Editing Mulholland Drive (film) (section)

===Filming===
Filming for the television pilot began on location in Los Angeles in February 1999 and took six weeks. Ultimately, the network was unhappy with the pilot and decided not to place it on its schedule.{{sfn|Woods|2000|pp=213–214}}<ref>{{cite news |last=Romney |first=Jonathan |title=Film: Lynch opens up his box of tricks; Mulholland Drive David Lynch |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |location=London |date=January 6, 2002 |page=11 }}</ref> Objections included the nonlinear storyline, the ages of Harring and Watts (whom they considered too old), cigarette smoking by Ann Miller's character and a close-frame shot of dog feces in one scene. Lynch remembered, "All I know is, I loved making it, ABC hated it, and I don't like the cut I turned in. I agreed with ABC that the longer cut was too slow, but I was forced to butcher it because we had a deadline, and there wasn't time to finesse anything. It lost texture, big scenes and storylines, and there are 300 tape copies of the bad version circulating around. Lots of people have seen it, which is embarrassing, because they're bad-quality tapes, too. I don't want to think about it."{{sfn|Woods|2000|p=214}}
{{quote box|width=30%|align=right|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|quote=One night, I sat down, the ideas came in, and it was a most beautiful experience. Everything was seen from a different angle&nbsp;... Now, looking back, I see that [the film] always wanted to be this way. It just took this strange beginning to cause it to be what it is.|source=David Lynch, 2001}}
The script was later rewritten and expanded when Lynch decided to transform it into a feature film. Lynch explained the process of developing an ending for the unfinished story: "The day came when I got the greenlight to turn it into a feature, and I had zero ideas. I just hadn’t been thinking about it. Then came the day I needed to get those ideas, and that night, I sat down during my [[meditation]] and in there, I say like a string of pearls, all the ideas came, all at once, and there it was."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bergeson |first1=Samantha |title=9 Things You Didn't Know About 'Mulholland Drive' |url=https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/david-lynch-mulholland-drive-things-you-didnt-know/paris-photo-2017-grand-palais-france-10-nov-2017/ |website=Indie Wire |date=October 3, 2021 |access-date=26 January 2025}}</ref> He added that, "Now, looking back, I see that [the film] always wanted to be this way. It just took this strange beginning to cause it to be what it is."<ref name="macaulay">{{cite journal |last=Macaulay |first=Scott |date=October 2001 |title=The dream factory |journal=[[Filmmaker (magazine)|FilmMaker]] |issue=10 |volume=1 |pages=64–67 }}</ref> The result was an extra eighteen pages of material that included the romantic relationship between Rita and Betty and the events that occurred after the blue box was opened. Watts was relieved that the pilot was dropped by ABC. She found Betty too one-dimensional without the darker portion of the film that was put together afterward.<ref name="fuller">{{cite journal |last=Fuller |first=Graham |date=November 2001 |title=Naomi Watts: Three Continents Later, An Outsider Actress Finds her Place |journal=[[Interview (magazine)|Interview]] |volume=11 |pages=132–137}}</ref> Most of the new scenes were filmed in October 2000, funded with $7&nbsp;million from French [[production company]] [[StudioCanal]].<ref name="david"/>

Theroux described approaching filming without entirely understanding the plot: "You get the whole script, but he might as well withhold the scenes you're not in, because the whole turns out to be more mystifying than the parts. David welcomes questions, but he won't answer any of them&nbsp;... You work kind of half-blindfolded. If he were a first-time director and hadn't demonstrated any command of this method, I'd probably have reservations. But it obviously works for him."<ref name="timestheroux">{{cite news |last=Arnold |first=Gary |title=Smoke and mirrors; Director Lynch keeps actor Theroux guessing |page=B5 |newspaper=[[The Washington Times]] |date=October 12, 2001 }}</ref> Theroux noted that the only answer Lynch did provide was that he was certain that Theroux's character, a Hollywood director, was not meant to be Lynch. Watts stated that she tried to bluff Lynch by pretending she had the plot figured out, and that he delighted in the cast's frustration.<ref name="david" />

"I'm not going to lie: I felt very vulnerable," Laura Harring said of filming the sex scene between Harring and Watts' characters. "I was in my dressing room and was on the verge of tears. It's hard. There are a lot of people there ... Naomi and I were friends. It was pretty awkward."<ref>{{cite web |title="Walk Like a Kitty Cat, Laura": How David Lynch Directed 'Mulholland Drive' |work=www.hollywoodreporter.com |date=April 9, 2019 |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/walk-like-a-kitty-cat-laura-how-david-lynch-directed-mulholland-drive-1200594/ |access-date=24 February 2022 |archive-date=February 24, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220224165217/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/walk-like-a-kitty-cat-laura-how-david-lynch-directed-mulholland-drive-1200594/ |url-status=live }}</ref>