Alien: Dressing the Nostromo

Leading from 

Alien: Nostromo

and

Roger Christian

 

 

(Still in development)

 

 

a) Dressing the Nostromo

They said to him "what do you need?",

 

Roger's responded "I need the prop team that I had on Star Wars because I trained them all right. We don't have time to train them now." 

 

So they hired Joe Dipple and his team who had worked on Star Wars and they came down.

 

Roger hired a specialist prop maker who had done this work before Roger did but he had the same engineering and sculpturing abilities

Roger Shaw who also worked on Star Wars also came aboard.

 

Roger got his small team around him and he started getting to them to dress the sets, and Roger didn't have to start from scratch explaining to anyone how to do it.

They ran miles of PVC tubing down the Nostromo corridors, and then he went to Nick Allder and go two people, Dennis Lowe and Guy Hudson to build panels and switches because  Roger realised that he was going to need hundreds of these to out into the panels on the side.

They said okay, "we'll do you three we'll do a 2001 like, a really gritty one and then a kind of middle one"  

 

Roger chose the very gritty one and they all hung their heads because it had the most work done to it because they had put so many bits and pieces on it. They just got to work like an assembly plant building those.

 

1. Roger Christian: And so I just got to work with an army, and I said, they said "what do you need?", I said "I need the prop team that I had on Star Wars because I trained them all right. We don't have time to train them now." Again it was a short prep period so they hired Joe Dipple and his team, they came down, I hired a specialist prop maker who kind of done it before I did, but he had the same engineering and sculpturing abilities, Roger Shaw, he came aboard, I got a small team around me and started them dressing so i didn't have to explain to Joe again how to do it.  (Effectively Speaking podcast episode 50)
2. Roger Christian: We ran miles of PVC tubing down the, down the Nostromo corridors, and then with Nick Allder's guy, I went to him and I got two, two people, Dennis Lowe and Guy Hudson to build panels of switches, 'cause I said I'm going to need hundreds of these to put into the panels on the side, so they said "okay we'll do you three, we'll do a 2001 like, a really gritty one and then a kind of middle one." Of course, I chose the really gritty one and the all hung their heads because it had the most work because they had so many bits and pieces on it, they just got to work like an assembly plant building those and then, and then of course they say they (gap) (Effectively Speaking podcast episode 50)
   
   
    

 

 

 

b) Television monitors

 

They needed readouts

 

They needed television monitors in each cockpit face, and playback of computer-style elements to read on them when we turned over the cameras. 

 

That was another department, but Roger had to organize it. 

 

They reckoned that with the small monitors available they could run playback for all the monitors synced together.

Nicky knew of small Sony Trinitron monitor, Roger found some of these and they were only six inches across, tony and they could build the consoles around them so they sunk into the control panels. They fit these in and they could play back into them

 

Each control station had to have a sea of switches and levers and controls, emergency lights, helmets, and equipment. 

 

 

1. Roger Christian: We needed television monitors in each cockpit face, and playback of computer-style elements to read on them when we turned over the cameras. That was another department, but I had to organize it. We reckoned that with the small monitors available they could run playback for all the monitors synced together. Nick knew of small Trinitron monitors and we could build the consoles around them so they sunk into the control panels. Each control station had to have a sea of switches and levers and controls, emergency lights, helmets, and equipment. .(Cinema Alchemist, published 19 April 2016)
2. Roger Christian: We needed readouts, so I found these tiny Sony monitors. They were only six inches across, tiny things, that we managed to fit in, and they played back into those. Seeing that crew come in and rehearse in it, they became part of it and it looks so blooming real! I think that was my favourite part of it (Starburst #486, 2024)