Sounds Thrilling: The Sound Design of David Fincher

Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay that looks at how David Fincher movies sound.

David Fincher is a director known (among other things) for being a stickler for detail. He flew in trees by helicopter to faithfully re-create the Lake Berryessa location for Zodiac. He meticulously re-created Mark Zuckerberg’s clothing for The Social Network. And if you listen closely, you can detect that same attention for specificity in Fincher’s soundscapes.

As the fast-paced montage below makes plain, Fincher’s eye for detail also extends to his ears. From purposeful and frantic keystrokes to the soft pitter patter of incessant rain, Fincher’s films are replete with noise that makes his cinematic worlds feel like real places full of excitement, questions, and danger.

Keys jangle, paper rubs against paper, gun barrels twirl, and cigarettes burn to a crisp. All told: it’s one hell of a ride. So buckle up, and hit that play button:

Watch “The Sounds Of David Fincher”:

Who made this?

This video on the sound design of David Fincher movies comes courtesy of the fine folks at Little White Lies, a film-obsessed magazine based in the United Kingdom. Luís Azevedo is the director behind this video, with Bruno Medeiros serving as assistant editor. You can follow Little White Lies on Twitter here. And you can check out their official website here. You can subscribe to their YouTube account here.

More videos like this

• More video essay content in the sound design realm: how Matt Reeves‘ The Batman exemplifies expressionistic sound design.
• For another taste of what Little White Lies (and super-editor Luís Azevedo) has to offer, here’s a video essay that unpacks the unsettling soundscapes of The Witch and The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers.
• Here is Little White Lies‘ look at how Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar uses sound design to construct vibrant, tactile worlds.
• And here’s another director soundscape breakdown on everyone’s favorite Baron of Blood: David Cronenberg.
• And finally: here’s a video essay that explores sound design in the films of Bergman Island director Mia Hansen-Løve.