Late in Twin Peaks Part 3 on Showtime, there is a short six-second establishing shot of the William Penn statue on top of City Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Similar to other establishing shots from Season 3 (such as Diane Evans’ apartment exterior or Yankton Federal Prison), this shot was footage captured by someone else.
WHERE IS THE ESTABLISHING SHOT OF PHILADELPHIA LOCATED?
To identify the footage, I first searched Getty Images where I previously found several stock footage clips. No luck. I also looked at several other stock footage websites but couldn’t find a shot that matched.
After much thinking, I realized it must have been captured using a drone. I searched, “philadelphia city hall william penn drone video” which directed me to an article on PhillyMag.com from November 2015.
Titled, “WATCH: City Hall Drone Footage Captures Rarely-Seen View of William Penn,” the article describes how Chad Aaronson, the guy who created Jersey Drone on YouTube, “got a sweeping view of [Philadelphia’s] seat of government and its long-standing silent icon.”
The video was published on November 16, 2015. See it below (the footage used in Twin Peaks is around the 13-second mark).
For the episode, it appears they color corrected it to match the rest of the series.
FBI HEADQUARTERS IN PHILADELPHIA, PA FROM TWIN PEAKS
The short scene ends up Gordon Cole and his team huddled around a desk at “FBI Headquarters, Philadelphia, PA.”
I believe this scene may have been shot at a building in Los Angeles, California (more on that another time once I confirm some details).
Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen an establishing shot for Philadelphia. In Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, there is a short transition image of the Liberty Bell before cutting to the interior of the “FBI Office.”
My gut tells me that this short transition is also stock footage. I can’t imagine a crew being sent to Philadelphia just to capture this brief shot. Finding matching footage is proving more challenging since it was shot on film and a digital record may not exist today. But I will keep trying to locate it.
The “FBI Office” in the film was shot at now demolished Cabrini Hospital at 967 Boren Ave in Seattle, Washington.
