David Fincher Used AI In Se7en's 4K Release For A 'Thrillingly Stupid Fix'

In 1995, a few years removed from the critical failure of his debut feature "Alien 3," David Fincher unleashed his second feature film onto the world and proved himself not just a formidable filmmaker, but one of the industry's most promising new voices. That film was "Se7en," featuring Morgan Freeman as veteran detective William Somerset and Brad Pitt's eager detective David Mills. The two are paired together to investigate a series of brutal and twisted murders inspired by each of the seven deadly sins, and thanks to a downright iconic ending scene, "Se7en" has maintained a reputation as one of the greatest crime thrillers of all time.

Recently, Collider's Perri Nemiroff interviewed Fincher about the film 30 years later, and the changes that were made for the new IMAX and 4K physical media releases. Nemiroff noted that Fincher had previously stated during a talk at Tribeca that he wouldn't make major changes to his films for 4K releases, but was curious if there was anything he did change for "Se7en." It's here that Fincher's attention to detail really kicked into gear because he discussed fixing a problem that it's doubtful anyone else has ever really noticed. It's a sequence where two actors are meeting at a bar to have a chat, and despite having 14 or 15 takes of each setup, "when you pick the ones that mean the most to you in terms of a performance, every once in a while, you're going to have technological malfeasance."

The result was what Fincher called "this unasked-for and unearned camera pan where a character moved, and then the camera panned over to follow them but followed them late and overshot them and ended up seeing more of the bar than was intended." This minor mistake must have been bothering him for years, because he took the opportunity to fix this scene with AI.

Fincher told Nemiroff that the performance in the scene was too good to use other takes, which is how the pan ended up in the final edit in the first place, but he was determined to make it work. "We had enough of the background, but at the beginning of it, we had cleaved off one of the actor's shoulders, and he's wearing a black leather jacket, and there's no data," Fincher explained. "We don't know how that shoulder connects to the sleeve and the kind of supple wrinkling and deformation of the leather in that jacket." So, Fincher asked if it was possible to use footage from the other takes from the day to "restore" the jacket, so he'd be able to get rid of the pan shot. He continued:

"We took three or four different shots from earlier, which had a jacket in them that we liked, and then we input that, and then we had it spit back out AI, and then took the background from where the camera landed and just composited them together. So it ends up being the most thrillingly stupid fix in the world because if you see it, we didn't do our jobs. And you probably won't see it. You probably won't be aware that it's happened. But you look at it, and you just think to yourself, 'It's so nice that we can fix that kind of stuff today.'"

Folks reading this headline likely grimaced at even the mention of "AI," but as a filmmaker with a history of vocally opposing the technology, this certainly sounds like an example of using AI as a tool, and not as a method of replacement. He also added that while working with cinematographer Darius Khondji, there were mixed and matched moments of raw stock used within the same scene. In restoring for the new release, AI was used "to at least get the focus in the eyes to be on the soft side, but not completely useless," he explained.

But will anyone even notice the changes? We'll have to wait and see when folks check out "Se7en" on IMAX for the first time starting today, or through the 4K Ultra HD release coming on January 7 that can be purchased here.