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

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.

And this is probably super old news, but before the 'It's happening again' scene, Cooper chews gum given to him by the log lady, who talks about gum in one of the intros. Only mentioning because in the 90s I remember the quote "that gum you like..." being considered to be a reference to gumshoe, or some such. This seems a more likely reference.

But dear god, Maddy's murder shocks me every time.

Pretty sure the newly-shot effects footage would just replace the old effects footage in the digital composition. I don't think you'd project the original unless you were using it as reference while you were creating the new effect. If you wanted to blend the two together you'd still probably do that in software.

here's an ILX exclusive (clusive, clusive...) recently recorded the final Lodgers ep with guests Dennis Lim and Tom McCarthy (the novelist, not the director lol). should be up next weekend

Do you "shoot" digital effects footage though? idgi

oh! that's great, Simon. Really looking forward to that!

had not previously noticed that sarah palmer spends her days sitting directly in the maw of a terrifying face

https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/sarahp.jpg

(covered upthread prob, i just got excited a second)

wait what do you mean, where's the face?

the mirrors are eyes and a nose; the couch is a mouth

oh god

that's judy, this is canon

i think she is, basically

sure is a mystery, huh

http://www.wfuv.org/sites/default/files/news/photos/1849293183_2b383d0c1b_o.jpg

all 4 parts of these are up now

An episodic treatment of the episodic televisual-cinematic whatsit Twin Peaks: The Return, and a year-in-review, for @reverse_shot.
Pt 1: (https://t.co/UFWTGWMH4j)
Pt 2: (https://t.co/0DBSHnp85t)
Pt 3: (https://t.co/Vf0MUuqk1S)
Pt 4: (https://t.co/EnYT1mWDkE)

— BANDZ STACKHAGE (@NickPinkerton) February 1, 2018

nice thabks

thabsyou vebly much

Yeah, I enjoyed reading through those that. Is the series over? I was hopeful there would be a part 5 tomorrow

found a weird new porn site pic.twitter.com/3BIoKDk4iS

— adam (@burgerkrang) February 6, 2018

Not sure if it's exactly what y'all were inferring but I think I could get behind the notion of the Palmer house as an incarnation of Judy. It's certainly been framed throughout the series as a corrupted/corrupting space.

the pinkerton essays are great (there's some needless star war hate but even that was enjoyable to sift through)

TBF, I don't know how one would even talk about The Return without spending at least a little time ruminating on The Last Jedi.

idk if that's necessarily true

I'm glad you were here to say it politely brad

I'm willing to hear arguments to the contra...

Okay, okay, I'll curb the japery before I'm too entrenched.

Now that this has been over for a while, have people itt softened on the Dougie scenes? So many people hated that arc, most because it went on for so long, but I love the drip drop of details we get about the real Dougie's past—how this empty vessel existed for decades and somehow carved out a fulfilling life for himself.

I never had any beef with Dougie. Some of the frustration seems to have stemmed from an expectation that The Return would to some extent be TP-by-numbers, which was never gonna happen.

i didn't like it at the time and i like it even less now. i think that applies to just about everything in the show but esp to the dougie arc.

There did seem to be something cruel about the show's use of its limited run time with the Dougie plot, and I'm still not sure how much of that was deliberately a joke at the expense of impatient viewers (like the slow waiter visiting Cooper in S2E1, only spread across hours) or whether Lynch just genuinely loved the character and spending time in that Vegas world. Probably a bit of both, I guess, but in hindsight it seems way more like the latter to me.

I mean plenty of posters in the two threads were posting about what they found rich about the vegas plotline (beyond it being just a single conceptual gag) for literally the entirety of its run

The slow waiter is a good analogy in that it obviously is partly a joke on impatient viewers, but it's also tense and sad and lovely and joyous (señor droolcup is a fucking angel! just like DougieCooper). People always talk about "trolling" with that scene but I don't think the point of it is the people who feel they're being shut out, except that it wants those people to fix their hearts

Lynch just genuinely loved the character and spending time in that Vegas world

it's really only this

i think

I can understand why someone might not be on board with Dougie or five minutes of uninterrupted sweeping or the extended scenes of dawdling that bookend the second season but it's part of what Lynch does. He likes to let things breathe. This isn't one of those MTV videos or a trailer for a Jason Statham movie, man.