Introduction

“How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?” was the question we were all asked at the start of our explorations project. For this project, we were all asked to find one interest or skill in relation to our Elective class that would further our passions with 21st century skills. For my project, I chose to address “Lynchianism”, or the directorial style of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive creator David Lynch. Lynch has a stylistic footprint that is unmistakably large, although very difficult to pinpoint. You know it when you see it, however you aren’t exactly sure of what you’re seeing. He utilizes surrealistic elements that cause its viewers to muddle reality with fiction, and fiction with reality. Even when you turn off the television, the movie continues on, infiltrating the crevices of the room with doubt and a dream-like but nightmarish derealisation. His technical unconventional utilization of color furthers this, with over-saturated, summery scenes of a heart attack hitting a grandfather as he waters his lawn, leaving him face-up on the lawn with the hose forming a geyser perfect for his dog to play in, or a simple noir blanket to a man’s wife giving birth to an alien, or even inappropriately warm and still scene of a mother running up and down a dark staircase yelling for her daughter to come down stairs as her body is being discovered barely a mile away. He uses long, drawn out scenes to make necklaces feel sinister, trees feel evil, and empty mugs of coffee feel lethal. Lynch’s version of horror does not result in a theater full of audience members yelling at the screen, infuriated by the stupidity of the main character and at the lazy antagonist that the director excuses by making it impossible to see in a pointless but authentically Hollywood dark setting. Lynch is willfully and blatantly unafraid of reality, yet determined to wrap both hands around it and morph it from a lump of clay into something inhuman that chills the people who look at it, eliciting a reaction not even they understand. His staunch dedication to embracing the abject, the deformed, and the meaningless makes his work more meaningful than gold.

However simple this may seem, although I’m not sure how you could think that, replicating this was less of a lesson in technical capability and more of a mental exercise in patience, silence, and learning to actively reject every lesson I have ever been taught about cinematic emotion and an effective story (sorry, Mr. T!). The technical aspects were surprisingly irrelevant to the execution of my project. However the creative aspect was, at times, very discouraging. I resorted to random-word generators and even chat GPT before throwing my hands up, dragging an old table cloth out of a closet, thinking for a brief second if it was possible to conjure up an emergency sand-worm with my mind, and going in blind. With my actor and friend CJ, I filmed in my dark dining room with an ancient box of Scrabble and my bedside lamp, thinking of absolutely every minute I had watched of Lynch and trying to think of what he would do, what he would say. Ultimately, what I discovered from this project was that the best solution, the most Lynchian thing I could possibly do, was to stop thinking. By the hour filming mark I had dug out old night lights, sundresses, and multi-colored socks. I had no idea what I was doing or what this was going to be. I was letting myself be led by my fleeting creative ideas, which turned out to be exactly the right place to be.

Process

The post-production process was more controlled, and I had more to work with. Shooting everything I could think of without thinking of how it related to the last thing or if I would even use it made it easy to piece together something that was perfectly obscure, misleading, and confusing. Upon reflection, this process exposed aspects of my skill-set that I needed to develop further. Color-grading presented itself to be a challenge, and although I am satisfied with the end product, I was cushioned by the freedom I had to make things not look how they were supposed to. I explored settings I was not fully comfortable using, such as hue-saturation and luminosity-saturation balance, color graphs, and color replacement. By the end I found that, although color was not my focus, I exited with a stronger understanding of it than what I had entered with.

Similarly, music was a challenge to me as well. Lynch uses a heavy, doom-jazz reminiscent of soap-operas, Cocteau Twins, and Jeff Buckley. I made up for the impediment of having to use stock music by combining multiple different audios and doing my best to align the song to the film. I think this helped my film become more effective and authentic, as Lynch’s use of music is a prominent aspect of all parts of his work, the acclaim given to soundtrack used in Twin Peaks being the most prominent example of that importance. Overall, although I learned a lot about fascinating and endlessly engaging Lynchian symbolism, I also learned a lot by simply doing something I was not formally taught and using things I thought were out of my range of ability.

The Final Product

Although there are aspects to the process and the end product that I would change if I redid this project, I am proud of the way it turned out, and I am glad that I got the opportunity to do something like this.

Experimental Music

For our Digital Media class, we were taught the basics of instruments in Pro Tools and told to create a 60-second cover or original song of our choice. The song I chose was “Le Moulin” from the 2001 movie “Amelie”. I really enjoy the music from Amelie, and even though the song was very simple to create, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of sifting through the songs to try to find the perfect one.

This was the process of recording and editing the cover using Pro Tools plugins.

I had a lot of fun with this aspect of the unit, even though I faced some challenges. My primary impediment stems from my lack of musical experience. Although I played some instruments when I was younger, I do not have a natural inclination towards music that could have aided me in this project. However, the tools that were available to me in Pro Tools were immensely helpful. Initially, because we had limited in class time for this project, I worked on my piano at home to map out the songs I wanted to do, and what I would have to do on the keyboard in class in order to do it swiftly. This, surprisingly, made me rapidly grow an interest in piano, and I decided that I will pursue furthering my skills in piano as a passion project over the summer during my free time. Overall, this part of the unit allowed me to express myself in ways that once seemed daunting, but now seem incredibly liberating and exciting. I hope to have even more fun next year!