Drink full: The TWIN PEAKS 2017 spoiler thread, part 2

if anything, the amazing jason s docs can put to rest whether that rr scene was an editing mistake or not. the way he pours over every detail of every scene, it was definitely intentional.

i watched the last jason s doc and he’s really just complaining about the shooting schedule as he’s shooting it. his anxieties about what to do with 15 people during the bob orb scene precede him actually filming it

i do agree with him that had he spent more time in the fireman’s house it’d just be more riches and wonders but what we got was already majorly spectacular?

btw i love basically every moment in the docs where people are clapping and hugging

RE: the diner; Accidentally replacing every single extra in a scene as well as misplacing the actors would be a virtually impossible crew-wide fuck up.

Truman's office in e17 has an extra wide entrance with no door and a lot of empty space, which would look really weird on a day when you're NOT having cosmic battles and a large group of people milling around.

It took watching 17 a third time tonight for me to realize Lucy shooting Mr. C mirrors Andy shooting Jacques in the original. Then there’s the hat gag, “One for the grandkids,” all those sandwiches. It is just the Bob-orb fight that’s awkward and kinda lame in its conception. Brad I think you’re otm.

Unsurprisingly I'm with Brad 100%, I'm v early in my rewatch so I haven't got to episode 17 yet but I love it all. iirc the "room to dream" complaint was occasioned by lynch being told how little time he had in the great northern & when I think back to those scenes I do think you can see artefacts of a rushed shoot, in the staging & first-take quality of some of the performances - but I absolutely love everything we got in that location, I'm just more than ready to believe that in the most perfect alternate reality there would be even more great stuff there.

It's maybe worth noting that lynch complained just as much in lynch one, working on a project (inland empire) that had nothing but "room to dream", but that came with its own set of limitations (no money) and challenges (no script). He may not always like it but he works well when constrained & I think being backed into a corner often results in his best decisions - it was definitely a good thing that ABC forced him to reveal the killer, it was definitely a good thing that fenn told him to fuck off and write her a better part, &c (I won't say it's good that mja had a meltdown but the evolution of the arm is a wonderful product of that mess). That said, showtime could have given them a slightly less compressed shooting schedule because jeez lol

Well TBF Lynch had just negotiated a massively better deal than they had initially been prepared to risk, so there was some leeway given!

he didn't really, he just stretched the budget they gave him for 9 episodes to cover 18

conversely there’s a scene in the docs where they blocked out a whole week to shoot hutch and chantal getting shot up in vegas and lynch is convinced they can shoot the whole scene in one day. he’s right, and he does it, but it’s an interesting example of the opposite problem

i think another thing is they cast so many people with extremely variable availabilities (the reason the great northern shoot was so short is bc they only had ashley judd for two days)

Yeah exactly, there are always practical things that get in the way. That's life innit: sometimes you get fix-all and sometimes you get plaster of paris BULLSHIT

Sabrina Sutherland has said that there were scenes scripted that they just couldn't afford to film, which is tantalising

I mentioned this on the 'cast but spare a thought for poor Chrysta Bell, imagine that being your first acting job - stressful enough as it is - but then having to do it in an extremely short window thanks to Ferrer's schedule

plaster of paris BULLSHIT

literally my fav moment in the docs. those pools of luminous goo look great still even if lynch was dissatisfied

oh i should also say for anyone who hasn't seen them yet that the beymer red room films are also awesome

it was definitely a good thing that ABC forced him to reveal the killer

borderline challop from wins, but you know, it's right!

Lynch does sprawling dreamlike well, but forcing him to actually plot gives good results and he really would have just meandered with diminishing returns, imo

Which part of the doc is the diner extras stuff in?

xp I feel like it would have been more of a challop back in the day but the conventional wisdom has shifted a fair bit, a lot more people acknowledge that fwwm and its depiction of incestuous abuse is the central text of twin peaks, and it couldn't exist without the revelation of the killer, so it naturally follows that it wasn't a mistake to solve that mystery

besides the episode in which the killer is revealed is one of the best things lynch has ever done

The diner doesn't feature in any of the docs, the point was just that they show lynch consistently micromanaging every aspect of each scene to an extreme degree, making it unlikely that the diner thing would be a mistake

xp yes! It's maybe the best ep after the finale

So sad and beautiful. "It is happening again" - I don't know how anyone can watch that episode and think it was in any way a mistake tbh

i love that lynch gave a ton of character motivation to the wrong douglas jones + family and they appear in the show for approx one second

So sad and beautiful. "It is happening again" - I don't know how anyone can watch that episode and think it was in any way a mistake tbh

― Bitcoin Baja (wins), Friday, January 5, 2018 9:34 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last time i watched this episode i cried and cried and cried

Oh man lynch coaxing the kid is hilarious xp

i actually hadn't investigated to the soundtracks to the return before today. "the fireman" is legit one of the most beautiful things badalamenti's ever written

Rewatching it all fairly quickly it was obv how much this series was about cycles of abuse, dependence, addiction. Nearly every character, even the minor ones, is trapped in some recurring pattern they can’t escape. Diane is the only one who does, or probably does, though whether she was ever “real” or not is pretty ambiguous all the way up to the end.

Actually I think only Margaret Lanterman made an unambiguous escape from her odd sort of bondage

i actually hadn't investigated to the soundtracks to the return before today. "the fireman" is legit one of the most beautiful things badalamenti's ever written

Rewatching it all fairly quickly it was obv how much this series was about cycles of abuse, dependence, addiction. Nearly every character, even the minor ones, is trapped in some recurring pattern they can’t escape. Diane is the only one who does, or probably does, though whether she was ever “real” or not is pretty ambiguous all the way up to the end.

also love how johnny jewel nails the mood of twin peaks from a slightly different angle than badalamenti on "windswept"

That short track "dark space low"

yes! There's a youtube edit of it looping for an hour? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CYrYLSPcd4 people are odd.

Rewatching it all fairly quickly it was obv how much this series was about cycles of abuse, dependence, addiction. Nearly every character, even the minor ones, is trapped in some recurring pattern they can’t escape. Diane is the only one who does, or probably does, though whether she was ever “real” or not is pretty ambiguous all the way up to the end.

― sciatica, Friday, January 5, 2018 12:38 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually I think only Margaret Lanterman made an unambiguous escape from her odd sort of bondage

Ed and Norma, too!

https://i.imgur.com/TuuqShY.png

https://i.imgur.com/roBrv2S.png

https://i.imgur.com/ECEc3BE.png

Me at 4:20pm

Assuming you mean the whole series going back to 1989 *nods vigorously*

There’s a disconnected, oblique relation to the stories (sometimes just vignettes) of trapped and damaged people in The Return that’s different from how they relate in TP & FWWM, which are closer to conventional generational melodrama. The new method together with the shifting and uncertain identities changes the emphasis I think, makes each dilemma feel more cosmic *single sage Hawklike nod*

Wouldn't necessarily argue, I was just struck by the fact that your original post was, practically verbatim, stuff I had been saying about twin peaks before the return dropped. It's definitely heightened by the (lol sorry for turn-of-millennium buzzword) atomised quality of much of the new series - though I would argue (again, have always argued) that "shifting and uncertain identities" is a major thing in the original series and of course fwwm

btw I got to episode 9 in my rewatch and so far basically everything is a highlight

Closest I can come to a challop is that Tim Roth is annoying, also Stephen's overacting is great and hilarious fuiud - his reaction to seeing $72 and his "w-w-w-why?" are exactly like an anime character

random question, but -

the infamous nuclear explosion in episode 8 - how was it made? entirely CGI? a blend of effects and real footage? my googling has been futile so far.

As far as I know, the explosion sequence was entirely CGI. According to Pierre Buffin, the head of the effects studio BUF,

In his house, Lynch had this picture of the atomic blast that he had found in Warner's buildings. We worked based on this picture. The slow tracking shot towards the explosion was made up of 5000 images, which is huge. On the whole, we needed 8000 images for this sequence, when usually an effect only appears for a couple of seconds. Once we're inside the explosion, Lynch gave us carte blanche. We asked four artists to create abstract images, to add up to two hours of images among which he picked some. He also gave us shots of elements in abeyance he had filmed in his aquarium and that we could work on. I have to say, that didn't always work. All the weird stuff, that's his making. The talking tree with that weird head, it's him who first sculpted him before we did him again in 3D. For him, technique doesn't matter, what matters is the emotion that the result carries.

https://www.reddit.com/r/twinpeaks/comments/78rbvm/all_interview_with_pierre_buffin_translated_22/

oh wow, thanks! that's exactly what i was looking for.

That's so interesting! Presumably he at least specified the experiment-barfing-bob visuals but the rest of the stuff inside the explosion being entirely the work of the vfx team is surprising and cool. I would actually fucking love the dream Jason S extra footage that showed lynch seeing what they came up with for the first time

In other news I just finished part 13 of my rewatch and I have to say the Sizemore stuff is far more uncomfortable to watch now than it was when it aired just a few months ago (same for the Ashley Judd scenes although not quite to the same extent)

I cleaned up the text and the grammar slips in the Buffin interview for fun (proofreaders never die, they just repress the urge) and I figured it's likely to be of general interest, so:

PRIMITIVE
The special effects are one of the major surprises of season 3. Pierre Buffin, a Frenchman, creator and director of BUF company and unavoidable figure of special effects (from Matrix to Avatar) talks to us about his work with David Lynch.
How did you meet David Lynch?
We'd already worked together on commercials, without us ever meeting him. In 2012, we were asked to do a film on math for an event on the subject at the Fondation Cartier, for which Lynch was the art director. That's when we met him. A year later, Lynch came to tell us about a secret project without ever naming it. We learned from the press that it was in fact the follow-up to Twin Peaks! We could read all 800 pages of the script, but only at his place, in a locked room.
How did the first meetings go?
It's paradoxical, but Lynch can be both very precise and vague. Sometimes the descriptions that he gave us were surrealists "the head rips open and we see meat appear ..." that kind of stuff. My role is to translate his demands. We went to the sets. It's very impressive to see him work because he intervenes on all fronts, he needs to touch, to make things his own, with costumes, with sets, etc. He shoots very fast and makes few takes, leaving some margin of improvisation to the actors. Once we were back in Paris, we worked through Skype. Because Lynch needs to touch things, to be in direct contact, working at distance hasn't always been easy.
Did BUF do all the special effects of the show?
We did most of the special effect in 3D, like the atomic explosion, but most of the 2D effects, like the lights that shine above the machines in Vegas for example, Lynch did them himself, with a small team working at his place. It wasn't always easy to meet his demands. We worked quite a while on the scene were Dougie blows up in the Red Room. Lynch had basically told us: the character is sat on the chair, he begins shrinking, he loses his ring, then he collapses and turns into pizza dough. We then made some kind of pizza dough but it was ridiculous. There is a lot of humour in Twin Peaks, but the image in itself mustn't be comical, because then it doesn't work. When we reached those kinds of dead ends, he would take over with 2D effects. In the main, directors are obsessed with the latest technologies. Not David Lynch, who loves to be manual.
There's something primitive in these effects.
Absolutely. It's very interesting to see him work. At the start of the show, Cooper falls through the sky. Lynch had asked us to do a starry sky, but the stars weren't moving, which he disliked. Against all logic, we made the stars move, but suddenly they looked like dust. Then, with a small Sony camera, Lynch refilmed the stars while moving his camera. From time to time, he refilmed some special effects to bend them to his universe. In the scene where Cooper arrives in this big box in the middle of the universe, Lynch blurred the image, which in the beginning was completely clear.
What's the difference between this and the other Hollywood movies you've worked on?
With Lynch, it's not about monsters breaking down buildings. We're in a more metaphysical dimension. The subject itself is very far removed from what we're used to work on. This had an impact on the way we perceive these effects. But the main difference is, on the Hollywood movies we usually talk very little with the director. We're mostly in contact with the supervisor. On Twin Peaks, the only one we spoke to was David Lynch himself.
Did he give you any pictorial references?
He never showed us any pictorial reference apart from his own paintings. Every time we would show him any other reference, it didn't work. We need to stay in his world. Most of the time he would draw us the thing himself. For example, for the frogmoth, this creature half frog, half bug, we made several drawings taking inspiration from what he described but it wasn't right. He then drew the creature himself. What he demanded wasn't always doable. He wanted the waves near the Fireman's home to be three kilometres high. It was impossible to visualise and eventually he accepted more realistic waves.
Are there any invisible effects?
The only "invisible" effect that we had to deal with is in episode 17, when Cooper's holding Laura's hand in the forest. We had to de-age Sheryl Lee by 25 years.
How was the atomic bomb made?
In his house, Lynch had this picture of the atomic blast that he had found in the Warner's lot. We worked based on this picture. The slow tracking shot towards the explosion was made up of 5000 images, which is huge. On the whole, we needed 8000 images for this sequence, when usually an effect only appears for a couple of seconds. Once we're inside the explosion, Lynch gave us carte blanche. We asked four artists to create abstract images, to add up to two hours of images among which he picked some. He also gave us shots of elements in abeyance he had filmed in his aquarium and that we could work on. I have to say, that didn't always work. All the weird stuff, that's his making. The talking tree with that weird head, it's him who first sculpted him before we did it again in 3D. For Lynch, technique doesn't matter, what matters is the emotion that the result carries.
In most movies using special effects, they strive to be realistic. It's not the case here.
Special effects are mostly used to make the movie more rich. Lynch doesn't care, he's looking to create uneasiness, an emotion. Mostly, he's never influenced by what's around him. He's always connected to his universe.
The vortex in the sky doesn't strive to imitate a tornado. We get the feeling the vortex is born from the image itself.
It needed to be unnatural. Nothing is natural in Lynch's work. We're in a parallel world. Even the nuclear blast, which is pretty realistic, is made weird through this slow, forward movement. When you look at stock-shot of nuclear blasts, you see the impact or the explosion filmed in static, never with a tracking shot like here. Lynch is careful with every details. In the scene where Cooper got sucked up by this big electrical outlet, his nose elongated a bit like Pinocchio's, which Lynch didn't like. And when he gets out of the electrical socket, initially, that was as a tube, as if he'd been compressed. This made it comical, which wasn't the point. Finally, we found the idea for the black smoke.
Which sequences were the hardest?
The sequence where Freddie, the man with the green glove, fights against BOB was pretty hard to make. Usually we receive a pre-montage, we make a model, then the director changes the montage slightly before the finalise the effect. Here, we received a definitive montage and we had to find a choreography within this montage. And then BOB's face came from used footage of the show, we had to find the right angle. We had to remade false animations of his face in 3D. As for the creature that we see inside the atomic blast and in the glass box, which we made through photos that Lynch had showed us, we agreed that we needed real movements to animate it. Lynch filmed a female dancer who we used as a model. But in the end Lynch found the character to be too animalistic. Because the budget was limited, he re-used stuff we had created but hadn't had time to finish, and re-shot this animated character to add his personal touch.
Was the effect where Laura opens up her face and shines a white light hard to do?
The effect in itself was pretty simple to make, from a 3D face which reproduces the actress's. Then you try to make it as coherent as possible. You need to be careful so that the actress's fingers are on the right spot, to work on the edges of the face, on the thickness of it. We had to make it realistic even if the subject wasn't at all.
How did you react when you saw 2D effects which are far away from what's being done today?
At first I was pretty lost. We had much more sophisticated effects, and right there I was seeing some pretty old school effects for 2017. We maybe have a weakness, which is to try and make impressive effects. But Lynch doesn't care about that. I think that he even likes when the effect doesn't add up, a little naïve, primitive as you said. But in the end, I find that the result fits perfectly with his universe. His effects work because, behind them, there is an image which is very constructed, elegant, and a rhythm that had been mastered.

This interview was conducted by Jean-Sébastien Chauvin by phone on the 16th of September 2017.

wow, thanks for doing that!

There's something primitive in these effects.

Absolutely. It's very interesting to see him work. At the start of the show, Cooper falls through the sky. Lynch had asked us to do a starry sky, but the stars weren't moving, which he disliked. Against all logic, we made the stars move, but suddenly they looked like dust. Then, with a small Sony camera, Lynch refilmed the stars while moving his camera. From time to time, he refilmed some special effects to bend them to his universe. In the scene where Cooper arrives in this big box in the middle of the universe, Lynch blurred the image, which in the beginning was completely clear.

love this - re-filming the effects.

What he demanded wasn't always doable. He wanted the waves near the Fireman's home to be three kilometres high. It was impossible to visualise and eventually he accepted more realistic waves.

aw man! this was a really cool idea! doesn't seem like it would be impossible to visualize...

I'm rewatching everything, and noticing lots of stuff. When the insurance man (played by Mr Pitt from Seinfeld!) is talking to Bobby and Shelly about Leo's care he says to think about childproofing the outlets. Which is presumably coincidental, but interesting given what happens in the new series. Are there parrallel's between Leo's catatonia and Dougie's amnesia?

When the insurance man (played by Mr Pitt from Seinfeld!)

Whoa I've watched both religiously and I *never* noticed that was him!

You noticed him in Inland Empire though right?

Def yeah

I'm probably dumb about film stuff, but how exactly would you go about re-filming digital effects? Like projecting the footage and filming it with a camera?

That's what it sounds like!

Reminds me of reproducing photos you lacked the negative for back in photography class, using a medium or large format camera mounted above a surface with the original mounted

Or bouncing something to analog tape when you're trying to combine digital audio files that have different sample rates. Or re-amping digital recordings to record them in a real space.