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- RIP David Lynch
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RIP David Lynch
Leading with the big news from last week as most people who read this newsletter are doubtlessly aware: the death of titanic artist David Lynch, whose influence on both film and television is too huge to describe in full here.
However, I did want to take the opportunity to highlight a few Lynchian tidbits that are well within the remit of this little newsletter!
An Intentionally Weird Restoration
Just last week I wrote about the mostly-bad habit of filmmakers going back post-release and continuing to tinker with their films. Arguably Lynch himself did this with the Criterion restoration of his film Inland Empire!
INLAND EMPIRE restoration flowchart by David Lynch! 🖤⚡️
— Criterion Collection (@Criterion)
3:42 PM • Mar 22, 2023
“Topaz Video Enhance AI”??? The alarmist in me has one reaction: Uh-oh! Indeed, this video essay by the YouTuber caleb gamman on the Criterion release is very negative:
A substantial Reddit thread is more circumspect, with some Redditors criticizing the new version while others suggest that the added AI-induced creepiness is part of Lynch’s intentions. After all, Lynch in part used digital video because of it permitting “more room to dream.” I think if anyone could be afforded the leeway to be intentional about tinkering, it would be David Lynch.
Digital Cinematography
Lynch also utilized digital cinematography on his last major work - Twin Peaks: The Return, albeit in a more complicated way than the consumer-level DV camera he had used for Inland Empire. From IndieWire:
The problem is that with the amount of special effects required for the new season of “Twin Peaks,” smaller, less expensive DSLR cameras have a “rolling shudder” and don’t supply a constant frame, which makes it extremely difficult for visual effects artists. In addition, Showtime, like Netflix and Amazon, wants its original shows to not only to deliver in 4K resolution, but shoot in 4K. This made Lynch’s preferred, smaller digital cameras an impossibility. The happy medium became the Arri Amira, which is popular in the documentary community and has been used on indie films like “Goat” and “The Fits.”
“The Amira is essentially the same sensor as the Arri Alexa, records at 3.2K which is easily up-res’d to 4K and Showtime was nice enough to say, OK, you don’t have to originate in 4K,” said [cinematographer Peter] Deming. “It was the smallest camera that could do that and I had a lot of experience with the Alexa, which I love, so when I tested the Amira it was basically an Alexa in smaller housing to me. So I was pleased we went out with that camera and I think at the end of the day David was as well.”
They rented older 1960 ultra speed lenses from Panavision to “rough up” or soften some of the sharpness of the digital image.
Another crazy bit of information from the article: Lynch and Deming went “into production with a 500-plus page script that didn’t have episode breaks, rather than the 18 episodes that Showtime aired… ‘We also shot it like a feature film,’ said Deming in an interview with IndieWire. ‘When you went to a location, you shot all the action that took place at that location. It’s different than TV – there’s no episode scripts, there’s one director, there’s one crew. So we broke it down and scheduled it like a feature film.’”
Sure, but my 500 page script goes unproduced in the bottom of a drawer (because it is unfilmable and I wrote it after accidentally mixing cough syrup and hallucinogenic mushrooms I mistook for almonds because I wasn’t wearing my glasses).
From Failed Pilot to Major Film
Most people know Lynch’s seminal work Mulholland Drive began its life as a network TV pilot, but now thanks to the power of the Internet, you can actually watch the pilot in its original form, or at least read a breakdown of the differences between pilot and film.
The Power of Sound
Lastly, but possibly most importantly, David Lynch knew well how important sound was for filmmaking. The sound effect production website A Sound Effect has a great roundup of Lynch’s approach to sound, as well as his collaborations with figures like Alan Splet, Dean Hurley, and Ron Eng.
RIP to a towering artist. As his Twin Peaks collaborator Mark Frost wrote:
Mourn and remember him but don’t forget to celebrate too. We won’t see his like again. The man from another place has gone home.
Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)
Here’s a round-up of cool and interesting links about Hollywood and technology:
How they made the surprisingly gruesome effects of Goosebumps. (link)
It was one of the best movies of 1999. Where did it go? (link)
The Severance star who can’t watch his own show. (link)