Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Even Behind-the-Scenes That Chest Bursting Alien Is Terrifying
gizmodo.com: A lot of people try and avoid behind-the-scenes looks at their favorite movies for fear it could ruin the mystique of what they're seeing on-screen. But surprisingly, seeing the inner workings of the infamous chest bursting alien from Aliens is just about as terrifying as the actual scene in the movie, if not more so.
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13 comments:
It's amazing the amount of technology and wiring that went into this little machine! I feel like in today's industry it might've been an easy answer to animate this. However, I do like the idea of an actual machine/"character" taking part!
I wonder what material/materials were used for the outside of the chestburster..
I love seeing these videos from the Stan Winston School. I am fascinated by what they are able to create from simple materials and some engineering. It's incredible to think that this puppet is older than most of the people commenting on this blog, but that for its day it was a very impressive movie prop. In today's day and age, as the article says, this kind of character would just be computer generated. It's a shame that this type of machining and engineering isn't used for characters like this any more for movies.
I have to say that in today's world, it is far to easy to just go to CGI for special effects instead of these animatronic monsters. This is kind of sad. I feel that with the classic monsters (T-Rex from Jurassic Park, Jaws from Jaws, etc.) there is a personality of the operator and of the mechanisms that comprise the animal that is almost impossible to get from another medium. Maybe it is because I am a sucker for old movies and old styles of effects, but I think those moments in a movie when you realize the actor is actually interacting with a physical entity is pretty epic.
This is a really cool video to pop up, especially this long after the movie. The little alien, which in this video I actually thought was kind of cute, is really cool for something so seemingly simple. The narrator of the video points out how surprisingly organic the alien's movement is. It is definitely true, its stunning what simple technology like that accomplished, and how much programming would go into something like that now. Although what he doesn't mention a lot in the video is how it was used, which is my favorite movie fun fact. When they set it up, they did not tell the actors what was going to happen. All the script said was, "it will emerge." So when the alien popped out spraying blood everywhere, the fear displayed by the actors was real.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/oct/13/making-of-alien-chestburster
To play devil's advocate with Tim, it's true that operators have a physical connection with the puppet or mechanism that they are operating, but isn't the same true for a animation engineer? There is a whole staff of people who were in charge of making one monster for Lord of the Rings, and that staff of people poured their hearts and souls into their monster just like the team at the Winston School did for the T-Rex and the Chest-Bursting Alien. While I do agree that it's really cool to see those characters in real time and see how they were built and operated, I think the same thing can be said about some CGI animations. With a few clicks of a mouse and strokes of a keyboard the creator of the CGI characters can make the audience feel one specific thing about the character they are seeing on screen. That has it's own beauty.
So again the Stan Winston Studio does amazing things. But yet sounded like the gentlemen had no idea what he was really doing. He took knowledge that he knew and moved forward. This comforts me greatly when I get over whelmed with a project, just to keep moving forward. Keep working out things in the realm of your knowledge and trouble shot problems as they come up. Finally ask questions if you do not know and most importantly remember because you will have to do some similar in the future.
I understand the don't-ruin-the-magic reaction that people have, when they can see the inner workings of a puppet like this, but for me it always makes it cooler. Its great to see how simple these mechanisms always are. Revealing the mechanics of a kinetic sculpture is a necessary element. It is fascinating to see all of the inner workings of an object, and still be unsure of exactly how it works. i appreciate the narrator in this video, but could happily have watched the thing move in silence and still been transfixed.
Have robot creatures in movies is seen all over the place now. Before watching this video I never really thought about how the mechanical aspect related to the physical appearance of the creature. However, I think it really smart that both of these aspects came from focusing on the spine. The spine connects our brains to our bodies, so by focusing on this part of the body and building off of that you really will receive very accurate movement.
Alien is one of my favorite films. The effects in the film are really impressive not only for the time that it was made but today as well. This video is really fantastic. I love the way the it talks about both eh art and the emotion and the technical ideas. Something that I have wanted to learn about for some time now is this sort of complex puppet making. There is a lot of good information out there about how to make simple puppets of all kinds, but I have had a hard time finding any really info about the concepts of making this sort of complex puppet. I took a look at the YouTube page that this video was on. It turns out that they have a lot of other really great videos that are just as in depth and interesting. I'm looking forward to watching some of them and learning more of this sort of amazing art.
Although I haven't seen the movie, I think looking at the inner workings of things like this chest-burster are really fascinating. It always makes me take a step back and realize just how important other majors will one day make their way into my life. I never think of how one day I might work with let's say an engineering major, but then I see this and think how it's very possible. I learn to appreciate and value the knowledge I don't have when I see these things because I know someone else does and finds this thrilling and maybe one day my world and someone else's will combine and make something cool this this or what have you.
I do agree that the mechanics behind the alien are very fluid and life like, but I do not think that the arms looked like the did not go with the rest of the body. They were small and moved mechanically and were more rigid as opposed to fluid. It was, nonetheless, interesting to see how machines can be programmed and shaped to look like they are alive and moving in non-electronic ways.
This is so cool. Over the summer I spent a lot of time learning how to build puppets and what questions need to be asked when designing it: namely, what do I need it to do and how am I going to get it to do that? and making it look pretty later. In the case of this puppet, i agree that it needed a lot more embellishing to look the way they wanted it to in the movie, but it really does look disgustingly creepy anyway. I also love hoe simple the mechanism is. It reminds me of one of the line projects from last year. Someone made a hand last year that could be controlled and changed by two strings on each finger. The movement was just as organic and the mechanism so simple. I wonder how we could use this on stage.
I like how much "biological" research went into this machine.
I really like how they tried to imitate natural movements of real animals.
It reminds me of the research they did when making the gigantic horse puppets for War Horse.
The alien robot and the horse puppets both had to look extremely realistic and move in the most natural and exact way.
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