Take 99 Wasn't the Point: real estate prospecting practice

David Fincher has a reputation.

If you are an actor in one of his movies, the story goes, you are going to do the scene again and again until you forget your name, the reason you became an actor, and possibly where you parked.

The number everyone brings up is 99.

That is how many takes were reportedly involved in the opening scene of *The Social Network*, where Jesse Eisenberg and Rooney Mara sit in a crowded bar and talk past each other for several minutes before she breaks up with him. It is a fast scene. The dialogue overlaps, the conversation keeps changing direction, and Eisenberg's character seems to be answering one question while still arguing about the previous two.

It looks exhausting because it probably was.

The usual version of the story is that Fincher made them perform that scene 99 times because he is an obsessive perfectionist who refuses to stop. It is a good story. It also makes the process sound much stranger than it was.

Fincher later explained that the 99 takes happened over two nights and 12 different camera setups. They were not standing in the same place, filming the exact same shot 99 times while Fincher sat behind a monitor waiting for someone to blink correctly. The scene needed wide shots, close-ups, angles over each actor's shoulder, and enough usable material to hold together a very fast conversation.

His editors said they received roughly 60 of those takes. Cutting the opening scene took about three weeks.

So 99 was not one decision repeated 99 times. It was the raw material for hundreds of smaller decisions that nobody watching the movie would ever notice.

Fincher describes his process differently. He has said that he considers the first three takes rehearsals. Actors arrive with an idea of how they are going to play the scene, which makes sense. They have done their homework. They know where they want to pause, what they plan to emphasize, and how the moment is supposed to feel.

Fincher wants to get past that.

After enough repetitions, the actor no longer has to spend as much energy remembering the plan. The words are there. The movements have settled down. Something that looked performed during the first few attempts can begin to feel as if it is simply happening.

Fincher does not ask for another take because somebody failed. They simply have not finished making the scene. He has said that actors sometimes hear "Let's do another one" as "What am I doing wrong?" His answer is that they may not be doing anything wrong, and neither is he. The work is still in progress.

That seems obvious until you think about how rarely the rest of us allow ourselves to work that way.

We want the early attempt to count as the finished version. If it feels awkward, takes too long, or does not produce the result we expected, we start reviewing the entire idea. It becomes very easy to decide the activity is not for us, the system must be broken, and everyone else was apparently born knowing how to do it.

We do this before we have been at it long enough to stop thinking about every word.

That came up while Kathryn and I were talking about expired listings. Agents will say they have been calling for six weeks, which sounds substantial. Ask how many actual conversations they had and the answer may be 28.

Fincher is not doing additional takes because he believes repetition automatically makes everything better. More footage can still be bad footage. His process gives him enough material to see what is working, find the small problems, and choose intentionally.

You need enough attempts to learn something. Until then, the loudest reaction starts to feel like the most accurate one. One rude person can become your conversion data, while a morning without an appointment gets treated like a verdict. The emotional memory takes over because there is not enough actual work behind it to show you anything else.

Fincher once explained that if a director shoots 14 takes and regularly uses take 12, the process is probably working. If the editor usually selects take two, then doing 14 may not make much sense.

The number alone does not tell you whether the work is good. It gives you enough information to understand your own process.

Which brings us back to take 99.

The opening of *The Social Network* gives no hint of how many times it was filmed. It just feels like two people stuck in a conversation that has been going wrong for much longer than seven minutes.

That is what all those takes bought Fincher: a scene in which the work disappears.

A good prospecting conversation eventually reaches that point too. You stop thinking about the dialogue long enough to hear the person on the other end. There is no way around the awkward versions because those are what make the natural one possible.

FAQ: real estate prospecting practice

Why does David Fincher film so many takes?

Fincher has explained that early takes function as rehearsal and that repetition can move actors beyond their prepared choices. Multiple takes also give the director and editors enough material to shape a precise final performance.

Did David Fincher film *The Social Network* opening 99 times?

The widely reported total is 99 takes, but Fincher clarified that they were spread across two nights and 12 camera setups. The number did not represent 99 identical attempts at one shot.

How does practice improve real estate prospecting?

Repetition helps agents become less preoccupied with remembering a dialogue and more capable of listening and responding naturally. It also produces enough experience to identify which part of the conversation needs improvement.

When should an agent decide a prospecting method is not working?

Only after completing enough consistent activity to evaluate the process. A small number of emotionally difficult calls may reveal discomfort, but it does not provide enough information to judge the entire lead source.