My friend Lesli Glatter, who...
We started at Amazing Stories together
a couple of years prior to that.
She... I was sort of, like, following Lesli everywhere she went.
She'd get a job and I'd follow her to the job, you know, right after that.
And she went to Twin Peaks season one,
and she put in a good word for me to David and Mark.
And I was a huge fan of season one and David's pilot.
I watched every episode from season one like a nutcase.
Like, I was like the Unabomber with my copious notes
and I watched a ton.
They don't tell you much. They really don't offer anything.
What's in the script is what you know
and you can ask as many questions as you like,
but I asked Mark Frost, you know, so many very specific questions.
I said, "Yeah, there's something up with Grace Zabriskie,"
and I would quote her mood swings
from episode to episode very specifically.
And Mark was impressed, I think, that I had paid such close attention.
And we came out of this tone meeting
and the production designer and line producer, they said:
"He told you things he hasn't told anybody."
I'm very proud of the opening of episode 11.
The script is very simple in what it says.
It says, "Interior. Sheriff's interrogation room. Day.
Start close on Leland Palmer, his face a dark mask of grief.
Sheriff Truman's voice is heard:
'Leland, you have the right to an attorney. Leland."'
And so I kind of just went and I said, "I don't know what that means visually.
I don't know how to start that.
That doesn't feel quite right." And I went in the little...
I love being in the physical space of the sets
and being able to plan my shots that way.
This is the best example I've ever had of doing that and what comes out of it.
I went and sat in Leland's chair.
In this tiny little, you know, box of a room,
and I looked at what Leland would be looking at.
And I realized I was staring at acoustic tile.
And I got the idea to go inside and make this very abstracted,
you know, creepy cave of a journey, and it's twisting and spiraling.
And then you're hearing sound
and really like, you know, messing with the audience's perception.
And then finally landing on Leland,
and realize you were in his nightmare, his interior headspace.
And I went to Mark Frost and I pitched it.
To my surprise, they really supported it.
Because Twin Peaks was a very inexpensive show.
I mean, it was shot in seven days.
Shooting like nine, ten pages a day.
You know, the equivalent of, even though...
Because the fonts are so small on these scripts.
So for them to accept that, that added expense...
But they really said, "Yeah, that will be cool."
And so we shot it.
And I mention in part of the... You know, in part of the sound work,
you know, I bumbled too close to some part
of the Laura Palmer, you know, revelation.
The murderer's revelation.
They made me take out a couple words and...
But I was very proud of that. That was exciting to me.
Twin Peaks is, like, from a period
where there was such patience with the image
and that subtlety of letting scenes play
and oners with good actors
and it's so pre-MTV.
It boggles me watching it now.
You know, it's so "pre" that...
Or maybe it was... I don't know if it was pre or just it was in defiance of.
I can't remember the timeline of the origin of MTV
and the origin of David's genesis of Twin Peaks.
But it's fascinating to watch how patient a nation had to be
as that story unfolded.
Or all our nations had to be as those stories unfolded.
Because they're just so parsed out.
You know, they're so...
The rope is let out so slowly
and I actually credit shows like Lost, you know,
today as being really finally going back
to the sort of serialized nature of Twin Peaks.