so late".
In terms of politics, House Of Cards just seems more and more relevant...
The governing idea behind any bureaucracy is the funding of that bureaucracy, the perpetuation of that bureaucracy. Any group of homo sapiens, if they're united under an idea, believe that their protection of that ideal, or the furthering of that ideal, is as important as the ideal itself. It'll just happen. What interested me was Francis is... Francis is not amoral – actually, I guess he is amoral – but he's apolitical. He's in it for the ground-acquisition of people like himself. He's not betrayed by a differing belief system. He's betrayed by politics. And his retribution is political. That was what was interesting to me: the idea of that arc. The thing that he couldn't forgive them was not what they did but the way that they did it.
"If we are students of the game and we have risen through the same ranks and hold the same things dear, then certainly, including me in the decision of how my career was not about to be furthered, at an earlier date, would have been wise." That's all he's saying. And he goes off. And what we see is someone who is not a grandmaster at political chess, but a guy who says, "While no one's looking, if this board was to fall off the table, that could further my agenda as much as having three moves ahead of the competition."
Maybe that's what makes him appealing...
The deliciousness of it is in its execution. I don't hate Francis Underwood. You can't help but pity him, but he's also so watchable.
If they'd included him in the decision not to make him Secretary of State...
Yeah. Or: he can't abide the fact that there's a different perception. He expects so much more from those around him. It's Machiavellian. It's the rules of court. It's the way that you aggregate power... it's Mean Girls. It's that simple. I remember watching - my daughter was 12 - and that's the first time the Mean Girls started to appear. You watched as they divided. You watched the ones who were capable of laser-guided doubt and seeping innuendo. You watch this thing happen. Because, I think, you say girls mature faster but they also have to test this stuff out. They've got to be prepared for boyfriends when they're 17. They have five years to work all these manipulations out. And they start on their friends! It was fascinating to watch because you go "That's so cruel. That's so cruel." And yet they haven't mastered it. They don't own it. They're just trying it. They're toying. You don't see this in 12 year old boys. You don't see this until their late 20s and they're in the work place and they begin to sort of understand. That's one of the things that I loved about what Dobbs and Beau did with it. You get to watch it. He sort of explains it to you: tells you where to look so you don't miss the flourish or you're not watching the flourish and miss the actual death knell. And Francis goes about it in a fairly sophisticated way - in most cases. Sometimes it's brutal and blunt force trauma.
The notion is that this is going to be the dance of a master. Someone who is going to go, "Watch how this works. Watch how what I just said strikes fear into the heart of the one person who cannot afford to be afraid at this moment." And I do think that's enjoyable, as sort of naughty.
It makes you complicit as well...
Of course. The nature of the complicity is the thing that is ultimately the most interesting because you're invested in a different way. It's not enough to watch somebody: it's that they take the time to explain, too. And the wit with which they do it. You have a different kind of appreciation. If we didn't get Kevin Spacey this show would not exist. We were writing scripts and we had a pilot but there was nobody that you were gonna get that would enjoy this in the right way. He's one of those actors. The verbal facility that he has, the ability to frame certain words within a conversation and the dexterity that he enjoys, you could say: "If he had said 'no', we wouldn't be doing this." And the same thing is true of Robin Wright, as well. I met with her in Stockholm and I remember saying, "I'd really like you to do it" but I really can't imagine what we would do if she said no. Holy shit! When we had our first read-through we had all the actors come in on this big horseshoe table. I said, "I want you all to know that every person at this table represents our first choice... So don't let us down." It's rare that you get that. Corey Stoll was one of those actors that read and we thought, "We love that, but he can't play Russo - he's too likeable." But why shouldn't Russo be likeable?
It's good that Corey is likeable...
Otherwise you'd hate her, you'd be going Kristen, "What the fuck? Ditch this douchebag!"
You've spoken before of essential qualities actors may require for certain characters - qualities you "can't beat out of them with a tyre iron", which is useful as the shoot drags on...
It's really useful. The thing you know about Corey Stoll is no matter how frustrated he gets with you, he doesn't want to be rude. The great thing about Russo is that... He makes a lot of mistakes and it's kind of based on some people that I've known. The sweetest of the drug-addled people with substance-abuse issues that I've had in my life, as frustrating as they are, when they have a little bit of charm, it's just hard to get mad at that them. That's how they get in so deep. Russo needed that.
Those people who have a million second chances because you just...
Because you just go "Come 'ere!" [mimes hug]. You need that and Corey Stoll has that.
With Michael Kelly, he is just focussed. You need to know that when Francis tells Stamper, "This has to be handled", you know it will be - 'cause he just told Michael Kelly to do it! It's that thing. In the case of Stamper, it's not that he's "Right, chief!" It's not that he looks like he'll do anything for you, it's that he looks competent - always. He's thinking about stuff, he's processing things, he's not afraid to say "I don't understand that". As an actor he's not afraid to say, "Run that by me again, I don't get what you're talking about". If you have an actor who's saying to you, "Uh, ok, well let's try it" and you realise they don't know what you're talking about, you can't have them play Doug Stamper. The guy who's playing him has to be able to say to you, "Go back to that thing you just said. How does that apply to this? I see. OK". And you know, "I've left it in good hands". You know what Francis knows, which is "It's taken care of". Those kind of things. You know, I think there are a lot of people who'll say "Oh, Fincher doesn't want to see actors step outside their comfort zone". It's not about that. There are just certain things that you have as a person that are going to help you play a character when you're exhausted and disorganised and been staying in a hotel room for six weeks. You're going to naturally have a certain percentage of default that's going to take you to something that has to be there.
And because people are one thing, doesn't mean they can't also be another...
It's like Kate Mara. Kate's utterly polite and completely driven. You go, okay, being polite doesn't help her at all to play Zoe. Being driven has to be there - has to.
On set, in the scene where Zoe does her first TV interview, you said it was the moment where you see the birth of her...
Yeah. You see her coalesce. And it was interesting because we played it both ways. The night we were shooting we shot it as somebody who was going, "Right right right, I got it, I got it, I got it..." It's Broadcast News. Or, the way we ended up using it, is "Uh, I don't know, I'm terrified, I'm not quite sure, I'm not ready, I'm not ready and, 'Well, hello America!'" And you see her overcome her fear. And I honestly couldn't tell her on the day: "You should play it like this." It was: "I don't know, really, I don't know which way is going to work best." The way that seemed to work most organically was to come from a place of doubt. And she played it both ways - we had both versions of it. But it's all the material that comes before it that informs that moment and oddly enough when you see the material that comes before it the best version of that moment is: she's not quite sure, she might be in over her head.
And you can make that choice because you've got those options...
It's interesting. And it's OK not to know. I used to be worried about that stuff. I used to be worried: "I better know the answer to that question!" Now it's, "I don't know. We'll have to see - I need you to do it both ways."
Have you just become more comfortable saying that now, or is it because of being so established that you can afford to?
I think it's comfort. When you're 23 and you're asking actors to do this stuff and you're saying, "I don't know!" you're worried that they're going to be rats leaving a sinking ship. But it's also knowing... I think nobody knows. It's instinct. It's calculation. It's experience - it's all those things coming together. And I just think... The best way to earn somebody's trust is by being honest. You respect people, they'll respect you back. I try to create an environment where - and there's a lot of pressure on everybody - but I want there to be the least amount of pressure on the person who is performing. I would rather have the day be more excruciating for the focus-puller than it is for the person playing Francis. I want Kevin to be able to give himself over to a process that's just, you know, playing dress-up. And in order to do that I put pressure on everyone around them. I mean, we can't be changing ties after take three: "Oops! This is the wrong tie for this scene because in the next one he's in the car and he has the blue tie on." I can't have that.
Now, once the actors are there: now forget everything, because we're going to do this a bunch of times. And you're gonna make mistakes and that's what I want, because in those little moments of making something not quite right - or being able to know it so well you can just barrel through this section of it - that's, I think, what gives it its lived-in quality.
I think when I first started out I was probably more reticent to say "Fuck, I don't know". Now I'm more comfortable in situations. I know that I don't have to have the answer to that question; that part of it is going to be what they're going to show me. 'Cause there's the willing something into existence but then there's also the allowing for it to be great, allowing for somebody to go, "You know, I was just in the elevator on the way up here and there was a person in there saying this and all of a sudden I thought..." [clicks fingers] And you go "Oh, my God, that's fantastic. We have to use that!"
You want to leave yourself open to that stuff. You don't want it to just be like [raises voice], "Okay, remember we were on the stage, we chalked it out on the floor and you were here and then you said this and then you said that and then your voice went down at the end..." You don't want it to just be a puppet show. Ventriloquism is an amazing thing, but it's not acting. And when this performance becomes ventriloquism it's a bad thing. Or somebody aping something that you laughed at it in rehearsal. Now they're trying to get back to that. With Corey, he'll never fall into that trap. Because he knows it's gone. That's gone.
The night with Kate's TV spot, as it went on, there were plenty of people there who wanted to go home...
Oh, yeah.
And they're not being especially subtle about the fact they want to go home...
No.
Is it that you don't care or you've chosen not to care?
Can't care. I spent way too much money, I spent way too much time thinking about this. I spent way too much time coaxing and cajoling to get that. We can't leave this until we have the moments that it's going to take to make this work. We can't. We're doing everyone a disservice. You can't allow it to exhaust you. You have to keep that focus and that concentration and you have to get what you need.
I mean I have thrown the flag and called it on account of rain: I've had situations where you say, "This person is too tired to continue, so..." I've had situations where you have an actor and you realise, "They're not there anymore. We're going to have to pick this up some other time." But for the most part... You're doing it for the fucking Blu-ray, man. Blu-ray is forever.
It was interesting to see that you utilise people but you don't try to "fix" them...
You can't. You can just make their time worthwhile - just make their time be something that they're going to be proud of. That's all you can do because everything else is nonsense. All you can do is say, "Hey, I'm going to work as hard as I can to make sure nothing that you did on that day was for naught". I've never knowingly shot a scene that I thought was going to get cut out. If I thought something was going to be cut I wouldn't shoot that scene.
I've stayed 17 hours shooting scenes that I've ended up cutting. I've shot scenes twice and then cut them. Going, "I know it can be better, I know it can be better, I know it can be better," and then it can't and then you just end up going, "Well, the reason you can't get it better is because it doesn't have any place in this movie!" This is why I think directors become... This is why the reputation of the sociopath is an often misunderstood thing. I mean, part of what you get paid to do is to ignore the discomfort of those around you, because you have to go, "I get it! But I didn't fly Stellan Skarsgård all the way here and put him up in a hotel and make him learn 18 pages of stuff only to say, "Oh, OK, that's pretty good, let's move on!'" I came here to juice that! I came here to squeeze that. And I came here to see what else is there.
There was a scene with Corey Stoll and Kristen Connolly where he comes into the office late and out of it, where you did something like 26 takes. Did you articulate to yourself what you wanted in that scene?
Yeah, I knew that at the beginning. It's not a scene... It is a scene but mostly it's trying to do one shot. It's such a small thing. But what I wanted is he has to breeze through the door like "Hey!" He's been gone for a day, he looks like shit and he's trying to get into his office and she is stopping him. First on the grounds of "As the person who has to schedule you, when you are going to disappear for 24 hours, you need to let at least me know." But she's also his girlfriend and she's really concerned. So I wanted to go from the "Hey, you don't get to just..." energy to the "Good God, you're high at the workplace - which is double not cool because it shows you think we're all so stupid that we don't know that you're high! Not only does this show how stupid you are but it shows how stupid you think we are, which is almost unforgivable." And of course he says, "I don't have time for this. I don't have time for the entanglements of this." That was the thing. It has to be this progression into it. I was trying to find that thing where the camera move didn't feel like it knew where the scene was going.
Is how you convey your thoughts dependent on who you're conveying them to?
Yeah. Absolutely. But, also, you know that nobody, nobody - Daniel Day-Lewis, I don't give a fuck - nobody has the control over their face where they know what it is they just did. They have to just do it. And in a scene like that with two people, both have to do it at exactly the right time. And if it's playing as a "oner" it has to dovetail. You're not gonna go to another piece of coverage - it has to evolve. So in certain respects it's simple: you don't have to set the camera outside the door, you don't have to get a piece of coverage, you don't have to match. But what you want is to have a beginning, middle and end; a really defined middle, beginning and end. She saw this, then she saw that, and now she's trying, and he pushes her away.
Is there anything you've learnt from shooting this that you'll bring to your films?
Let's look at it this way: there are times, sitting behind a desk looking at someone else's dailies, hour after hour, makes you think "Fuck, what is the difference between this and that?" Usually what I find is you get to the last one and realise, "Oh, that's what they were building to: that's good." It's not often that you see a director shooting for pieces: "Nah, I got the beginning there, I got the middle with that one". You're looking for them - especially on the master - you're looking for them to put it all together.
I think it's probably made me a tad less precious. What does that mean? [laughs] So I'll shoot 92 takes instead of 100! I don't know. It's not a logic thing. If it was logical you'd put up a flowchart and say, "Here's where you want the process." You have to feel your way through it. You're gonna find this. There are times when there's a bump in the track or a boom mic comes in, and it distracts you for a second, and then you go, you can hear it through your headphones, "We're rolling". It's rolling, we're falling downhill. We're working. And those are times when the bumps in the track, the boom mic and shit, doesn't matter.
In fact, interestingly enough, that scene that you're talking about, the take we used was four takes before the end. And I said, "That was really great. I don't think we'll get better than that... but I want you to try." And we shot more takes after that and didn't use them. But that was the thing. We got it. It all worked. There was an inappropriate shadow at one point that we were trying to get rid of, but were unable to, because when you go from one shot to another, you walk into one source from another. But it's where that thing happened. We went back through looking for the one that fit in. We saw the last one and I said to Kirk, "The one before," and he said "Yes, much better performance." So we went for that. But it's that thing: "Can we? Please can we put it all together?" You do the best you can. Try and live it down.
Interview by Nev Pierce
he's funny, he's a cool guy, very smart.. has a good joke there about daniel day lewis.. i just feel even after reading such a long interview and stalking him for nearly 20 years i still don't know shit about who david fincher really is. maybe his personality really is reflected in visual style, his highly polished "surface" aesthetic. what's he really striving for after 96 takes? Kubrick would do the same because he was trying to extract a soul and put it on film, i don't think fincher is doing that. it's almost like he's just OCD about things looking ridiculously good.
Quote from: Pubrick on April 14, 2013, 11:34:16 AM
what's he really striving for after 96 takes? Kubrick would do the same because he was trying to extract a soul and put it on film, i don't think fincher is doing that. it's almost like he's just OCD about things looking ridiculously good.
"As you know he has a reputation for doing things 50 times over but I asked him about it and he said he does that so that we forget what we're saying and focus more on the emotion."
- from the Making the Master interview with Madisen Beaty on cigsandredvines
i'm not sure that's any more illuminating though.
Quote from: Pubrick on April 14, 2013, 11:34:16 AM
i don't think fincher is doing that. it's almost like he's just OCD about things looking ridiculously good.
It certainly seems that way, Mark Ruffalo mentions that here at about 45:44
I've also read interviews with Jesse Eisenberg which he has a response more akin to Madison Beaty's answer. I think it's a bit of both to be honest
Quote from: malkovich on April 14, 2013, 02:52:12 PM
Quote from: Pubrick on April 14, 2013, 11:34:16 AM
what's he really striving for after 96 takes? Kubrick would do the same because he was trying to extract a soul and put it on film, i don't think fincher is doing that. it's almost like he's just OCD about things looking ridiculously good.
"As you know he has a reputation for doing things 50 times over but I asked him about it and he said he does that so that we forget what we're saying and focus more on the emotion."
- from the Making the Master interview with Madisen Beaty on cigsandredvines
i'm not sure that's any more illuminating though.
It's interesting how PTA's films are so hot-blooded while Fincher's are so cool-blooded, yet they're both able to achieve their end result using the same approach. And both use it in a way that's independent from how Kubrick used it.
Quote from: wilderesque on March 15, 2011, 10:43:42 PM
Mountains will be moved if it's a success.
Netflix has already recouped its $100 million House of Cards investment (http://bgr.com/2013/04/23/netflix-subscriber-growth-analysis-459720/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBoyGeniusReport+%28BGR+%7C+Boy+Genius+Report%29)
tictac mentioned disliking the release of entire seasons at once, and i have a bit of a conundrum with this.
there are a lot of current shows that i watch episode by episode, and ones of the past that i've consumed in one thinly divided sitting. i like both ways. i enjoy the anticipation and the ability to integrate equally i think.
that being said i watched the entirety of both house of cards and then this week the new netflix series hemlock grove each over a period of 24 hours or so, with nothing else watched in between. i believe that netflix is off to a great start with this. two quality (in vastly different ways) directors taking on ambitious projects (i would take a huge leap to say this could be technically considered the most significant 'web' series's ever by definition?), and end up being really eloquent intelligent stuff that is for the most part on par with anything else on tv right now. if i had to sum this show up in a pretty vague and concise way i'd call it present day boardwalk with 60% less sex and violence. the performances are nice, spacey doesnt bother me at all because didnt he do this in midnight in the garden and everyone bought it? girl with dragon tattoos sister is supercool and cute. the complexity of situations that are set up are sometimes tedious but ultimately very satisfying in the end. i'll get into spoilerish conversation if someone else likes this show enough to join me. thanks for having me back, friends.
Spoilers up to Chapter 11:
It was around Chapter 10 that I got the sense of what Frank's goals were. A brilliant game of chess, of course, where he ultimately ousts the president and manipulates his way into becoming leader of the free world. Chapter 11 (hah), was the most morally bankrupt of episodes. A turning point for Frank. The trailer advertised that he was this bad person but until then I didn't see it. He seemed to be ambitious and cunning, but not evil. But stack murderer on top of that, and well, that's the point of no return. I admire the execution, though, and I've really liked the show. I wonder if Frank really hated Peter or had no feelings toward him one way or another, or just used him as a pawn. Probably the latter. Sad, really, as I liked Russo. The only criticism I have is I wonder if the hints were a bit too much. I expected Frank to kill Peter once they picked him up. I wanted to be pleasantly surprised the other way.
I think others who have noted the show loses something in that you can't discuss it from week-to-week. Everyone who's seen it has probably seen it all, so any speculation in between episodes is near-pointless. Netflix would do its fandom more of a service if they didn't release everything at once. I mean, sure Breaking Bad would still be a great show if it were released all at once. People would be sated. But the audience, the cult following, wouldn't have as much of a time to grow.
very vague spoilers
House of Cards started out feeling like The Wire Season 3/4 but ends up more like Damages. Despite all the great acting and the masterful cinematography and editing, it's still a show about politics that can only solve its problems thru sex and murder. It's too pre-occupied with its own main character's supposed brilliance, and therefore becomes only as smart as however Kevin Spacey's character is supposed to be. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but despite its black black heart, it's still a show about politics that has no sense of humor about itself, making it as naive as West Wing, despite the pessimistic tone.
the smarter shows that comment on politics, such as The Wire or The Thick of IT - view politics as a mechanism that is much more interested in its own growth and really has no concern for the humans within. West Wing and House of Cards, on the other hand, still believe that politics can be a sport that you can win, you just need to have ample conviction and wits. It's the same reason 30 Rock provides more insight into sketch comedy than Studio 60, despite the relentless gags, or maybe because of them.
I think it's because of them. I always felt (and several critics have also made this point) that shows like Veep are much more reflective of how DC operates day-to-day than romanticized depictions you see in House of Cards, West Wing and the Newsroom.
yes, "romanticized" is a good word. this is a world felt with cynical characters who never say what they mean, but in their hearts they still believed that they are masters of their own fates and everything is just a matter of who has more courage, and I think the flaw of the show is that it buys into the narrative. This is like Twilight for grownups, or for politics - a very naive, clueless story that's cloaked with brooding characters, while reinforcing easily digestible ideals.
Quote from: Tictacbk on February 05, 2013, 02:32:13 AM
Now on to what I don't like: the choice to release all 13 eps at once...
Maybe I'll change my mind about this. The CEO of Netflix certainly seems to think I will, but we'll see.
Answer: No, I did not change my mind on this. Watched the first ep of the second season. Really starts with a bang, but it won't get the discussion it deserves because everyone has already moved on to the next episode.
This is back, and I'm halfway through season 2. Quite a fun time. I really don't like how Netflix released 'em all at once, though. I get why. People love to binge watch. It's the new release model. But the problem is, it stifles discussion. So what could be an IT show does not benefit from word of mouth, cult following, anticipation, and online discussion that breeds a lot of those first three things.
SPOILERS.
So they bumped off Mara's character from the get-go. Wow. Did not see that coming. And her stand in is a poor, disheveled mess who gets in way over his head and deserted by his friends. It's painful to watch, but it's quite fun in a twisted way, too. That iPad scene in the diner was quite well done.
I find myself rooting for different factions depending on who's on the screen, so I know the show is well done. Torn between wanting Frank to succeed, and wanting him to be brought down.
That interview scene where Wright Penn's character spilled those somewhat misleading beans was quite cringeworthy. I can't believe the nerve of that journalist -- and she's a real journalist for CNN, too, I've read, and I imagine she's pulled shit like this IRL. If I were in Wright Penn's shoes I would've backed away from it, but the way things have shaken out so far, she seems to have ulterior motives behind it. Felt for Frank when he couldn't play his video games because the Internet was secure, couldn't get some alone time. Careful what you wish for.
Netflix is smart in some ways, but they should've released these episodes long ago, building an audience instead of letting them out all at once. I still stand by that.
And it's really creepy that Obama is such a fan of it and during the snowstorm he urged Netflix to release them early. 1) Please get back to work. 2) The leader of the free world lauding a show whose protagonist/antagonist/antihero is a scheming, conspiring murderer is just ... wow.
I want some ribs.
I agree with what's been said about releasing all the episodes at once. Episode 1 of this season would have made for a lot of buzz and watercooler talk the next morning if it wasn't that most people just went immediately on to watch Episode 2 and that was it.
Which brings me to a pretty major plot hole and SPOILER for the FIRST EPISODE OF SEASON 2:
When the cops are investigating Zoe's death, they show the video of her jumping in front of the train. Now, that makes no sense. If they rewinded that video 30 seconds you could see she was clearly standing there talking to someone, then chased after that person and ended up getting ran over by the train. It's clear there was someone else there. It's a huge hole that this is not even mentioned or is not even an option by anyone.
I think this show benefits from not being discussed because it's full of ridiculous stuff that wouldn't hold up if you had a week to think and talk about it between episodes. I say that as a fan--but I'm a fan of how it's perfectly made to be quickly eaten up and forgotten about. It's the fast food of TV shows. Empty but tasty. It's built to be binged.
I really enjoyed the subtle campiness and high drama of season 1, but it just isn't doing it for me this time around. I made it to episode 5 and don't know if I'll go back.
I agree with the spoiler issue Kal pointed out. That development jumped the shark. It needed to happen eventually, but not like that.
Plot holes and all, this is very entertaining. Just finished watching the whole season. If you learned anything in Season 1, you know exactly where the show is going in Season 2. All the chaos and events lead to it, and although the storytelling is not always perfect, it manages to build up great scenes and good twists along the way.
This also shows me how starved we are for good content. This isn't the best show ever, but it works because it's well done and Kevin Spacey is a beast. Most of the stuff on TV blows. True Detective perhaps the one highlight in the past few months. No Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire coming to an end, and that's it.
I take back what I said about Netflix's release strategy. I get it now. If I had to wait a week between episodes I don't think i would've made it through this season.
You're right, Kal, the show isn't great (some episodes aren't even good), but its sleek and well made, and the plot keeps pushing along, so I keep watching. What should actually happen when a show is being released this way is it should be held to an even higher standard. If you have the opportunity to write and create an entire season before ANY of it airs then everything should be perfectly placed (like in True Detective). Instead the only thing each episode has to achieve is getting me to hit "play" on the next one.
When you really think about it, did Frank's character develop at all this season?
Quote from: cine on March 01, 2014, 05:11:08 AM
haha yeah, as if. even something as popular as House of Cards season 2 received a grand total of 7 posts from 5 members. there is no hope for discussion.
The will to watch "House of Cards" grows in me, with the intention of comparing it to BBC version and probably heckling it. For one I'm not big on Kevin Spacey and I don't see how you can top Ian Richardson. I could also muse about proclaiming Netflix as the future for original series - you aren't really in competition if you pay twice as much as the rest of the pack. Now it is 8 posts.
Obligatory "Netflix's release strategy blows and therefore we'll never discuss this show" post for 2015.
So nobody cares about this anymore?
No, tictacbk summed it up. Binge watching sucks for actually talking about things. I enjoyed the 3rd season greatly, but what is there to say? So much, so little. I have little energy right now. I will say Vlad was boring for me at first, but I loved all the asides and seeing Underwood spar with someone who was basically him but unconstrained. Claire is an idiot, but she means well (shades of Jenny? -- no, check that, Forrest was better off without her, whereas Claire helped make Frank, but wants way too much). Poor Gavin. Yay(?) serial killer Doug. Could that van BE anymore rape-y? Nice bit of editing there.
See how I skipped over like 12 episodes of events? I love you, Netflix, but get your release schedule in check. At least stagger them day to day if not week to week.
What Ono said.
I just finished season 3, so here's a block of text about what i think (spoilers): It was fine. Still fantastically made, if not always fantastically written. It felt like it was stalling a bit. I found it hard to care about a lot of the things that were going on. I even didn't mind the binge release strategy as much this time around, because I didn't think there was all that much to discuss. For instance, why do I care if Frank gets 10 million americans jobs, or achieves peace in the Jordan valley? Or rather, why should I think Frank cares? He certainly doesn't about people -- the show has gone to great lengths to show that. I imagine he cares about legacy, but why isn't he concocting some kind of legacy-making plan that plays more to his strengths? Anywho, none of it matters once the season moves into election mode. Like...really doesn't matter. You think Frank's Presidential failings are going to keep him from winning in Iowa, that Dunbar is going to prove a worthy opponent (and maybe even dominate once Jackie sides with her), that something from Frank's past might rear its ugly head, and then Frank just... wins. Which is actually kind of interesting. But then what the hell were the first 9 or so episodes for?
I like Claire. The Claire stuff was good, and Robin Wright is wonderful. They spent a lot of time toward the end (once in "election mode"), focusing on how important she is to Frank's success. I actually thought she was going to pull a "Frank" on Frank (especially once she busted out the rowing machine), and tell him she wanted to be his VP or else she'd support Dunbar, causing him to surely lose. Seriously, she should do that.
-Random Side Note: half the finale felt like a Breaking Bad reference.
It bothers me when people over praise this show. But it IS fun. I'll gladly welcome 13 more episodes next February, because, why not? I won't give them much thought, I'll just fucking binge watch them.
Quote from: Kal on March 10, 2015, 11:56:45 AM
So nobody cares about this anymore?
I'm 4 episodes from the end and surprised I made it this long. Thought season 2 was pretty terrible and soapy and did not think I would continue watching. And yet somehow, Season 3 is kinda back to being a little more restrained and low-key (so far anyway) so I've enjoyed it (though not nearly as much as S1, I think Stoll and Mara were not easy to replace). But it is interesting to see that a show can jump the shark completely and then actually recover for a sustained amount of time which, I don't think I've ever really seen before.
Im sorry but i am genuinely amazed that people still watch this.
'House of Cards' Canceled; Netflix 'Deeply Troubled' by Spacey Assault Claim (http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/netflix-spacey-house-of-cards-netflix-1202602359/)
Edit: That headline is kinda misleading as the suggestion is that this currently-shooting season was intended to be the last anyway. I don't know. I never watched.