David Fincher is one of the most distinctive visual storytellers working today. On his new Netflix’s show “Mindhunter,” the director’s well-established visual style and use of film language is carried throughout the entire Season 1 arc, despite Fincher having only directed four of the ten episodes himself. IndieWire recently talked the show’s principal cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt – who was once Fincher’s gaffer, and shot 90% of “Mindhunter” – about what defines the cinematic style of the great auteur and how he built off the look of “Zodiac” to create something we aren’t use to seeing on TV.

The Color Palette

The imagery in a Fincher film is grounded in realism, but it’s a dark, stylized realism. This is most notable in the director’s use of colors. “[David] has an aversion to saturated colors and magenta,” said Messerschmidt in an interview. “The show has a desaturated green-yellow look, for sure,...