 | ||||||||||
The Vessel
Ron Cobb's design philosophy
Exterior
Ridley's Nostromo and Refinery
Moebius inspiration for refinery platform
The Nostromo
The Vessel
Ron Cobb's design philosophy
Exterior
Ridley's Nostromo and Refinery
Moebius inspiration for refinery platform
Obvious kit sprue
Leading from
- Bill Pearson: A lot of insert shots were shot at the end where everyone says," Hey!
Isn't that a load of kit bits and sprues?" This is the scene where
Ripley ejects the Alien from the Narcissus, and there is a closeup of
buttons being pushed on a control panel.
One of the model makers who will remain nameless to save his blushed was standing by on the stage that evening when it was being shot. He was asked to dress around the buttons to apply some interesting detail on the panel
Unfortunately the guy was not a wiggeter, but he didn't want to say no. He picked up some very obvious kit sprue, sprayed it silver and stuck it on. When I walked in the next day, I said, "what the hell is that?" I was told it was a case of you wouldn't see it on the screen, I still cringe about it now. (Sci-Fi Fantasy Models #48, p28)
Moebius inspiration for refinery platform
The Nostromo
a. ) A major inspiration for Ridley Scott were drawings by Moebius as featured in the comic book Metal Hurlant (and it's American counterpart Heavy Metal) that Ivor Powell introduced him to while while filming The Duellists in Dordoigne.
b. ) When Ridley made the sudden jump to having Nostromo's refinery platform as a large squarish shape we might ask where Ridley took the inspiration and we can see it clearly enough in this comicbook story a likely answer.
In Moebius' story "It's a small universe" a couple of star travellers travel in a smallish space craft that appears to be a squarish platform with a support pylone extending beneath to connect with the lower horizontal tube which has the cockpit bubble situated at the front of it
The first image from the comicbook story shown here reveals the vessel approaching a planet somewhere out in space and the others of it landing on the planet. This craft comes to rest with the upper rectangle floating in the water with the rest submerged.
c. Ridley's early storyboard known as a "Ridleygram" of the refinery before the planet appears to show a wide straight platform with similar sized attachments beneath the structure held by slanted support pylon
d. i. Moebius' spacecraft is most likely a general parody of the original Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, but as a small space ship and with a rectangular top instead.
ii. Star Trek art Director Matt Jefferies designed the original Enterprise, which in series creator Gene Roddenberry's first series outline drafts was named Yorktown. Jeffries' experience with aviation led to his Enterprise designs being imbued with what he called "aircraft logic". (source: wikipedia)
a. ) A major inspiration for Ridley Scott were drawings by Moebius as featured in the comic book Metal Hurlant (and it's American counterpart Heavy Metal) that Ivor Powell introduced him to while while filming The Duellists in Dordoigne.
- The writer of this blog recalls from memory of the Memories of Alien interview at the Empire Big Screen, 2011.
b. ) When Ridley made the sudden jump to having Nostromo's refinery platform as a large squarish shape we might ask where Ridley took the inspiration and we can see it clearly enough in this comicbook story a likely answer.
In Moebius' story "It's a small universe" a couple of star travellers travel in a smallish space craft that appears to be a squarish platform with a support pylone extending beneath to connect with the lower horizontal tube which has the cockpit bubble situated at the front of it
 |
| sideview of space ship |
The first image from the comicbook story shown here reveals the vessel approaching a planet somewhere out in space and the others of it landing on the planet. This craft comes to rest with the upper rectangle floating in the water with the rest submerged.
 |
| early Ridleygram of the refinery |
c. Ridley's early storyboard known as a "Ridleygram" of the refinery before the planet appears to show a wide straight platform with similar sized attachments beneath the structure held by slanted support pylon
 |
| The original Starship Enterprise |
d. i. Moebius' spacecraft is most likely a general parody of the original Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, but as a small space ship and with a rectangular top instead.
ii. Star Trek art Director Matt Jefferies designed the original Enterprise, which in series creator Gene Roddenberry's first series outline drafts was named Yorktown. Jeffries' experience with aviation led to his Enterprise designs being imbued with what he called "aircraft logic". (source: wikipedia)
Possible Robert McCall inspiration for refinery platform
 |
| McCall's work for Kubrick's 2001 |
 |
| "Floating city" by Robert McCall 1971 |
- Robert McCall December 23, 1919 – February 26, 2010) the artist a science fiction artist was well known for his paintings of space crafts and also his floating cities. In 1971 Robert McCall created a painting floating city featuring a floating platform with towers and spheres, (featured on the right) it's a structure bearing some similarities to the Nostromo's refinery platform, and one can ask the question if this was a possible inspiration for Ridley's refinery platform. Ridley's then first assistant director for his company Ivor Powell who became associate producer for the Alien movie is known to have been a publicist for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and was very much a science fiction fan so we can postulate that he would have been in a position to be someone able to introduce Ridley Scott to Robert McCall's work.
- The name became evident to me from reading an interview
from the publicity for Prometheus in 2012, Arthur Max, chief designer for Ridley Scott talked to L'Ecran Fantastique magazine about how Ridley Scott inspired the artist Robert McCall, who produced designs for the films design work for The Black Hole, Star Trek:The Motion Picture and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But of course this doesn't say that Ridley had any actual interest in the work of Robert McCall during Alien.
Ridley's Nostromo storyboard
- a.) Arthur Max: "Et Ridley s'est inspiré aussi du travail d'un autre artiste tres talenteux, Bob McCall."(L'Ecran Fantastique Hors Serie no16, p24) Googletranslater translates this as "And Ridley has also inspired the work of another artist very talented, Bob McCall"
Chris Foss inspiration for the Nostromo
The Nostromo
1) Ron Cobb borrowed from Chris Foss
Chris Foss before Ridley Scott dropped him from the production had been creating many concept drawings for the design of the Nostromo, and so it went that when they needed to design the final thing.
Denofgeek.com uncovered the fact from interviewing Ron Cobb that although Chris Foss was not directly involved with the design of the final Nostromo, Roger Christian went away with Chris Foss's amd Ron Cobb's designs to build the final spaceship and while Ron Cobb's exterior design loosely inspired by Foss' work was used for the Nostromo, one can find that features from Chris Foss' other designs found their way into the ship.
The main shape of the Nostromo is similar is near
enough borrowed
from the vessel below left with "Fountain Line" written along the side
of it's "Proton Drive" engine, while the upper engines upon the Nostromo
are
noticeably very reminiscent of Chris Foss' snake like space ship
segmented like a train on the right.
3) The Engine Intakes
A point about the design for the Nostromo is that
maybe it can be said to resemble a gothic tomb. Chris Foss had drawn
numerous designs for ships with cavernous intake
openings for engines, but one with the most haunting features is his
design for a pyramid interior with it's vast rectangular tunnel with
sloping ends that taper to the rectangular mouths of these entrances,
perhaps here we are seeing the origins of the characteristic engine
intakes openings
 |
| The Nostromo |
Chris Foss before Ridley Scott dropped him from the production had been creating many concept drawings for the design of the Nostromo, and so it went that when they needed to design the final thing.
Denofgeek.com uncovered the fact from interviewing Ron Cobb that although Chris Foss was not directly involved with the design of the final Nostromo, Roger Christian went away with Chris Foss's amd Ron Cobb's designs to build the final spaceship and while Ron Cobb's exterior design loosely inspired by Foss' work was used for the Nostromo, one can find that features from Chris Foss' other designs found their way into the ship.
 |
| Ron Cobb's Nostromo |
- Ron Cobb: "Creating spacecraft exteriors came easily to Foss. His mind and imagination seemed to embody the entire history of the industrial revolution. He could conjure up endless spacecraft designs suggesting submarines, diesel locomotives, Mayan interceptors, Mississippi river boats, jumbo space arks, but best of all (ask Dan) were his trademark aero-spacecraft-textures like panels, cowlings, antennae, bulging fuel tanks, vents, graphics etc. As the months passed, along with two or three temporary directors, Chris began to have problems caused by his spectacular creativity. No one, in a position to make a decision seemed to be able to make up their mind and/or choose one of his designs. I think Chris was turning out spacecraft designs the decision makers found too original." (Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview)
- Ron Cobb"The truth of the matter is, as Chris said, we both influenced each other, I think I borrowed from him more than he borrowed from me" .(Ron Cobb, Den Of Geek.com Interview)
2) Upper Thrusters and main body shape
 |
| Tug with enigmatic upper engines |
 |
| The "Fountain Line" tug |
 |
| Nostromo's upper engine intake openings |
3) The Engine Intakes
 |
| detail from pyramid temple interior |
 |
| Chris Foss pyramid temple interior |
4. Nostromo's initial colour of yellow
The Nostromo model initially went through a yellow paint scheme that Jon
Sorenson acknowledged was inspired by Chris Foss designs.
(Also read the section on the yellow Nostromo)
Wmmvrrvrrmm: Also I keep thinking about how the Nostromo model
when it went through it's yellow paint scheme reminds me of Chris Foss'
paintings, he has been known to paint yellow spacecrafts. I wonder if
the paint scheme was inspired by his work (Alien Experience.com, June 21, 2009)
Jon Sorenson: Absolutely correct! It was inspired by Chris Foss' designs.(Alien Experience.com, June 24, 2009) | |||
Ron Cobb's design philosophy
- Ron Cobb:"I resent films that are so shallow they rely entirely on their visual effects, and of course science fiction films are notorious for this. I've always felt that there's another way to do it; a lot of effort should be expended toward rendering the environment of the spaceship, or space travel, whatever the fantastic setting of your story should be - as convincing as possible, but always in the background. That way the story and the characters emerge, and they become more real. If you were to set a story on an ocean liner, there would be bits of footage to explain what the ship was like docked or at sea, but it would remain in the background of the story. It should be the same with science fiction" (Book of Alien by Scanlon and Gross
- Ron Cobb:"I'm sort of a frustrated engineer because I have lots of opinions about how certain problems could be solved using present technology or even speculating about near-future technology. So in working on a film I like to take this challenge and design a spaceship as though it was absolutely real, right down to the fuel tolerances, the centers of gravity, the way the engines function, radiation shielding, whatever. And after I do that, I like to deal with how I can take this idea and hammer, bend and twist it into something that will be appropriate to the film"(Book of Alien by Scanlon and Gross)
- Bill Pearson: When I met Ron, he was very adamant that they were very realistic. He wanted a heat shield on the underside of the Nostromo lander. He wanted a contrast between the smooth underside of the heat shield and the detailed upper surface. However this was not to be. Our instructions was to encrust the whole craft. When it came down, we weren't seeing a craft come through an atmosphere; there was no re-entry. Ron was concerned that it should be there if that type of action was present. Ron is very much into the believability of things. He created wonderful background histories about his designs.(Sci-Fi & Fantasy FX #48, p27)
Creating the Nostromo and the refinery
- Brian Johnson: "We had a whole series of people - Chris Foss, Ron Cobb, and Ridley Scott -created sketches of the ships. It was my job to assess these and decide on the size of the model needed for any particular shot. In the end no one could really make up their minds as to how the Nostromo should look. Ridley is the kind of person who likes to see something in three dimensions before he actually says yes."(Starlog/October 1979, p68)
- Ron Cobb: "The crunch came, and Brian (Johnson) just came over from England, grabbed some drawings, and headed back. The final is pretty much patterned after two of my drawings, and the platform is a combination of Ridley's refinery towers some of my little modifications to make it more believable"(Book of Alien, by Scanlon & Gross)
- Brian Johnson: "My crew constructed a small Nostromo model - just the basic front section. I showed it to Ridley, who thought it might be alright, but that he would probably want to make a few changes. The talk went on and on and I was getting close to my shooting date. So I went ahead and built this huge model. When it was ready, we showed it to Ridley. I had my fingers crossed, because he could have turned around and said that he didn't like it"(Starlog/October 1979, p68)
- Brian Johnson: "But he did like it... I knew, though, that somewhere along the line he'd want to modify it. He modifies everything as he goes along. We changed the colour about four or five times, it gradually got spikier, but the basic shape was always fairly similar. The rear end was altered slightly, and it had lots of various probes and other things added to it."(Starlog/October 1979, p68)
Yellow Nostromo
1.) The rise and fall of the yellow Nostromo
For about three months the Nostromo had been painted yellow and green. The yellow colour was taken by Brian Johnson from Ron Cobbs drawing that remained on the wall in the studio but originally it was most likely inspired by Chris Foss who had been involved in the preproduction for Alien and some of his well known paintings of spacecrafts featured paint schemes with bright yellows. |
| Ron Cobb's first yellow Nostromo |
For Jon Sorenson the yellow represented the idea that the ship was a decommissioned military vessel that was now used for mining, however Simon Deering was barely able to remember the yellow paint job being used for perhaps more than a day because of the excessive amount of weed he had been smoking at the time and he thought of a yellow colour scheme being related more to the idea of a JCB.
 |
| final Nostromo sketch on yellow paper by Ron Cobb |
Dennis Ayling filmed the shot of the space craft travelling towards the planet, with twin suns in the distance. Brian Johnson in the rushes room at Bray studios thought that they had cracked but Ridley Scott soon stepped in decided to have the colour scheme altered because he wanted everything very dark.
 | |
| untitled painting by Chris Foss used on the cover of E.E. 'Doc' Smith's novel "Planet of Treacher" |
(Alien Makers I documentary by Dennis Lowe, 52:17)
b) Dennis Lowe: "Which version of the Nostromo do you like"
Jon Sorenson: "Oh right, of all the versions of Nostromo that were actually produced, the, there was one done that was military yellow and green, and everyone, everyone loved that one and that, that was my favourite and I remembered , the first sequence, we had, er, a shot which was done by Dennis Ayling, who photographed it, and the yellow Nostromo came in over head and the planet artwork was rotating underneath, your planet artwork on the dome projection and then the twin suns came up and I remember Brian Johnson , and we were sitting in the rushes, the little Bray studio rushes, Brian was sitting you know with his arms back like this and he's straight up and he said "I think we've cracked it lads", famous last words, you know of course, Ridley changed everything, but everybody loved that model and the look of it, and the idea was to make everything look very dark for the film,
 |
| shot from Nostromo Ayrling's test footage with twin suns |
c) Simon Deering: Jon, Dennis, whats all this about the yellow Nostromo being Military ? I always thought yellow was for industrial like jCB's ? (Alien Experience.com, June 24, 2009)
d) Inspired by Chris Foss
Wmmvrrvrrmm: Also I keep thinking about how the Nostromo model when it went through it's yellow paint scheme reminds me of Chris Foss' paintings, he has been known to paint yellow spacecrafts. I wonder if the paint scheme was inspired by his work (Alien Experience.com, June 21, 2009)
 |
| A JCB Wheeled Loading Shovel |
2.) The change to grey
Martin Bower remembered orders from Shepperton to change the colour scheme to a dirty grey. They sprayed it ith one sweep of normal primer grey and thought "that's no good", someone had some zinc plate primer, they did a test, it was darker and would polish up and look like metal . So Martin Bower went down to a shop in Maidenhead and buying a massive amount of zinc plate primer and the Nostromo became a dark grey, then it was polished, then shaded and they continued to work on it. When Ridley arrived, he liked the grey but not the numbers done in brilliant orange and so months of hard work of shooting the spaceship in flight had to be redone
a.) Simon Deering: "The Nostromo was originally yellow, and the team filmed shots of the models for six weeks before Johnson left to work on The Empire Strikes Back. Scott then ordered it changed to gray" (quote from Wikipedia) That's odd tho ..... I only remember the ship being yellow a few days .. Was it ever shot while yellow ? So tempting to make more comments , just deleted a few lines :p hehe (AlienExperience.com September 24th, 2010)
wmmvrrvrrmm: I still I've got to write my blog entry about the creation of the Nostromo soon for my Alien blog. There are a couple of other blogs for Alien that are probably a lot more enjoyable, but maybe mine attempts be the most extreme in what it aims to do. DenofGeek.com have said good things about my blog a few months back so maybe I'm going in the right direction with it although my work has been exhausting because of my need to get things from every single recorded perspective . I'm sure that I'll mention every person who can be remembered to have taken part in the creation of the Nostromo though. I often wonder if the whole of the making of Alien has a magic spell over it that forces a number of people involved to have conflicting memories about what went on as if some events in the production took place in parallel universes. (AlienExperience.com September 24th, 2010)
 |
| Nostromo being sprayed yellow
Neil Swan (top right) Brian Johnson arm (far left), Martin Bower (bottom left) Photo by Dennis Lowe |
Simon Deering: Of course it Was ! All that Afghani hashish made sure of that .. oops .. :P .. or was that also just one afternoon... ? (AlienExperience.com September 24th, 2010)
Wmmvrrvrrmm: Hmm, I reading an article by the one and only Martin Bower which he wrote for Scifi and Fantasy Models some years back where he mentions that Brian Johnson had filmed a considerable amount of footage of it in it's yellow state before he left. And he mentions that footage had been filmed over "the past few months" before the colour change rendered it unusable
I'm wondering who gave the orders to give it gigantic serial numbers on the side painted in brilliant orange when the orders came over to paint it grey. (AlienExperience.com September 29th, 2010)
 |
| Nostromo being sprayed yellow by Jon Sorenson (top), Neil Swan (far right) Martin Bower (bottom left) Brian Johnson (far right) Photo by Dennis Lowe |
 |
| Nostromo being sprayed yellow Neil Swan (top left) Brian Johnson (bottom left), Martin Bower (bottom right) Photo by Dennis Lowe |
Dennis Lowe: We spent ages filming the Yellow Nostromo (approx. 3 months) as that was the colour that was specified, there are some of my shots here in the gallery that shows Brian, Martin Bower and others spraying the model yellow. (AlienExperience.com September 29th, 2010)
 |
| Nostromo being sprayed yellow Neil Swan (centre) Brian Johnson (bottom right), Photo by Dennis Lowe |
Simon Deering: Aah yeah .. The mists are clearing ... I was reaally busy on another plane obviously, anyway I bet Riddles could have just lit it with a grey light eh Den ? Another day I do remember was the one when Brian was looking at the ship, then the tattered old mostly ignored Cobb sketch on the wall, then back at the ship ... Then suddenly sparking up with "Hey .. It should be yellow! Go get some paint!" Was a couple of crates of those small yellow car touchup spraypaint cans. Marine blue might have been nice ... ? Or Sherwood green ? Spose it was my sense of humour that imagined Ridley coming in 10 minutes after the yellow dust settled and saying "Why is it yellow ?? Spray it grey again!!" It was never gray anyway I remember that (AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)
 |
| The yellow Nostromo |
 |
| Martin Bower spraying the Nostromo yellow |
Jon Sorenson: The Yellow NOSTROMO. Of course we shot on it for months. The first shot I saw in rushes/dailies was of that
version sailing overhead as you see
similarly in the footage Dennis salvaged for his film ALIEN MAKERS 2,
shot in 1978 by Denys Ayling. The one I talked about so much in my short
interview in ALIEN MAKERS 1. The shot was beautiful. Truly stunning. As
was all the other of the 33 shots largely completed before Ridley Scott
came over to Bray full-time. Brian Johnson was correct in taking that
colour from the Ron Cobb drawings. He tried in vain to get more
direction from Ridley but could'nt. Even sometimes not even speaking to
Brian in the Shepperton canteen. I recall hearing about that. The reason
became clear later, when Ridley Scott arrived with his famous hammer
and all changed. The yellow version was the version. Hundreds of feet of
fibre optic lighting was installed in her to provide lit windows. Lit
up, she looked stunning and every inch fitted into the film. Below is a
shot of Andrew Kelly, (son of Skeets Kelly, the reknowned aerial
cameraman), fitting these fibre optics. This shot is in the gallery
here, amongst the stills we donated to this Site, along with many others
of the yellow version. No hallucination, hashish or otherwise.  |
| Andrew Kelly fitting the fibre optics |
When the NOSTROMO was quickly sprayed over grey, all that work was casually obliterated.
The
grey version I always felt was even then a tired cliche and not nearly
as classy as the yellow and green one we had. Ridley was entitled to
flex his directorial prerogatives. We liked him and the film. We would
have climbed any obstacle for him and did. But the felling of the yellow
NOSTROMO deprived you of not only something you had'nt seen in a movie
up to that time, but the best work that wonderful crew could, and did,
do.(AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)Simon Deering: Yeah youve cleared more mists Jon :) Praps there was some trauma there, losing all those airbrushed, plasticard - masked shades of yellow grey panelling on top of the real relief card panels.... deary me .. I am absolutely going to sneak in lots of "tribute" detail on the O'Neill colony ship :).. there will be yellow bits.. there will certainly be a weylan yutani logo .. The one thing I learned from Martin I have already added.. running a piece of perspex through the circular saw with the blade just above the bed to make a few channels .. From Bill I learned to listen to a 'creative' client and say "I knooow" .. and then carry on with whatever I was doing regardless..
cheers m' dears *reaches for the Laphroaig, You are a fisherman as well I suspect Jon .. ? :P x (AlienExperience.com September 29, 2010)
 |
| Martin Bower standing by the yellow Nostromo |
c) Martin Bower: Essentially he shot the whole thing again because he came to Nostromo and then we started spraying it and one sweep of the normal primer grey, we thought "that's no good" , and I remember going down to a shop in Maidenhead and buying a massive amount of zinc plate primer, we first of all did a test, somebody, I don't know who it was, got, had some zinc plate primer, what it was, you could spray it on, I don't know if you remember, it was darker and it would polish up and look like metal, really look like metal, so Nostromo wasn't grey primer as so many people today are, you know, people are all asking me questions about that, what colour it was, it was actually this dark grey colour, polished up and then obviously we shaded it and worked on it, so its kind of all in model working in Alien, it just, evolution, it was like an evolution, you know, of different ideas, which ended up as some very incredible effects. (Alien Makers I documentary)
The Secret Doctrine & Simon Deering's Auto Destruct Panel
 |
| Simon Deering: I reckon it was the Shakti Excess button that caused the trouble.. straight after the Pranic Lift. |
From:
and
a.) When Simon Deering painted in the buttons of the autodestruct panel been influenced by reading the Secret Doctrine by Madame Blatavsky during his in the production of the movie Alien. This resulted strange references that are visible in the actual film were Shakti Excess, Aum, Akasa, Pranic Lift 777, Rohrim, Hum, Padme, Yoni, Lingha, Druze Pile, Trip, Agaric Fly, Leb Drift. and it wasn't until 2009 that members of the public were able to find out what all these strange references were all about
- Simon Deering: "I was reading I remember, Blavatsky, I was working my
way through the Secret Doctrine "(Alien Makers 1 documentary)
Photo composite of key panel from shots in
movie with most of Ripley's hand removed - Simon Deering: " Dear Mr Ridley just said , make some nice buttons, complicated and interesting because they wont be on screen for more than a second or two, and of course we knew his philosphy was generally , you may not see it, but if it wasnt there it wouldnt look as good :)" (Alien Experience.com forum, 28th June, 2009)
- Simon Deering:"Yeah , as i mentioned in the docu, I was reading Blavatsky at the time :) .. went straight off to India after the show.. "(Alien Experience.com forum, 28th June, 2009)
b.) Considering this was done in the 1970s it's almost something that put
his creative imagination ahead of the something such as Damien Hurst's
Pharmacy's wall paper that attaches biblical references to pictures of
medicine pills and capsules. - Wmmvrrvrrmm: "I almost imagine that the keyboard display, if it were up in a gallery ought to have put you ahead of Damien Hirst."
Simon Deering: "Had to look him up .. woo Theres a compliment I think :) Thanking youu!" (Alien Experience.com forum, July 01, 2009,)
KF 20 Coffee makers
On Tue Dec 22, 2009 , someone by the username of Nexus42 at Propsummit was able to identify the coffee makers in the Nostromo kitchen as Braun Aromaster KF 20, designed in 1972 by Florian Seiffert
 |
| one of the coffee makers in the Nostromo's kitchen area in Alien |
 |
| white Braun Aromaster KF20 (source: http://www.domusweb.it/) |
- Nexus 42:
Talking about the various props seen in the
background
on the nostromo, let me introduce you to one of my
favourites, the most beautiful coffee machine in the world, and thanks
to Ridley Scott in outer space too!
Florian Seiffert
The Braun Aromaster KF 20, designed in 1972 by Florian Seiffert was so far ahead of the competition in both looks and technology, reflected in the price of DM139. A design icon in the same vein as the Eames recliner, and the Barcelona chair, in demand by photographers, interior designers and creative types, wanting a futuristic icon of the time.
The KF 20 came in white, yellow, orange, red, dark red and olive!
It featured a coffee pot with a enclosed plastic handle, Brauns unique closed filter system also known as the c-principle , this put the water reservoir directly above the coffee filter which gave it it's distinct profile, as oppose to the water reservoir to the side known as the L-principle.
Nexus42:Advert for the Braun KF 20.
(PropsummitPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2009)
The KF 20 was produced for five years unchanged, when the KF 21 came out the machine was identical to its older brother, the only difference being a slightly tweaked glass jug with the open handle design, the inclusion of a thermostat slider on the front of the hotplate and the reduction of colour choice to just white, yellow and orange. the beauty of this machine is that it could be produced today and still look ahead of its time!
Ridley really does love his Braun kitchen products, in BladeRunner he kitted Deckards compact kitchen with the Braun MP 50 multipress the type 4045 coffee mill grinder the HL-1-70 desktop fan ( HL-1 1961 HL-70 1970) and the KF 35 "Traditional" coffee machine. Not surprised Parker and the nostromo crew loved their coffee so much.
These machines can still be found occasionally on ebay, if lucky they still work perfectly, I recently picked up a pristine white KF 20 from germany for under £25, just add a schuko plug adapter add coffee and water and enjoy! .
Here below is the KF 21 in orange, yellow and white finish, with the hotplate thermostat slider and coffee jug with open handle design.Propsummi Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009t)
 |
| Nexus42: Here is the KF 20 in orange, same version used in the nostromos kitchen, featuring the enclosed handle coffee jug. (Propsummi, Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009t) |
 | |
| Nexus42:: Here a KF 20 in olive green. (PropsummitPosted: Tue Dec 22, 2009) |
Raw transcription of Ridley Scot Interview With Don Shay from Alien Laserdisc
Part 1
Don Shay: Lets go back about twelve years, at that point in time you were a very well known and respected director of commercials having done something like three thousand I might think at that point and you had recently completed your first feature film The Duellists which was very well received critically and won honours at the Cannes film festival and then along came alien which was probably as far removed from your first film as you could likely get. How was it that a science fiction horror film came to you at this point in your career and what was it about this particular project that made you do it?
Ridley Scott: Two questions: Ah well, D..er..G..er.. one of the producers David Giler, er, was the, I think, er, the Cann... person involved in... er... that choice because I think he had seen The Duellists at the Cannes film festival. And, er, they called up, so I've learnt that, er, he'd asked me to do it because of the Duellists I was more than baffled than anyone else, and the, so, I guess it's all down to his good taste. And the, erm, the script was just so tight, concise, it was very spare, er, the characters were clearly defined which frequently they aren't in that kind of exotic arena in that kind of movie, you know, it's kind of waffly, it's aII down to, you know, the effects and the horror and how horrible can you make it. What I liked were the characters, and I really loved the idea of, er, which was reasonably definitive new idea then actually of making the hero a woman I thought that was really clever.
Don Shay: Yes
Ridley Scott: erm, and it was just a very neat read. I read the script in about an hour and a half and called them up within two hours and said I'll do it. And so I was in... standing in Hollywood within about, within twenty four hours. (Don laughs) And so it was very tight, erm, the whole... the dynamics of the screen play which also I think a lot of people miss or missed in the first screening of the film because the film is always been ss... criticised as being light on characterisation which I think is totally wrong, I think these, the characters are beautifully defined, you know within the context of all you had to know about them, That's all you need to know. And I think the subtext to each character was really intelligent and gave you enough to know who was who, right, the trouble makers were Harry Dean and Yaphet Kotto down below, and the, you know, the upper deck, the upper echelon, you know, so you have a universal or classical, er, situation of er, of er separation of the two... of the classes even in space.
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott:Yeah
Don Shay: What was your initial agenda when you first took over the project. I und...It was in kind of disarray I understand
Ridley Scott: Yeah
Don Shay: It didn't have much direction at that point.
Ridley Scott: Yuh, coming in, I'd, I... they'd already done a lot of preparatory stuff I think with, er, Ron Cobb, right, and which was very good, in fact Ron's excellent... is brilliant. Really one of the best at it, erm, and so we took him over to England anyway 'cause Ron does drawings and isometric visuals which you know, you can virtually put a sss... you know, slide ruler on and cost it, right, erm, and everything works with Ron, he can tell you how the air lock's going to open and why it's there and how, why the door has got to be this way and that way. So, he talks up a very interesting technical, erm, you know, storm, er so it was always very fascinating to listen to him and listen to him speculate, yeh, er, and so we kept on working with the production designer in England almost for a year. Er, the original visuals I saw were very very good, and they were... and a kind of a key, you know where I started off but, er, because I'm an art director, I was an art director, I decided that earlier on because of the budget for the film originally was something like four and a half million dollars, and I thought… I had no idea or perception of what four and a half million dollars meant, in terms of… it sounded like an awful lot of money to me. And, er, so I sat down to prepare my own thoughts on it and of course I story board everything, right , so I sat down and basically story boarded the movie, er and, which produced a reaction of, you know, delight, but at the same time a kind of horror because the costs suddenly started to suddenly look like they were rising, And so what we did was presented the board, I had to present the board to Fox and then, what on... based on that, we doubled the budget. So then we went into eight four something, 'cause then I think they were starting to feel that there was something here
Don Shay: Hmm
Ridley Scott: right, which was more than just a rip your head off and strangle them, you know what I mean. (Don chuckles) But I bring all sorts of, erm, things to bear to it from the fact I was a production designer, and er, I was a, er, trained in art school, I spent seven years in art, spent seven years in art school, spent four... three years in the Royal College of Art with you know, serious colleagues like David Hockney, Alan Jones, Ron Kitaj, painters like that and some great graphic designers so it's a very sophisticated arena I came out of , but at that point so I was able to take it further I think, right, it was fair to say, influenced certainly by, erm, 2001 and Star Wars 'cause I'd seen Star Wars, er... oh God probably a month before I received the script, somebody said to me, "lets go along and see this film called Star Wars. I don't know what the hell its all about but it's making a big fuss." It was the opening week, and I went and saw that, and of course I was stunned. I mean, I was absolutely devastated, I was really depressed for a week, er, that I was preparing Tristan and Isolde, the one I'm on, which is fine, you know, but it's like walking along into a lion's mouth doing a film like that, I mean you're gonna, you're never gonna have a real audience for that, and it's still going to take a year of your life and I just backed, I just dropped it and I decided I can't be doing this when this guys doing that and I can see that as fulfilling as doing Tristan and Isolde, so he really whetted my appetite, that G. Lucas.
Part 2
Don Shay : Shortly before you release the film
Ridley Scott (nodding): mmm
Don Shay :you cut eleven minutes out of it,
Ridley Scott: Mmhmm
Don Shay:including a sequence at the end
Ridley Scott: Yuh
Don Shay: that, er,
Ridley Scott: Mmhmm
Don Shay: err, would've, err, talked about what had happened to the Harry Dean Stanton character
Ridley Scott: Yuh
Don Shay: and the Tom Skerrit character,
Ridley Scott: Mmhmm
Don Shay:is it alright if you could talk a little bit about those scenes,
Ridley Scott: Yuh
Don Shay: what they entailed and why you elected to cut them out.
Ridley Scott: Well you know there's always a pace thing to a film and, er, we cut the,, we put it all together, you know, as shot, and erm, the, nothing really happens for the first forty five minutes of the movie but you know Jerry did a, a great score, so the whole anticipation of moving in right from the very first opening cue, which I think is absolutely magnificent, I still do. I still think it's one of the best cues I've heard, you know, where you just... very simple scene, you're panning across the planet, you know, and the titles, great titles actually as well, are coming up and that is a great cue. and erm, you just from then on in, you'd… it's like entering the dark house, but in the best kind of way, you know, and, er, so the forty five minutes all stood up for me, but I know those little kind of… little bit of paranoia, saying "God, nothing happens for forty five minutes," but I'm saying "yeah, but look what you're looking at, you know, you're looking at these, the, these guys wakening up, you're getting information all the time now, and I felt because we really got it, you know, we really got what it might be like, then it was powerful, right, so that all held position but by the time we got to the dynamics of, you know, now she's on her own, right, err, we'd got a sense that the audience was getting restless at this certain point, and so when she stumbles into that room which is the landing leg room, and finds this, you know, hive, erm, and er she finds the bodies basically, the nest, she finds the bodies, and she finds, erm, Harry's gone, but he's clearly there and he's completely imbedded in the surface in a kind of kind of, er, kind of strange erm, semi glutinous but very strong, erm, material which is almost like built into fibreglass and, er, and, er, Skerrit is already half gone but he's still alive, he is really the host for the insect, which is the alien.
Part 3
Don Shay : There must be tricks of the trade to create suspense, and, and er, and terror, I presume your background in, in commercials probably kind of helped you in the area your kind of manipulating the audience
Ridley Scott: You know what, the most important thing to do is to not employ tricks, in so, in effect, if you're doing a horror movie, you know, is to fee... is to disregard the tricks that have been employed before because that's what your doing, you're doing repetition, and so it's trying to always look back inside yourself, the same as if you're writing a script, if you're writing a screenplay, if you're writing a book, you know the best of those elements come from looking back inside yourself to find out what you think, you know, and trying to put that in film. So that's to do with being how personal can you get making a film,
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott: You know,
Don Shay: What do you find personally frightening, and, and were you able to incorporate that into the film?
Ridley Scott: Well I had to look into it, I mean I had to look into it myself, and say, oh yeh, you know, what frightens me, erm, and erm. So I started looking at a lot of, er, films, horror films which were good ones. I think one of the great horror movies is the Exorcist, yuh. So , and I always talked and played with the idea of, uh, you know, the absolutes of good and evil, right and if the alien is really, what was it? Was it just, um, was it the face of the devil, right, was it the face of the demon, because if you look at historical you know , manuscripts and engravings, pictures, er, i... erm, from wherever they come from, whether it's China, whether it's Europe, whether it's, you know whatever the nationality, there's a kind of continuity of the idea of the perception of the dem, demon, as there is about the dragon, right, so it's like taking off the mystical aspects of it and saying "it's nothing to do with that. It's a Mar..., no, Martian, Mars is not far away enough. It's, it's a...a biological fact, it's a biological creature, and it's been here before. Exorcist for me was the biggest lesson, I just kept looking at and looking at it, and, erm, looking at the class that you've got involved in making the movie, you know
Don Shay: Alien was your second film , you've now done I believe six ,
Ridley Scott: Yep
Don Shay: er, how you do feel about it in retrospect, er, how does it stand up in your own mind?
Ridley Scott: Alien?
Don Shay : Alien
Ridley Scott: Ah, well you get so far separated from it now now, it's like you didn't make it. But err yeah, it's a good movie. (Don chuckles) It's a good film, I'm very pleased with it.
Don Shay: Right, Thank you very much
Ridley Scott:Thankyou
Don Shay: Lets go back about twelve years, at that point in time you were a very well known and respected director of commercials having done something like three thousand I might think at that point and you had recently completed your first feature film The Duellists which was very well received critically and won honours at the Cannes film festival and then along came alien which was probably as far removed from your first film as you could likely get. How was it that a science fiction horror film came to you at this point in your career and what was it about this particular project that made you do it?
Ridley Scott: Two questions: Ah well, D..er..G..er.. one of the producers David Giler, er, was the, I think, er, the Cann... person involved in... er... that choice because I think he had seen The Duellists at the Cannes film festival. And, er, they called up, so I've learnt that, er, he'd asked me to do it because of the Duellists I was more than baffled than anyone else, and the, so, I guess it's all down to his good taste. And the, erm, the script was just so tight, concise, it was very spare, er, the characters were clearly defined which frequently they aren't in that kind of exotic arena in that kind of movie, you know, it's kind of waffly, it's aII down to, you know, the effects and the horror and how horrible can you make it. What I liked were the characters, and I really loved the idea of, er, which was reasonably definitive new idea then actually of making the hero a woman I thought that was really clever.
Don Shay: Yes
Ridley Scott: erm, and it was just a very neat read. I read the script in about an hour and a half and called them up within two hours and said I'll do it. And so I was in... standing in Hollywood within about, within twenty four hours. (Don laughs) And so it was very tight, erm, the whole... the dynamics of the screen play which also I think a lot of people miss or missed in the first screening of the film because the film is always been ss... criticised as being light on characterisation which I think is totally wrong, I think these, the characters are beautifully defined, you know within the context of all you had to know about them, That's all you need to know. And I think the subtext to each character was really intelligent and gave you enough to know who was who, right, the trouble makers were Harry Dean and Yaphet Kotto down below, and the, you know, the upper deck, the upper echelon, you know, so you have a universal or classical, er, situation of er, of er separation of the two... of the classes even in space.
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott:Yeah
Don Shay: What was your initial agenda when you first took over the project. I und...It was in kind of disarray I understand
Ridley Scott: Yeah
Don Shay: It didn't have much direction at that point.
Ridley Scott: Yuh, coming in, I'd, I... they'd already done a lot of preparatory stuff I think with, er, Ron Cobb, right, and which was very good, in fact Ron's excellent... is brilliant. Really one of the best at it, erm, and so we took him over to England anyway 'cause Ron does drawings and isometric visuals which you know, you can virtually put a sss... you know, slide ruler on and cost it, right, erm, and everything works with Ron, he can tell you how the air lock's going to open and why it's there and how, why the door has got to be this way and that way. So, he talks up a very interesting technical, erm, you know, storm, er so it was always very fascinating to listen to him and listen to him speculate, yeh, er, and so we kept on working with the production designer in England almost for a year. Er, the original visuals I saw were very very good, and they were... and a kind of a key, you know where I started off but, er, because I'm an art director, I was an art director, I decided that earlier on because of the budget for the film originally was something like four and a half million dollars, and I thought… I had no idea or perception of what four and a half million dollars meant, in terms of… it sounded like an awful lot of money to me. And, er, so I sat down to prepare my own thoughts on it and of course I story board everything, right , so I sat down and basically story boarded the movie, er and, which produced a reaction of, you know, delight, but at the same time a kind of horror because the costs suddenly started to suddenly look like they were rising, And so what we did was presented the board, I had to present the board to Fox and then, what on... based on that, we doubled the budget. So then we went into eight four something, 'cause then I think they were starting to feel that there was something here
Don Shay: Hmm
Ridley Scott: right, which was more than just a rip your head off and strangle them, you know what I mean. (Don chuckles) But I bring all sorts of, erm, things to bear to it from the fact I was a production designer, and er, I was a, er, trained in art school, I spent seven years in art, spent seven years in art school, spent four... three years in the Royal College of Art with you know, serious colleagues like David Hockney, Alan Jones, Ron Kitaj, painters like that and some great graphic designers so it's a very sophisticated arena I came out of , but at that point so I was able to take it further I think, right, it was fair to say, influenced certainly by, erm, 2001 and Star Wars 'cause I'd seen Star Wars, er... oh God probably a month before I received the script, somebody said to me, "lets go along and see this film called Star Wars. I don't know what the hell its all about but it's making a big fuss." It was the opening week, and I went and saw that, and of course I was stunned. I mean, I was absolutely devastated, I was really depressed for a week, er, that I was preparing Tristan and Isolde, the one I'm on, which is fine, you know, but it's like walking along into a lion's mouth doing a film like that, I mean you're gonna, you're never gonna have a real audience for that, and it's still going to take a year of your life and I just backed, I just dropped it and I decided I can't be doing this when this guys doing that and I can see that as fulfilling as doing Tristan and Isolde, so he really whetted my appetite, that G. Lucas.
Part 2
Don Shay : Shortly before you release the film
Ridley Scott (nodding): mmm
Don Shay :you cut eleven minutes out of it,
Ridley Scott: Mmhmm
Don Shay:including a sequence at the end
Ridley Scott: Yuh
Don Shay: that, er,
Ridley Scott: Mmhmm
Don Shay: err, would've, err, talked about what had happened to the Harry Dean Stanton character
Ridley Scott: Yuh
Don Shay: and the Tom Skerrit character,
Ridley Scott: Mmhmm
Don Shay:is it alright if you could talk a little bit about those scenes,
Ridley Scott: Yuh
Don Shay: what they entailed and why you elected to cut them out.
Ridley Scott: Well you know there's always a pace thing to a film and, er, we cut the,, we put it all together, you know, as shot, and erm, the, nothing really happens for the first forty five minutes of the movie but you know Jerry did a, a great score, so the whole anticipation of moving in right from the very first opening cue, which I think is absolutely magnificent, I still do. I still think it's one of the best cues I've heard, you know, where you just... very simple scene, you're panning across the planet, you know, and the titles, great titles actually as well, are coming up and that is a great cue. and erm, you just from then on in, you'd… it's like entering the dark house, but in the best kind of way, you know, and, er, so the forty five minutes all stood up for me, but I know those little kind of… little bit of paranoia, saying "God, nothing happens for forty five minutes," but I'm saying "yeah, but look what you're looking at, you know, you're looking at these, the, these guys wakening up, you're getting information all the time now, and I felt because we really got it, you know, we really got what it might be like, then it was powerful, right, so that all held position but by the time we got to the dynamics of, you know, now she's on her own, right, err, we'd got a sense that the audience was getting restless at this certain point, and so when she stumbles into that room which is the landing leg room, and finds this, you know, hive, erm, and er she finds the bodies basically, the nest, she finds the bodies, and she finds, erm, Harry's gone, but he's clearly there and he's completely imbedded in the surface in a kind of kind of, er, kind of strange erm, semi glutinous but very strong, erm, material which is almost like built into fibreglass and, er, and, er, Skerrit is already half gone but he's still alive, he is really the host for the insect, which is the alien.
Part 3
Don Shay : There must be tricks of the trade to create suspense, and, and er, and terror, I presume your background in, in commercials probably kind of helped you in the area your kind of manipulating the audience
Ridley Scott: You know what, the most important thing to do is to not employ tricks, in so, in effect, if you're doing a horror movie, you know, is to fee... is to disregard the tricks that have been employed before because that's what your doing, you're doing repetition, and so it's trying to always look back inside yourself, the same as if you're writing a script, if you're writing a screenplay, if you're writing a book, you know the best of those elements come from looking back inside yourself to find out what you think, you know, and trying to put that in film. So that's to do with being how personal can you get making a film,
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott: You know,
Don Shay: What do you find personally frightening, and, and were you able to incorporate that into the film?
Ridley Scott: Well I had to look into it, I mean I had to look into it myself, and say, oh yeh, you know, what frightens me, erm, and erm. So I started looking at a lot of, er, films, horror films which were good ones. I think one of the great horror movies is the Exorcist, yuh. So , and I always talked and played with the idea of, uh, you know, the absolutes of good and evil, right and if the alien is really, what was it? Was it just, um, was it the face of the devil, right, was it the face of the demon, because if you look at historical you know , manuscripts and engravings, pictures, er, i... erm, from wherever they come from, whether it's China, whether it's Europe, whether it's, you know whatever the nationality, there's a kind of continuity of the idea of the perception of the dem, demon, as there is about the dragon, right, so it's like taking off the mystical aspects of it and saying "it's nothing to do with that. It's a Mar..., no, Martian, Mars is not far away enough. It's, it's a...a biological fact, it's a biological creature, and it's been here before. Exorcist for me was the biggest lesson, I just kept looking at and looking at it, and, erm, looking at the class that you've got involved in making the movie, you know
Don Shay: Alien was your second film , you've now done I believe six ,
Ridley Scott: Yep
Don Shay: er, how you do feel about it in retrospect, er, how does it stand up in your own mind?
Ridley Scott: Alien?
Don Shay : Alien
Ridley Scott: Ah, well you get so far separated from it now now, it's like you didn't make it. But err yeah, it's a good movie. (Don chuckles) It's a good film, I'm very pleased with it.
Don Shay: Right, Thank you very much
Ridley Scott:Thankyou
Edited transcription of Ridley Scot Interview With Don Shay from Alien Laserdisc
Part 1
Don Shay: Lets go back about twelve years, at that point in time you were a very well known and respected director of commercials having done something like three thousand I might think at that point and you had recently completed your first feature film The Duellists which was very well received critically and won honours at the Cannes film festival and then along came alien which was probably as far removed from your first film as you could likely get. How was it that a science fiction horror film came to you at this point in your career and what was it about this particular project that made you do it?
Ridley Scott: Two questions: Ah well, one of the producers David Giler, was the person involved in that choice because I think he had seen The Duellists at the Cannes film festival. And they called up, and so I've learnt that he'd asked me to do it because of the Duellists, I was more than baffled than anyone else, and I guess it's all down to his good taste. And the script was just so tight, concise, it was very spare, the characters were clearly defined which frequently they aren't in that kind of exotic arena in that kind of movie, you know, it's kind of waffly, it's aII down to the effects and the horror and how horrible can you make it. What I liked were the characters, and I really loved the idea of, which was reasonably definitive new idea then, actually of making the hero a woman I thought that was really clever.
Don Shay: Yes
Ridley Scott: and it was just a very neat read. I read the script in about an hour and a half and called them up within two hours and said I'll do it. And so I was standing in Hollywood within twenty four hours. (Don laughs) And so it was very tight, the dynamics of the screen play which also I think a lot of people missed in the first screening of the film because the film is always been criticised as being light on characterisation which I think is totally wrong, I think the characters are beautifully defined, you know within the context of all you had to know about them, That's all you need to know. And I think the subtext to each character was really intelligent and gave you enough to know who was who, right, the trouble makers were Harry Dean and Yaphet Kotto down below, and the upper deck, the upper echelon, so you have a universal or classical situation of separation of the two... of the classes even in space.
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott:Yeah
Don Shay: What was your initial agenda when you first took over the project. It was in kind of disarray I understand
Ridley Scott: Yeah
Don Shay: It didn't have much direction at that point.
Ridley Scott: Yuh, coming in, they'd already done a lot of preparatory stuff I think with Ron Cobb, right, and which was very good, in fact Ron is brilliant. Really one of the best at it and so we took him over to England anyway 'cause Ron does drawings and isometric visuals which you know, you can virtually put a slide ruler on and cost it and everything works with Ron, he can tell you how the air lock's going to open and why it's there and why the door has got to be this way and that way. So, he talks up a very interesting technical storm, so it was always very fascinating to listen to him and listen to him speculate, and so we kept on working with the production designer in England almost for a year. The original visuals I saw were very very good, and they were a kind of a key, you know where I started off but, because I was an art director, I decided that earlier on because of the budget for the film originally was something like four and a half million dollars, and I had no idea or perception of what four and a half million dollars meant, it sounded like an awful lot of money to me. And, so I sat down to prepare my own thoughts on it and of course I story board everything, right , so I sat down and basically story boarded the movie, which produced a reaction of, you know, delight, but at the same time a kind of horror because the costs suddenly started to suddenly look like they were rising, And so what we did was I had to present the boards to Fox and then, based on that, we doubled the budget. So then we went into eight four something, 'cause then I think they were starting to feel that there was something here
Don Shay: Hmm
Ridley Scott: right, which was more than just a rip your head off and strangle them, you know what I mean. (Don chuckles) But I bring all sorts of things to bear to it from the fact that I was a production designer, and I was trained in art school, I spent seven years in art school, spent four... three years in the Royal College of Art with you know, serious colleagues like David Hockney, Alan Jones, Ron Kitaj, painters like that and some great graphic designers so it's a very sophisticated arena I came out of , but at that point so I was able to take it further I think, right, it was fair to say, influenced certainly by, 2001 and Star Wars , cause I'd seen Star Wars, oh God probably a month before I received the script, somebody said to me, "lets go along and see this film called Star Wars. I don't know what the hell its all about but it's making a big fuss." It was the opening week, and I went and saw that, and of course I was stunned. I mean, I was absolutely devastated, I was really depressed for a week, that I was preparing Tristan and Isolde, the one I'm on, which is fine, you know, but it's like walking along into a lion's mouth doing a film like that, I mean you're never gonna have a real audience for that, and it's still going to take a year of your life and I just dropped it and I decided I can't be doing this when this guys doing that and I can see that as fulfilling as doing Tristan and Isolde, so he really whetted my appetite, that G. Lucas.
Don Shay : Shortly before you release the film you cut eleven minutes out of it, including a sequence at the end that would've talked about what had happened to the Harry Dean Stanton character and the Tom Skerrit character. Is it alright if you could talk a little bit about those scenes,
Ridley Scott: Well you know there's always a pace thing to a film and we put it all together, you know, as shot, and nothing really happens for the first forty five minutes of the movie but you know Jerry did a great score, so the whole anticipation of moving in right from the very first opening cue, which I think is absolutely magnificent, I still do. I still think it's one of the best cues I've heard, you know, very simple scene, you're panning across the planet, you know, and the titles, great titles actually as well, are coming up and that is a great cu, and from then on it's like entering the dark house, but in the best kind of way, you know, and, so the forty five minutes all stood up for me, but I know that little bit of paranoia, saying "God, nothing happens for forty five minutes," but I'm saying "yeah, but look what you're looking at, you know, you're looking at these, guys waking up, you're getting information all the time now, and I felt because we really got it, you know, we really got what it might be like, then it was powerful, so that all held position but by the time we got to the dynamics of, you know, now she's on her own, we'd got a sense that the audience was getting restless at this certain point, and so when she stumbles into that room which is the landing leg room, and finds this hive, and she finds the bodies basically, the nest and she finds Harry's gone, but he's clearly there and he's completely imbedded in the surface in a kind of kind of strange semi glutinous but very strong material which is almost like built into fibreglass and Skerrit is already half gone but he's still alive, he is really the host for the insect, which is the alien.
Part 3
Don Shay : There must be tricks of the trade to create suspense and terror, I presume your background in, in commercials probably kind of helped you in the area your kind of manipulating the audience
Ridley Scott: You know what, the most important thing to do is to not employ tricks, in effect, if you're doing a horror movie, you know, is to disregard the tricks that have been employed before because that's what your doing, you're doing repetition, and so it's trying to always look back inside yourself, the same as if you're writing a script, if you're writing a screenplay, if you're writing a book, you know the best of those elements come from looking back inside yourself to find out what you think, you know, and trying to put that in film. So that's to do with being how personal can you get making a film,
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott: You know,
Don Shay: What do you find personally frightening, and were you able to incorporate that into the film?
Ridley Scott:
Well I had to look into it, I mean I had to look into it myself, and
say, oh yeh, you know, what frightens me. So I started
looking at a lot of,films, horror films which were good ones. I
think one of the great horror movies is the Exorcist, yuh, and I
always talked and played with the idea of, the absolutes
of good and evil, right and if the alien is really, what was it? Was it the face of the devil, was it the face of the
demon, because if you look at historical manuscripts and
engravings, pictures, from wherever they come from,
whether it's China, whether it's Europe, whatever
the nationality, there's a kind of continuity of the idea of the
perception of the demon, as there is about the dragon, right, so
it's like taking off the mystical aspects of it and saying "it's nothing
to do with that. It's a Mar..., no, Martian, Mars is not far away
enough. It's a biological fact, it's a biological creature,
and it's been here before. Exorcist for me was the biggest lesson, I
just kept looking at and looking at it, and looking at the class
that you've got involved in making the movie, you know
Don Shay: Alien was your second film , you've now done I believe six ,
Ridley Scott: Yep
Don Shay: How you do feel about it in retrospect, er, how does it stand up in your own mind?
Ridley Scott: Alien?
Don Shay : Alien
Ridley Scott: Ah, well you get so far separated from it now now, it's like you didn't make it. But err yeah, it's a good movie. (Don chuckles) It's a good film, I'm very pleased with it.
Don Shay: Right, Thank you very much
Ridley Scott:Thankyou
Don Shay: Lets go back about twelve years, at that point in time you were a very well known and respected director of commercials having done something like three thousand I might think at that point and you had recently completed your first feature film The Duellists which was very well received critically and won honours at the Cannes film festival and then along came alien which was probably as far removed from your first film as you could likely get. How was it that a science fiction horror film came to you at this point in your career and what was it about this particular project that made you do it?
Ridley Scott: Two questions: Ah well, one of the producers David Giler, was the person involved in that choice because I think he had seen The Duellists at the Cannes film festival. And they called up, and so I've learnt that he'd asked me to do it because of the Duellists, I was more than baffled than anyone else, and I guess it's all down to his good taste. And the script was just so tight, concise, it was very spare, the characters were clearly defined which frequently they aren't in that kind of exotic arena in that kind of movie, you know, it's kind of waffly, it's aII down to the effects and the horror and how horrible can you make it. What I liked were the characters, and I really loved the idea of, which was reasonably definitive new idea then, actually of making the hero a woman I thought that was really clever.
Don Shay: Yes
Ridley Scott: and it was just a very neat read. I read the script in about an hour and a half and called them up within two hours and said I'll do it. And so I was standing in Hollywood within twenty four hours. (Don laughs) And so it was very tight, the dynamics of the screen play which also I think a lot of people missed in the first screening of the film because the film is always been criticised as being light on characterisation which I think is totally wrong, I think the characters are beautifully defined, you know within the context of all you had to know about them, That's all you need to know. And I think the subtext to each character was really intelligent and gave you enough to know who was who, right, the trouble makers were Harry Dean and Yaphet Kotto down below, and the upper deck, the upper echelon, so you have a universal or classical situation of separation of the two... of the classes even in space.
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott:Yeah
Don Shay: What was your initial agenda when you first took over the project. It was in kind of disarray I understand
Ridley Scott: Yeah
Don Shay: It didn't have much direction at that point.
Ridley Scott: Yuh, coming in, they'd already done a lot of preparatory stuff I think with Ron Cobb, right, and which was very good, in fact Ron is brilliant. Really one of the best at it and so we took him over to England anyway 'cause Ron does drawings and isometric visuals which you know, you can virtually put a slide ruler on and cost it and everything works with Ron, he can tell you how the air lock's going to open and why it's there and why the door has got to be this way and that way. So, he talks up a very interesting technical storm, so it was always very fascinating to listen to him and listen to him speculate, and so we kept on working with the production designer in England almost for a year. The original visuals I saw were very very good, and they were a kind of a key, you know where I started off but, because I was an art director, I decided that earlier on because of the budget for the film originally was something like four and a half million dollars, and I had no idea or perception of what four and a half million dollars meant, it sounded like an awful lot of money to me. And, so I sat down to prepare my own thoughts on it and of course I story board everything, right , so I sat down and basically story boarded the movie, which produced a reaction of, you know, delight, but at the same time a kind of horror because the costs suddenly started to suddenly look like they were rising, And so what we did was I had to present the boards to Fox and then, based on that, we doubled the budget. So then we went into eight four something, 'cause then I think they were starting to feel that there was something here
Don Shay: Hmm
Ridley Scott: right, which was more than just a rip your head off and strangle them, you know what I mean. (Don chuckles) But I bring all sorts of things to bear to it from the fact that I was a production designer, and I was trained in art school, I spent seven years in art school, spent four... three years in the Royal College of Art with you know, serious colleagues like David Hockney, Alan Jones, Ron Kitaj, painters like that and some great graphic designers so it's a very sophisticated arena I came out of , but at that point so I was able to take it further I think, right, it was fair to say, influenced certainly by, 2001 and Star Wars , cause I'd seen Star Wars, oh God probably a month before I received the script, somebody said to me, "lets go along and see this film called Star Wars. I don't know what the hell its all about but it's making a big fuss." It was the opening week, and I went and saw that, and of course I was stunned. I mean, I was absolutely devastated, I was really depressed for a week, that I was preparing Tristan and Isolde, the one I'm on, which is fine, you know, but it's like walking along into a lion's mouth doing a film like that, I mean you're never gonna have a real audience for that, and it's still going to take a year of your life and I just dropped it and I decided I can't be doing this when this guys doing that and I can see that as fulfilling as doing Tristan and Isolde, so he really whetted my appetite, that G. Lucas.
Part 2
Don Shay : Shortly before you release the film you cut eleven minutes out of it, including a sequence at the end that would've talked about what had happened to the Harry Dean Stanton character and the Tom Skerrit character. Is it alright if you could talk a little bit about those scenes,
what they entailed and why you elected to cut them out.
Ridley Scott: Well you know there's always a pace thing to a film and we put it all together, you know, as shot, and nothing really happens for the first forty five minutes of the movie but you know Jerry did a great score, so the whole anticipation of moving in right from the very first opening cue, which I think is absolutely magnificent, I still do. I still think it's one of the best cues I've heard, you know, very simple scene, you're panning across the planet, you know, and the titles, great titles actually as well, are coming up and that is a great cu, and from then on it's like entering the dark house, but in the best kind of way, you know, and, so the forty five minutes all stood up for me, but I know that little bit of paranoia, saying "God, nothing happens for forty five minutes," but I'm saying "yeah, but look what you're looking at, you know, you're looking at these, guys waking up, you're getting information all the time now, and I felt because we really got it, you know, we really got what it might be like, then it was powerful, so that all held position but by the time we got to the dynamics of, you know, now she's on her own, we'd got a sense that the audience was getting restless at this certain point, and so when she stumbles into that room which is the landing leg room, and finds this hive, and she finds the bodies basically, the nest and she finds Harry's gone, but he's clearly there and he's completely imbedded in the surface in a kind of kind of strange semi glutinous but very strong material which is almost like built into fibreglass and Skerrit is already half gone but he's still alive, he is really the host for the insect, which is the alien.
Part 3
Don Shay : There must be tricks of the trade to create suspense and terror, I presume your background in, in commercials probably kind of helped you in the area your kind of manipulating the audience
Ridley Scott: You know what, the most important thing to do is to not employ tricks, in effect, if you're doing a horror movie, you know, is to disregard the tricks that have been employed before because that's what your doing, you're doing repetition, and so it's trying to always look back inside yourself, the same as if you're writing a script, if you're writing a screenplay, if you're writing a book, you know the best of those elements come from looking back inside yourself to find out what you think, you know, and trying to put that in film. So that's to do with being how personal can you get making a film,
Don Shay: Right
Ridley Scott: You know,
Don Shay: What do you find personally frightening, and were you able to incorporate that into the film?
 |
| Chung Qai, chinese demon |
Don Shay: Alien was your second film , you've now done I believe six ,
Ridley Scott: Yep
Don Shay: How you do feel about it in retrospect, er, how does it stand up in your own mind?
Ridley Scott: Alien?
Don Shay : Alien
Ridley Scott: Ah, well you get so far separated from it now now, it's like you didn't make it. But err yeah, it's a good movie. (Don chuckles) It's a good film, I'm very pleased with it.
Don Shay: Right, Thank you very much
Ridley Scott:Thankyou
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)