For my quest to document every film Twin Peaks location, I want to identify and examine all the scenes that were shot on soundstages. While the overall location will be consistent for all of these scenes, the details uncovered will be interesting to explore. Let’s start with Dougie Jones’ appearance in the Red Room from Part 3 on Showtime.
LOCATION OF CALVERT STUDIOS WHERE TWIN PEAKS WAS FILMED
This scene, like many other soundstage shots from the 2017 series, was filmed at Calvert Studios located at 15001 Calvert Street in Van Nuys, California. The approximate coordinates for the location are 34°10’52.6″N 118°27’35.0″W.
For more than 30 years, Calvert Studios was the in-house studio and soundstage for Spelling Productions and CBS Studios. Other shows such as the original Beverly Hills 90210, Jericho, and the most recent Melrose Place were all shot at Calvert. More details about the building and its history are found on this page.
This particular scene was shot on March 29, 2016. The clapboard seen in the amazing Behind the Curtain footage from the Twin Peaks – From Z to A set reads – A415 / V104 (that’s the scene number) / C / 3
ENTER THE RED ROOM IN TWIN PEAKS
The scene opens with a slow pan along the red curtains of The Red Room.
The camera arrives at a corner of the room and continues down another wall.
You can see a better shot of the Red Room set up in the footage in Behind the Curtain – Part 2.
We catch a glimpse of the empty chair position in the Red Room in the short film “I Had Bad Milk in Dehradun.”
DOUGIE JONES ARRIVES IN THE RED ROOM
Suddenly, Dougie Jones appears in the Red Room chair. The Continuity and Dialogue script describes the action. I’ll be referencing these “scripts” as no official script has been released for Season 3.
INT. RED ROOM – SAME TIME
Dougie sits on a chair and looks around. Phillip stands in front of him
The outstanding crew did a damn fine job with Dougie’s image continuity. His scenes with Jade were shot (top image) on January 13, 2016 in Palmdale, California. The bottom image is from March 29. You would think that these two sequences were shot on the same day.
Phillip Gerard (Mike, the One Armed Man played by Al Strobel) remains in this position for most of the scene with Dougie. It means they shot all of his takes from this angle and edited the reaction shots from Kyle McLachlan later.
Dougie mentions he feels “funny” and wonders what is happening to him. Philip responds, “Someone manufactured you.”
Dougie responds, “What?”
Philip explains to Dougie: “For a purpose… but I think now that’s been fulfilled.”
“It has?,” the clueless Dougie responds, surprised and confused Gerard’s words.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING DOUGIE
The Continuity script continues describing the action: Dougie’s hand gets smaller. He looks at his hand. It gets smaller.
BUF, a visual effects company founded in 1984 in Europe, provided visual effects for the third season of Twin Peaks. They have offices based in Paris, Montreal and Los Angeles and have provided visual effects for more than 80 films and 1000 commercials.
For this scene, they created six shots as described on their website:
In this sequence, Dougie changes, morphs, gets distorted until disappearing. We worked on the beginning with the hand becoming really small and the shoulder starting falling with a simple effect.
We see Dougie’s arm and hand sans yellow blazer during rehearsals from Behind the Curtain – Part 3.
“That’s weird.”
Kyle MacLachlan rehearses the scene giving almost the same exact look.
His hand gets smaller, his ring falls clinking.
Dougie’s body begins to shrink.
He appears to shrink even more than what we see on screen.
David Lynch cuts the scene and jokingly remarks that they “don’t need any CGI” and it was a good thing he cut the scene or else Kyle would have completely disappeared. It’s a real treat watching Lynch work as a director.
Seated in purple next to him is Executive Producer Sabrina Sutherland. On Lynch’s left, you see Script Supervisor Cori Glazer and Unit Production Manager/Line Producer Christine Larson-Nitszche.
DOUGIE LOSES HIS HEAD IN THE RED ROOM
After we hear the ring hit the floor, Dougie’s head “pops” off:
His head gets smaller and disappears with a pop. A soft whooshing starts. A metal ball floats and Dougie’s body gets smaller.
The golden metal ball floats out of from the spot where Dougie’s head was once located. A great foreshadowing to other golden orbs we will see in the series.
The visual effects team makes his body shrink even more.
I wonder if BUF uses some of that footage where Kyle almost completely disappeared (HA!).
THE FLOATING OBJECT IN THE RED ROOM
A “floating object” appears above the empty chair.
The Continuity script continues:
Phillip covers his eyes. A metal ball appears then disappears in an electrical crackle. A metallic object is left on the chair. Phillip walks toward the chair and pick’s up Dougie’s ring. Phillip picks up the metallic object from the chair.
The chair is illuminated by a bright light as the object hatches another golden metal ball. The lighting special effects were most likely executed by Michael LaViolette who served as Gaffer.
Phillip covers his eyes as …
smoke fills the empty chair in the Red Room.
ANOTHER BALL APPEARS IN THE RED ROOM
You can almost see the reflection of the stage lighting in the close-up shot of the golden metal ball.
Phillip walks over to the ring and picks it up from the floor.
With the ring in his palm, Phillip then picks up the metal ball from the chair seat.
Pausing for a beat, he examines the ball and ring before existing the scene (which the action will continue in a different article about the table where the ring is placed).
THAT’S A WRAP, DOUGIE JONES
After filming his scenes, Kyle MacLachlan and the crew were asked to gather around. Flanked by First Assistant Director Scott Cameron and Executive Producer Sabrina Sutherland, David Lynch announces that the “real-but-not-so-real Dougie Jones is a wrap!” Applause ensues.
Kyle gives a big thumbs up before hugging David.
“Thanks for feeding me,” remarks Kyle as he rubs his faux-belly. More laughter and applause.
I close with two images from the Red Room Gallery, a collection of square images included with the Twin Peaks – From Z to A Set
