FWWM The Missing Pieces

[Jordan Cole]

What is FX about the smile scene? Sorry if that's a dumb question. Isn't it just a closeup of her face?

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

What is FX about the smile scene? Sorry if that's a dumb question. Isn't it just a closeup of her face?

My recollection is that Lynch digitally manipulated her mouth to create the creepy slow “smiling” effect. That wasn’t part of the actual footage, which is why it’s so eerie and unsettling.

 

[Jordan Cole]

My recollection is that Lynch digitally manipulated her mouth to create the creepy slow “smiling” effect. That wasn’t part of the actual footage, which is why it’s so eerie and unsettling.

Wuh....really?? It looks like she just smiled really slowly. What the.

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Wuh....really?? It looks like she just smiled really slowly. What the.

I hope I’m right on this! Someone please confirm, or deny if I’m somehow off base. It’s just one of those things that I’ve known for so long that I can’t remember how I know it. But just watching the footage, it seems obvious to me that it’s digitally manipulated in the manner of a lot of Lynch’s early 2000s Internet experiments.

 

[Jordan Cole]

I hope I’m right on this! Someone please confirm, or deny if I’m somehow off base. It’s just one of those things that I’ve known for so long that I can’t remember how I know it. But just watching the footage, it seems obvious to me that it’s digitally manipulated in the manner of a lot of Lynch’s early 2000s Internet experiments.

I just watched it again and I don't agree. It looks like she is just smiling. If it was digital via 2000 internet experiment FX I don't see how it could possibly look that good.

 

[secretlettermkr]

BREAKING NEWS AND RUMORS!

 

[krishnanspace]

BREAKING NEWS AND RUMORS!

Huh?

 

[secretlettermkr]

The conversation here is completely offtopic, i sicerely only check this thread, and is because of the specific content it's supposed to contain.. and its very frustrating when theres a bunch of new comments and none are related to the theme

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

I just watched it again and I don't agree. It looks like she is just smiling. If it was digital via 2000 internet experiment FX I don't see how it could possibly look that good.

If you look at the glints in her eyes, the highlights on her skin, her hair, they’re all frozen, like it’s just a still. But then, the motion of her mouth and her eyelids seems so natural. The combination of those two things is what makes it feel so bizarre and unsettling. Also, her pupils are pulsating in unnatural fashion, dilating and contracting at a much faster pace than could happen in reality. I agree that the digital effects (if they are actually digital effects…again, maybe I’m wrong!) are very sophisticated for the era. But to me, there is just something very off about the shot that clearly is not natural. Even the cutaway to the fan itself feels very digital/CGI to me.

 

[Dom]

The conversation here is completely offtopic, i sicerely only check this thread, and is because of the specific content it's supposed to contain.. and its very frustrating when theres a bunch of new comments and none are related to the theme

Yeah, sorry, I was simply replying to comments from a slightly off-cuff remark. I'm sure the moderator will hive it off. Sorry I upset you.

 

[Jordan Cole]

If you look at the glints in her eyes, the highlights on her skin, her hair, they’re all frozen, like it’s just a still. But then, the motion of her mouth and her eyelids seems so natural. The combination of those two things is what makes it feel so bizarre and unsettling. Also, her pupils are pulsating in unnatural fashion, dilating and contracting at a much faster pace than could happen in reality. I agree that the digital effects (if they are actually digital effects…again, maybe I’m wrong!) are very sophisticated for the era. But to me, there is just something very off about the shot that clearly is not natural. Even the cutaway to the fan itself feels very digital/CGI to me.

Yeah, watching it a second time. I disagree. It does not look like a still at all to me. It looks like filmed footage of her face. You see her skin and cheeks moving and reacting to her mouth smiling and etc. A still with cheap digital FX would look absolutely terrible.

I could be wrong, but I just don't see what you're talking about at all.

 

[secretlettermkr]

Yeah, sorry, I was simply replying to comments from a slightly off-cuff remark. I'm sure the moderator will hive it off. Sorry I upset you.

you didnt! dont worry.. just saying hhehe..

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

Yeah, watching it a second time. I disagree. It does not look like a still at all to me. It looks like filmed footage of her face. You see her skin and cheeks moving and reacting to her mouth smiling and etc. A still with cheap digital FX would look absolutely terrible.

I could be wrong, but I just don't see what you're talking about at all.

Again, I’m also totally open to being wrong! But looking just at her eyes…the glint of the light shining into her pupils is just totally frozen, whereas the pupils are expanding and contracting like crazy, back and forth. Doesn’t that seem artificial to you?

 

[Jordan Cole]

Again, I’m also totally open to being wrong! But looking just at her eyes…the glint of the light shining into her pupils is just totally frozen, whereas the pupils are expanding and contracting like crazy, back and forth. Doesn’t that seem artificial to you?

But it's not frozen. It's moving subtly. When something is frozen I could really tell it's frozen.

Her pupils are expanding reacting to the lights being shone on her, and I suspect Lynch shot this at some other framerate to achieve an eerie effect.

I don't understand what you're implying, you really think her smile, where you can clearly see in detail her teeth, her gums, her cheeks moving, etc, is some sort of effect? You think those are like cartoon teeth and gums?

 

[Mr. Reindeer]

But it's not frozen. It's moving subtly. When something is frozen I could really tell it's frozen.

Her pupils are expanding reacting to the lights being shone on her, and I suspect Lynch shot this at some other framerate to achieve an eerie effect.

I don't understand what you're implying, you really think her smile, where you can clearly see in detail her teeth, her gums, her cheeks moving, etc, is some sort of effect? You think those are like cartoon teeth and gums?

No, I don't think it was a cartoon effect. I think it might have been someone else’s teeth and gums, or maybe a still of Sheryl Lee’s mouth that Lynch had that he digitally merged with other footage. Going back to our Blade Runner discussion: there's a scene in The Final Cut where Ridley Scott placed Harrison Ford's son's mouth onto Harrison Ford's performance to fix a lip sync issue (the scene where Deckard is arguing with a snake handler). This was in 2007, and it's seamless. So this technology definitely existed in 2014.

My point with the pupils is that they’re dilating and contracting, but the highlights on her eyes aren’t changing whatsoever. It’s really unnatural.

 

[Jordan Cole]

No, I don't think it was a cartoon effect. I think it might have been someone else’s teeth and gums, or maybe a still of Sheryl Lee’s mouth that Lynch had that he digitally merged with other footage. Going back to our Blade Runner discussion: there's a scene in The Final Cut where Ridley Scott placed Harrison Ford's son's mouth onto Harrison Ford's performance to fix a lip sync issue (the scene where Deckard is arguing with a snake handler). This was in 2007, and it's seamless. So this technology definitely existed in 2014.

My point with the pupils is that they’re dilating and contracting, but the highlights on her eyes aren’t changing whatsoever. It’s really unnatural.

That is REALLY wacky. It looks exactly like Lee's mouth and teeth and everything. It's her iconic smile, right there. And you see her cheeks and skin and everything moving around it. I genuinely can't even believe this debate! It doesn't look fake or like an FX at all. It's just her face smiling. Again, I disagree: I see the highlights on her eyes changing. Nothing there is a still.

 

[WorldFarAway]

I always assumed it was digital as well. Never occurred to me that it wasn’t.

 

[AXX°N N.]

Scrolling through youtube comments, there are several people who assume CGI was used. Mr. Reindeer isn't alone.

I'm conflicted ... I never, ever assumed CGI was used, but I was filled with the deep, unavoidable and unnerving impression that something was unnatural, though I took it to be in-world in a demonic sense. The eyes and hair do look extremely still, in a way I'm not sure could be replicated in reality. And the way the mouth widens is a bit strange, like it's being subtly pulled, not like it's slowed down actual muscle movement...

It seems like there's a wide consensus that this is far and away the standout scene from TMP, but I doubt we'll ever get anything about how it was made from a BTS angle, which is a shame because regardless of CGI, there are some specific, deliberate and interesting film-making details at work here.

Perhaps it's just compositing? Her mouth composited onto a still everything else?

Two things that strike me having watched it so many times to try and form my take:

1) How dare you all subject me to seeing this for five minutes straight.

2) The smile always feels so interminable, but it's oddly short in actual length.

 

[1989]

I too am surprised how that shot could be confused with being CG or any form of digital/analog effect.. That’s shocking.

Sheryl Lee is a world-class ‘should-have-got-a-load-of-Oscars’ actor.

Surely David Lynch wouldn’t take a still of her face, add a composite of her or someone else’s (it’s hers) mouth to create an effect, but would direct the extremely talented actor to stare at a light above, smile extremely slowly and just film it?

“Stare at this overhead light for about a minute, I’m going to switch these lights on and off. Give me an extremely slow, sinister smile.”

Which is more likely? Which is cheaper and easier and better on 35mm film in 1991/1992?

If you think a great actor like Sheryl Lee can’t stare at an overhead light and hardly move a muscle for just over a minute for David Lynch in what will likely become one of his greatest movies ever, then.. I’m not sure what to think.. I think probably anyone could do that actually, letalone a classic actor like SL. But that is totally and completely a done deal in the early 90s, no sweat from either of them.

Not to mention:

• Sheryl’s eyes clearly widen / eyebrows raise near the end of the clip
• The edge of the frame is moving all over the place

It goes without saying a still image doesn’t accommodate either of these things.

A final thought—could there be confusion with Bad Coop’s Series 3 jail cell mirror scene where his smile is quite clearly FXed into Bob’s?

Cheers!

 

[Sparky]

It’s not CG. It’s just digital frame blending which is often used to fix modern slow motion or completely fabricate it without being stuck with a jumpy frame rate like the shot of the fan. It can also be used to remove flicker. If it was filmed in 1992 at that shutter speed of the final shot there’s absolutely zero chance the scene could be that bright with that little film grain. Sheryl Lee would be blind with the amount of light they would need. However if I were to guess I would say it was indeed filmed in slow motion with a similar technique that probably just didn’t pan out by the time the dailies came back. But in 2014 the tech existed to fix that.

Anyway, that’s my effort to close loose ends on this particular detour. I apologize to the mods for veering off topic at all.