A 'Mindhunter' Video Examines The Hidden Special Effects Of The Netflix Series

Netflix's excellent new serial killer drama Mindhunter is currently available to stream in all its dark, brooding glory. The series, with multiple episodes directed by David Fincher, features an overly cinematic look and feel that goes worlds beyond standard TV. A new video from Adobe looks at the behind-the-scenes editing work that goes into creating the overall look of Mindhunter.

While David Fincher only helms four of the 10 episodes of Netflix's Mindhunter, the series in general owes much to his visual style, particularly the type of dark, sodium light atmosphere that was so prominent in his masterpiece Zodiac. Much of that overall look and feel comes not just from Fincher, but also from the team of editors and effects people working behind-the-scenes to put the show together.

In a fascinating new video from Adobe, (it's not embeddable, so click that link to watch it) Mindhunter's editors discuss how the series was edited with an all-Adobe workflow, including Premiere Pro and After Effects, bringing both VFX and editorial content together. Since the video was produced by Adobe it does, at times, seem like a 4-minute commercial for Adobe products. But there's also some interesting revelations here, particularly when the editors discuss the use of unseen split-screens.

As the editors explain, if one actor's performance was particularly great in one take, but the actor they were working opposite gave a much better performance in a separate take, the editing team is able to use Adobe to seamlessly splice two different takes together in one frame and make them look like one complete composition. It's a surprising example of how technical filmmaking has become – the days of editors sitting in editing bays literally splicing reels of film together with scissors and tape are long, long gone. Now, computer wizardry plays a huge part in creating the films and TV shows we enjoy.

While special effects are prominent in most modern entertainment, we tend to think of special effects as things we see – giant CGI characters, big explosions, and so on. But there's an entire hidden world of effects that we as an audience tend to completely overlook, and that's sort of the point. These are the hidden effects that go into creating an cinematic entire world that we may take for granted.

Fincher is definitely a technology-minded filmmaker. He actually had the team at RED build him a custom digital camera, the RED Xenomorph, to shoot the series. These elements may make Fincher's filmmaking seem cold and sterile, but you can't argue with the results. Mindhunter is one of the best looking TV shows out there right now, and that look goes a long way from setting it apart from the glut of other TV dramas. All that said, I'd embed the Adobe video for you if I could, but I can't. Adobe may be on the cutting-edge when it comes to their editing tech, but don't you dare ask them to create embeddable videos!

Mindhunter is streaming now on Netflix.