Welcome to the Colour Timer Podcast. I am your host Vincent Taylor. This is the podcast where we speak to professionals who work with colour. Today we are absolutely doing that. We're speaking to Mr. Eric Weidt, a colourist for film and television, directly associated with Mr. David Fincher, of whom I'm a huge fan. I can't wait to chat to Eric about projects such as Mank. We haven't really talked about black and white much in the show yet, so I really wanna do that.
And also get under the hood if we've got time into the world of Mindhunter, which is an amazing series and colourful. Ah, I wanna jump into that. Don't forget, we're gonna use our colour timer, our 15 minute sand timer, just to keep the conversation focused, but let's go. Take your seats because the hourglass is about to turn. We are entering the world of the micro podcast. Explore the craft, creativity, and science of professionals who use colour to tell stories.
Welcome to the colour timer with Vincent Taylor. Eric, welcome. Thank you, Vincent. It's nice to be here. I'm very excited to talk to you. A little bit nervous because I'm a big fan. No, not possible. Oh, calm, just breathe, just breathe. Nine times out of 10, I forget to start my sand timer. So I'm gonna be a good boy. Here's my sand timer. So we're gonna kick it off. So it's like a game show, you know, like under pressure. Okay, I've got a great warm up question for you. You ready?
Your desert island film or TV series. Oh, you're stuck on a, and I know, I know there's no electricity on the desert island, but let's just-- Do you want to give them a standpoint of colour or just enjoyment? Not just enjoyment. Oh man, that's a tough one. I mean, the easy sort of film that I would say is one of my favourites is Blade Runner, the original one.
But what got me into film and cinematography to begin with was just, when I was a student, was films like Fellini - Satyricon, or The Conformist or whatnot. You know, just things that look good. Yeah, well you'll have to watch it at night on the desert island, 'cause it'll be too bright, I guess, with a little sand. All right, all right, let's, I should stop mucking around, 'cause we haven't got much time. Now, when I was researching, your name, it's always associated with David Fincher.
Of course. And I know this is a, maybe diplomatic, but does that ever get frustrating? No, not at all. I work, he keeps me busy, you know, so. But to be perfectly honest, since I arrived in Hollywood, I've only been working for David Fincher. I mean, yeah, colour-wise, I've only worked for David. Yeah. And you spent a whole heap of years, like 15 years or so, working in Paris with filmmakers and photographers. Yeah. Tell me about that.
What was that like, and then how does that inform your role now as a colourist? Well, I worked in the fashion photography world, starting in around 2000. And it was all about still capturing of stills. And I was sort of a Photoshop guru and a printing guru over there. And so, I was working for this digital company that kind of evangelized digital capture to still photographers who were used to working in traditional film.
And the idea was to sell them on this whole new process, using film emulation LUTs. And a lot of them had their own universes and styles. So we would create custom LUTs for them to, so that their universe could sort of exist, you know, live on a screen while they're shooting, you know, their medium format stills and whatnot. And I would say that that was my very big introduction to photography. And it's all, it's a really fascinating world with amazing talents and it's pretty high end.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's like one of those talk shows where you get a listener to call in, because I was chatting to a director friend of mine yesterday and I mentioned that I was speaking to you and he goes, "Oh, can you ask him this question?" So this is for my friend, what did he say? All right, how do you guide a first time director into giving you actionable feedback, especially if they haven't developed a visual vocabulary? Oh. That was his question.
Oh, I mean, that's part of the, you know, you're providing a service to somebody and when you're working with artists, you know, it's such a whole spectrum of people, it's as wide a spectrum as there are people, you know. Some people aren't clear upfront, they have this process that it takes you a while to figure out. Others are extremely clear upfront, they give you references, that's always great.
Others aren't clear necessarily upfront, but when they sit in front of us, when you put something in front of them, and David Fincher is one of these kind of people, he's extremely verbose and clear about what you need to do to that image to make it look like he wants it, you know. And in that sense, it's easy to just follow his direction, sometimes. When you begin working on a project, be it film or television, what stage do you get involved?
Well, with Fincher, I get involved very, very early because one thing, I'm usually hired by the, I'm not part of a facility, I'm a freelancer, so I am essentially hired by the film itself, like any other crew member.
And so I'm on from the start, working with the DP in terms of, in finding out what the project's all about, what they want, do they need show LUTs, do you know what kind of camera they're gonna shoot with, and they do camera testing a lot of times, and it goes through my base light, and they say they want me to throw things up right from the start. Obviously, if I have time. - Yeah, yeah, it's always the time thing.
In regards to working with Mr. Fincher, I mean, have you noticed, over the period of time you've worked with him, that there's been a change in aesthetic, or is that not relevant because it depends on the project? - I wouldn't say there's been a change in his aesthetics since I've known him, since I've been working for him, so that's about eight years. We had one project that was more, well two actually, that were more outliers than others, but no, every project is different, I have to say.
But I would say over time, 'cause I'm remastering some of his old classics right now, like I remastered The Social Network, I'm in the process of remastering Panic Room, and I'm also just starting on Seven. And I would say that he's much more interested in what he calls the suppleness of sort of an Ansel Adams type of zone range. He's really interested in seeing details in all ranges of the spectrum.
Seven, for example, was very, very crushed in terms of the final look, not in terms of the cinematography. The original negative has lots of detail, mostly, but the final look that was applied to it was very chiaroscuro, you know, it was very, very, very moody and contrasty. And I would say David's look and aesthetic since then has moved into something more where I would say he uses the word suppleness and I would just say that he's really into detail, yeah. - That's interesting.
When you mentioned Seven, I've just got this wonderful memory of going to see that film with my dad and driving home in the car and we both just kind of like, you're just silencing. - Yeah, it's an intense one. - Now, I'm such a massive fan of black and white and so I really wanna talk to you about Mank and your process of that. Where do I start? I guess the first question is, was that always gonna be a black and white film?
- Yes, yeah, because it was always about the creators of Citizen Kane and it was very much talk about replicating 40s, the feel of 40s and the cinematic look of black and white from the time. It's like, let's make this look like it was shot back then. So of course, the end result is obviously widescreen and not four by three or whatever, but all these other elements went into degrading, well, we call it degrading, but aestheticizing the image to look historical, like vintage-y, yeah.
- Yeah, which it absolutely does. I mean, I've watched it three times now, I think, and every time I go, "Oh, look what they did in that, you know, so." I mean, where did you start? Did you start just by kind of studying older films? I mean, I know that seems like an obvious question, but where the heck did you start with that?
- Well, we started with testing cameras and there was a question of whether they wanted to shoot with color cameras or a monochromatic Red that doesn't capture color, just capture straight black and white, and that was the latter was the choice. And so it was like, "Wow, this is gonna be fun. "No color keys whatsoever, no cheating underneath." You know? - Of course. - And so it's all Luma keys, and that's quite a task, you know?
When you're used to somebody being able to tell you, "See that tree back there? "I want it more ominous or whatever," and you can't select the color green, you know? But you gotta find other ways.
But as far as the look of the film, David and Eric Messerschmitt, they really had clear ideas of all the different elements that make for an historical look, that make for an historical look, things like softer lenses on the side and gate weave and really heavy optical grain, and this kind of, especially this kind of blooming thing that used to happen on certain film stocks.
Yeah, and so we bloom the blacks aesthetically and even sometimes key framing them depending on the shot and even blooming the highlights as well on Amanda Seifried, sometimes to give that gauzy and kind of look. And his marching orders were usually using the word silvery.
And I think that goes back to what I was saying about Anansol Adams kind of tonal range is that the silvers are in the middle of the spectrum, and so he wants all the different, from A to Z in terms of those zones to be in conversation with each other. Yeah. I mean, how much, I guess it varies on the project, but how much prep time do you get for a project? Well, with David, I mean, they, like I said, I don't work for a facility, so I'm hired by the films.
And so I, you know, the only reason I'm not working from day one until it's actually delivered is because I usually have several projects I'm working on. But otherwise, David's happy with being able to come down the hall and say, throw this up on the baseline, I wanna see this scene and let's work on it together. And then, you know, he'll spend 20 minutes and then he'll walk away and I'll keep working and he'll pop in anytime, you know? And he just loves it.
He loves post-production more than anything. Yeah. Do you, outside the world of a colorist, I mean, what is your, what keeps your heart going? What's your inspiration? You mean like art? Art or, you know, just expression. I like storytelling a lot. I like all forms of expression from poetry lines on a page to I love going to any museum either of contemporary art, not so much contemporary, but painters and photographers.
And I mean, I do mind a little conceptual, I don't mind a little conceptual art, especially if it's funny, but, and I don't know, you know, things like that. Whatever, even reading books, I've gotten back into reading books lately and the sky's the limit. In music, I'm a horrible music nerd and I've just loved music my whole life, you know? Do you play? I do not play.
I've dabbled, but I mean, I've dabbled in drums and in guitar and keyboard synthesizer things, but I've always been kind of a DJ and one of those kind of, you know, I love playing the game of like, you know, hey, let's name 10 songs that you have the word yellow in it, go. You know, and that kind of silly thing. Yeah, that's amazing. Do you have a different approach for like television versus cinema?
Well, yeah, no, because, you know, like I said, I've only really worked for Fincher in terms of a colorist in narrative. I mean, I did tons of fashion work in coloring and back in Paris, but here I've only worked for Fincher in any, so him, it's like any TV show needs to look like a film anyways.
Yeah. But I have worked on documentaries with him and also on animation and yeah, I mean, sometimes the genre itself, you know, really does dictate because if you're doing a, you know, a documentary that has historical films in it or whatnot, you can't just go and grade those films again, you know. You know, I've done those kinds of things with him, but I've also done animation and yeah. I had no idea he'd done animation. I didn't realize that.
He did an episode of Love, Death and Robots season two or three. Yeah. And I graded that. Yeah. What's that like grading animation? I mean, how, I've only done it once about 10 years ago. So what's it like? Well, with, well, it's surprisingly similar. I mean, the great thing is that you have all the alpha channels you want because it comes from, you know, 3D. And so they get, they usually give you the hero, you know, as an alpha and automatically, you know what I mean?
So that you can dial him or her or they in correctly, you know, things like that. But other than that, it's, it's just as, you know, with Fincher it's just as demanding as any other genre. Cause he's very, very particular about what he likes. Yeah. Yeah. Is there, is there a genre that you haven't been involved with that you would like to work on? I don't know. I'd love to, I'd love to do a high dynamic range documentary on volcanoes. Cause the imagery is just unbelievable, you know?
Wow. That's so specific. That's like, I don't know if you've seen this documentary that came out called the love, love couple or something. But I already thought that before because I'm a big Werner Herzog fan. And I was thinking, cause I saw one documentary he did about volcanoes and I was like, damn, if I run him into him in the supermarket and say, Werner, I want to, I want to grade your next volcano movie. Cause it's just like a fascinating thing.
That would be my ticket to work for Werner Herzog. That's fantastic. If he's listening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give him a call. That's it. My timer ran out. We're done. It goes so far. And I've still got so many other questions, but Eric, thank you. Thank you so much for taking time out. It's not a problem at all. Vincent, it was my pleasure. Cheers. Thank you so much, Eric, for having a chat. That was cool. You the listener. I was a bit nervous, right? Yeah. It's hard.
You know, when there's somebody you really respect and you look up to like I've been watching Eric's work for years and yeah, it's, it's hard to do that to kind of control those nerves, but I did my best. Thank you so much to MixingLight.com they're my executive producer and putting the show on and also to my friend of the show Filmlight and my producer Kayla. And look, thanks for listening. Like subscribe to all that kind of stuff. It does help. It does make a difference. I appreciate it.
All right. Good. The color timer, a micro podcast experience.