Fincher and His Crew on 'The Killer' Break Down the Movie's Most Harrowing Fight Scene

David Fincher and 'The Killer' Crew Break Down the Brute Fight Scene

David Fincher's film The Killer, featuring Michael Fassbender in the lead role, includes a notable fight scene known as "The Brute vs. The Killer."

The harrowing fight scene takes place during the film's fourth chapter, where The Killer identifies The Brute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This encounter leads to a significant confrontation, including a lengthy fight, before The Killer eventually shoots The Brute and escapes.

So how do you shoot and block a scene like that?

It all starts with the script, which shows a character planning to kill someone else with a simple plan, which then turns into a fistfight. So from the get-go, this is a scene where things have not gone according to plan.

Upon reading the scene, Fincher knew he wanted to make this a fight scene that happens almost exclusively in the dark. so they would need a really detailed sound design to give the audience an idea of what's going on as well as some well-placed lights in the rooms to give us something to make out the movements.

When it came to the actual battling, the stunt team worked for months on the choreography of the scene. They built a fake room out of boxes and scripted the action. And then they even came up with ideas like hidden padded floors for the body slam and watched street fight videos for some of the other movements.

This then came back into tandem with the sound design and CG, as in post they added the breaking of glass, the shattering of a TV, and the snapping of wooden walls and floors.

Once all this comes together, then the music is layered in within post. It's a hypnotic series of tones that makes you feel thrilled at the start and on the edge of your seat as the fight breaks out.

Maybe the coolest part of all this is the CG, which added a gun under the bed, took the tail off of a happy dog, and added glass shard and other elements of destruction to enhance the practical effects throughout the scene.