Thread by @TrungTPhan

The first scene for 2010’s “The Social Network" is ~6 minutes.

It shows Mark Zuckerberg getting dumped in a Harvard bar (and with some creative licenses, how that leads to Facebook).

Director David Fincher did 99 takes of the scene (yes, 99).

For some, that's Fincher being a perfectionist.

For others, it's Fincher wasting people's time.

Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay and has a fascinating recollection of the scene:

➡️ "An average screenplay is about 120 pages long. My screenplays have higher page counts because there’s more dialogue and less action. By the rules of screenplay format, dialogue takes up more room on the page and less time on the screen than action (which takes up less room on the page and more time on the screen).

"The Social Network" was 178 pages. And the studio said, “OK, the first thing you’ve got to do is figure out a way to cut 30 pages from this.”

And David said, “I don’t think so.” […]

He came over to my house with his iPhone set on stopwatch mode, and he said, “I want you to read the entire script out loud for me, at the pace you heard it in your head when you were writing it, and I’m going to write down the timing of each scene.”

So that opening scene...with Jesse Eisenberg (Zuck) and Rooney Mara. I read it and it was 7 minutes and 22 seconds.

In rehearsal, Jesse and Rooney would rehearse the scene, David would say great, and he would give them a couple of notes and always end with, “But this scene is 7 minutes and 22 seconds long, and you’re doing it at 7 minutes and 40 seconds. So I don’t care how, but you’re going to have to talk faster somewhere, because I promise you, this scene plays best at 7 minutes and 22 seconds.” ⬅️

With that context, the 99 takes is very understandable. It’s a combo of perfectionism and managing the shooting budget.

The final cut was shorter than 7 minutes and 22 seconds. But one thing stayed consistent throughout the shoot: Fincher told dozens of extras in the bar scene to keep the volume of their chatter high, as they would on any night out.

This forced Eisenberg and Mara not only to speak faster. But also louder, increasing the scene’s intensity.

It worked.

I love a good first scene and have written about how Ted Lasso’s pilot nailed his 157-second intro:

Here is Sorkin’s full explanation on Social Network: readtrung.com/p/ted-lassos-p…
indiewire.com/news/general-n…

Actors talking Fincher doing 50+ takes for a scene.

Eisenberg says it’s terrifying because lots of the takes he acted poorly and felt it.

Legend Robert Duvall doesn’t get so many takes (how can you know difference between 50th or 70th take).

Full vid:

To clarify on “The Social Network” creative licenses. Zuck didn’t actually start Facebook (or Facemash) because he got dumped — which is how Sorkin writes it.

Another detail related to opening scene. The music was co-scored by Trent Reznor, who I’ve def been writing about:

I stand corrected: Zuck made Facemash after a bad date. Here some blog entries he wrote about it at the time: scribd.com/doc/538697/Mar…

According to (unverified) urban legend, Fincher took 1000 takes of the scene where Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) confronts Zuck (Eisenberg) and spent $1,000,000 on broken laptops.

Can’t decide which Larry Summers zinger from “The Social Network” Sorkin wrote best:

▫️ “Some undergrads are here to see me and by the looks of it, they want to sell me a Brookes Brother franchise”
▫️ “I was the US Treasury Secretary, I am in some position to make the call”