My Twin Peaks Infographic: Sneak Peak

Do you ever get so excited about something that you want to present it to the general public in excessive detail regardless of popular interest? I guess that's what geeking-out is.

Let me preface my confessed geek-out by saying, David Lynch is somewhat of a hero to me, and I attribute Twin Peaks to the creative awakening of my teen years and beyond. Seeing Twin Peaks opened my eyes to a world where scary, creepy, awkward, and ominous were valued attributes of legitimate art.

Over the course of 3 days and a bad cold, I re-watched all 30 episodes of Twin Peaks on Netflix. I hadn't watched them in about 10 years, since I originally spent my winter break of 9th grade viewing every episode of the VHS box set I got for Christmas.

A fun side effect of the time in between viewings was recognizing actors I never realized were in Twin Peaks. It was the knowledge of ten extra years of movies and TV added to my internal IMDB. There were some connections between actors I already knew about, like how Russ Tamblyn (Dr. Jacoby) and Richard Beymer (Ben Horne) were both in 1961s West Side Story, or how Billy Zane and Heather Graham may be two of the most famous actors to come out of Twin Peaks, or how Jack Nance (Pete Martell) has a role in pretty much in every Lynch movie. But there were some connections that kind of blew my mind.

Like how the actor who played Luther from The Warriors (David Patrick Kelly) was also 90's shirt wearing icon, Jerry Horne. 

Is that shirt real?

Revisiting Twin Peaks - this time with a fine toothed comb - I became inspired to do some research. I scoured IMDB and Google Images to try and find what the major cast did before and after the show. Since Twin Peaks went off the air in 1991, the cast has gone their separate ways, but not without running into each other from time to time. I love the before and after images; seeing how an actor ages and how versatile their roles have been.

Being an obsessive organizer, my interest in the comparisons and connections inspired me to make an infographic. I wanted to make something that would map out all the connections I thought were fun and informative.

It's still a work in progress, but below is a sneak peak at the format. 

One fragment of my Twin Peaks infographic.

I color coded the character photos from TV shows and movies that had three or more actor connections. Notice in the key below that Star Trek and X Files are shows of note. The scifi genre is common in this group. I also wanted the color scheme to be relevant to Twin Peaks. The icon of an owl and the garish neon green from the Twin Peaks font represents Twin Peaks itself.  The others in the map key are cherry pie red for other David Lynch projects, black coffee (dark brown) for Star Trek, Laura Palmer's blue dead lips for X Files, and Laura Palmer's golden broken heart necklace for miscellaneous pair ups.

There were a majority of actors who paired off on various projects, or happened to be on the same show but at different periods of time. I labeled all instances of two actors in a show or movie under gold, for the aforementioned heart necklace. This is in reference to a plot point in season one where finding the other half of the necklace was imperative, thus 'Find the Other Half'. Part of this choice was made because there were too many TV shows and movies and not enough contrasting color combos to make a coherent chart identifying all of them individually. Also giving the viewer a challenge makes the infographic more interactive. Since all the pairs are identified under the one color, it causes the viewer to search for the commonalities on their own.

Another fragment

Basically I'm saying, "Let me IMDB that for you." so you don't have to get into an internet search k-hole, where you realize it's 2am, you have 20 tabs open in Firefox and you're watching the trailer from The Boyfriend School.

Let me do that.

When the project is completely done, I will post it here and anywhere that will take it.