Unlike the genre itself, theAlienfranchiseisn’t new to the Oscar game.
For fans of the franchise, you don’t want to miss this one.
FEDE ALVAREZ: Absolutely.
Image via 20th Century Studios
It’s for 4:3 and it’s bigger.
I can keep going on about IMAX.
It’s my favorite format.
The ships are somewhere.
They dont belong to me, but I know theyre somewhere in storage.
The Corbelan and the big Echo Probe, as well, the one from the opening scene.
Image via 20th Century Studios
Those two are somewhere.
At some point, Icouldkeep themI don’t have a place to put them.
MACARIN: They’re room-size.
Image via 20th Century Studios
ALVAREZ: So Fox still has that.
I have a few things.
I have one of my favorites, a cryo frame with a Facehugger asleep inside.
Image via 20th Century Studios
It’s a pretty cool one with the lights and everything.
Its one of those things that you see inside the cryo chamber.
Also, the barrel would get red as it goes to show that it gets hotter.
Image via 20th Century Studios
I have some real Facehuggers.
Audiences loved it and it’s just been very successful.
What does it like to not crash the Ferrari?
Image via 20th Century Studios
This is a franchise that audiences truly love.
ALVAREZ: Yeah, but the reality is when we took over, it felt like a Testarossa.
It was a bit rusty.
It was a Ferrari, but… Forme, it was amazingwho doesnt love that carpet?
There was some of that, and that was exciting to me because that was a challenge.
That was a challenge to be had.
Image via 20th Century Studios
It was like, Okay, let’s just bring it back.
Why, for us older people, we think its so amazing.
Its the same example.
Image Via 20th Century Studios
I find myself talking with teenagers, telling them, You havent seenAlien?
You should watchAlien, its great.
And they go, Nah.
I go away for three years, come back with the movie, Okay, watchthis.
Its the best way to prove to that new generation whyAlienis one of the best sci-fi movies ever made.
I couldn’t agree more.
Image via 20th Century Studios
Alien: Romulushas been nominated for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards.
I absolutely think it’s deserving of the nomination.
For all three of you, what does that nomination mean?
Image via 20th Century Studios
But I love it.
It’s the world.
If you could pick one nomination, thats the one I would dream to get one day.
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I’m so happy, and I owe it to this guy for doing such a great job.
BARBA: It’s huge.
I think Fede actually woke me up that morning.
Image via 20th Century Studios
So, he told me.
It’s a great compliment to the entire visual effects team that worked on it.
We wanted to give Fede the best visual effects we could possibly give him.
Image via 20th Century Studios
To see them working every day on set and with them, I was just kind of blown away.
ALVAREZ: To clarify, hes talking about Shane Mahan.
At the very beginning of the process, he was the first person we went after.
Image via 20th Century Studios
He’s a legend of animatronic and practical effects.
One is Alec Gillis, the other one is Shane Mahan.
I knew I needed them.
Image via 20th Century Studios
Although theyre in two different companies, they’re like brothers.
And again, they hadnt worked together sinceAliensand they have massive careers separately.
It was great to see them together.
Image via 20th Century Fox
MACARIN: Its exactly that.
Thats whateverythinghas to match to, and being able to work with that team is just awesome.
What do you think people would be surprised to learn about doing VFX on big Hollywood movies?
It will take people out of the series.
It won’t match the look that we’re going for.
We need to be on board with that.
Eric and Daniel, youve both worked on a ton of movies.
What do you consider the toughest shot or sequence of your career?
I worked on a bunch of sequences onAvatarthat were extremely tough.
That does sound like Fincher.
He wasn’t taking any prisoners with shooting around any problems with CG.
He wanted to shoot Benjamin like every other shot in the movie.
He just outright said, I’m not shooting any different.
I mean, in exactly those words.
There were a lot of chances for you to spot something different.
So, it needs to be handed over.
Its a mix, still.
A lot of the blow-ups, every time a Xenomorph gets hit, that’s a practical Xenomorph.
We had one day of just blowing up heads of Xenomorphs.
That’s what works.
It’s a mix of techniques.
But I thought it ended up looking amazing.
So it felt like miniatures.
It didn’t feel too crazy.
So that was a challenge on its own.
There were many challenges, but Im proud the teams got there and we were happy with it.
MACARIN: We had Fede-vis.
ALVAREZ: I think we have to explain that.
I dont think they know what that is.
A lot of people might not understand what the hell were talking about with the previs and stuff.
MACARIN: Essentially, it’s a very basic guide.
It gives us time and everything.
It was a very, very quick storyboard-pop in idea that Fede did for us.
It definitely allowed us to see the sequences and understand where we needed to take it.
It’s not second unit or a previs team doing it or someone else bringing the shots.
It’s really Fedes eye behind the lens.
The ship goes there.
There’s so much room for interpretation.
I think it helps.
It feels that it belongs to the same movie.
So because a lot of times the director has nothing to do with those shots.
They’re done entirely by the VFX company and they approve them.
They go, Great, that looks amazing, but nonetheless, there’s sensitivity.
So I felt that that had an impact.
You’re providing that previs.
Lets get his approval.
It’s like, This is Fedes vision of the shot.
Let’s make the shot.
So, it’s possible for you to cut to the chase.
MACARIN: I wouldnt really say it saves on budget, though.
What it does is it puts the money where it should be.
I don’t have to waste it getting to that time.
How Is AI Affecting the VFX Industry?
You still need a really great artist.
We use machine learning.
We use machine learning for Rook.It’s just another tool.Its no different.
It’s just a faster tool.
Ive said it’s like the difference between some of our early rendering technologies and the faster rendering technologies.
It just makes things faster.
I’m sure it’ll be more as time goes on, but it’s just another tool.
You still need a really great artist who can drive it in behind the scenes to make it work.
MACARIN: It’s exactly that.
Well, now it’s instant.
That doesn’t take their job away.
It just means, Hey, you don’t have to press that button 50 times now.
you could do the rest of the shot.
So,I don’t think it’s that idea that it’s going to suddenly replace artists.
I think it’s just going to allow artists to do what they’re best at.
BARBA: No, because sometimes you see those things, and you just know they’re not ready.
You’ve spent the money and time.
So I haven’t seen something that’s maybe ready that would be that next great leap.
But every day is a new day.
We’ve gotten bitten by, The demo looks fantastic.
It looks really great in this one scenario!
And they’re like, Great, let’s put this into a movie and get everything set up.
So a lot of that stuff has to be kept at a bit of a distance.
We’re always kind of like, Yeah, it’s cool.
I’m going to wait.
We’ll know when it’s ready to be in a film.
After decades of Planet of the Apes films, could this be the one that snags the Oscar?
It’s like, Wow, there’s this thing that discovers Z depth.
The movie’s going to be so much better now.
It makes no impact on the art that you see.
Its stuff like that.
Now we can kind of start getting there.
It might be what Daniel was saying.
The artist won’t spend the time doing that.
They will spend the time on the artistry.
It will get better.
So the money will spend there, and that will make the movie better.
You wouldn’t notice that.
Do you have a favorite death scene inAlien: Romulus?
ALVAREZ: I think the Chestburster, probably.
That scene is glorious because of the context of what happened around the set piece in general.
It’s one of my favorite set pieces in the movie.
So, if that counts as a death scene, I think that’s definitely one of my favorites.
BARBA: I agree.
It’s masterfully done by a bunch of people shoved into that tiny set.
Like, 10 clowns would come out of that car.
ALVAREZ: No one can access it.
It’s not just those damn clowns.
It’s like a Disney ride.
You have to be moving the whole room around.
you could see the backs of the walls.
It’s a total nightmare.
I think the harder it is for us, the better is for you.
I truly believe that.
It gives you an experience thats unique.
The easier it is for us, the harder it is for you to watch it.
It’s not as great.
When it’s very easy to make, it means that it’s been done before a billion times.
It’s never going to impact you the same way.
Everyone knows that’s one of the iconic scenes of this movie.
Can you break down how early on you were developing that scene?
Because its a key scene.
ALVAREZ: To Eric’s suffering, I’m terrible at prepping too much.
I mean I prep some, but I don’t prep probably enough.
I don’t do a detailed storyboard or an animatic of thewholescene so everybody knows exactly whats going down.
There are people who are really good at planning every detail of where every light is going to be.
Actually, having a conversation, I heard this story about Fincher.
Hed end up not doing it that way.
Theyre like, Yeah, sure, great adventure.
I have no idea, so they have to be ready for everything.
Thats what makes the team suffer sometimes, I guess.
Youve got to be on your toes.
What’s going to happen?
There’s the mystery of what’s going to be, but that’s how I like it.
BARBA: I mean, every director has the way they work and what works for them.
But sometimes you get a lot of happy accidents, too, doing that.
ALVAREZ: You kind of expect it somehow.
Theyre so different, and I think if you watch their movies, they’re quite different movies.
Some people go, Its all about the characters.
You have to look at the characters and the story.
That’s the only thing that matters.
That’s what makes a movie better.
Get rid of this.
You don’t need any of that.
We just want to make it as lean and mean as it can be.
Then,for Cameron, what was equally important was more things that had to do with the technology.
A lot of it had to do with that.
Like, I don’t understand the size of that ship.
I need to understand better where they are and the station at that point.
Ridley’s more about, like, Hey, look fucking cool.
When you talk aboutAlien, he always talks about the water falling and how that didn’t faze him.
People would complain to him, Why is there water on the ship?
And he’s like, Because it looks fucking cool.
That’s Ridley’s explanation.
So, both of them are very different, so their notes were very different.
There are a lot of things that they will see differently.
They want to keep that, get rid of that.
You have to be stubborn and you have to believe your way.
I heard a great story about Ridley.
Is this historically accurate?
And he basically said, It’s just fucking cool.
I want to go back to the beginning if you don’t mind.
What are you thinking about for practical?
What are you thinking of?
What is it like in those initial days or those initial conversations, director to VFX team?
I knew he was the right guy based on his work, but mostly, he has good taste.
So, it starts there.
It’s just like when you cast an actor.
If you cast the wrong actor, youre fucked.
There’s nothing you’ve got the option to do.
So for this, the stars are there.
Then it’s hard to keep the consistency of the work.
Maybe I give myself too much credit, but that’s how the collaboration works.
And obviously, Weta, theres no one like them, right?
This guy is the best, and so we are going to be in good hands with them.
That, for me at least, is a big part.
For me, it’s important to feel that they love it.
I was like, Yes, I do.
Like, No one else is doing this.
So, what really made this work is trust.
And Weta, we’re storytellers.
It’s not just about visual effects.
Was it a challenge to do that, and why don’t more movies do what you did?
Because it looks so much better.
ALVAREZ: It’s definitely a challenge.
But I cannot talk about the other movies.
I really don’t know a lot of how Hollywood works the way it does, but.
They were very supportive, and they really believed in it.
But if it’s possible, then we should do it.
So, yes, it is possible, but you don’t have the money to do it.
Usually, those are the reasons.
So that comes to the building of the sets.
I know we can build them.
We don’t need to have blue screens everywhere if it can be built.
Its not even that.
Its just for me to show up on set and be on a spaceship.
That’s why you make movies.
As a filmmaker, that’s what I grew up dreaming about doing.
I want to go to a set and see animatronics and shoot things.
The actors also want to show up on a set and see a real monster in their faces.
That’s the experience, right?
So, as much as you’re free to do that, you have to do it.
You pay for the animatronics, and then you replace it with CG.
And how many people have told us doing the shots, Oh, youve got to replace it all.
Youve got to replace all this.
Theyre gonna replace the whole thing.
So the studio thinks of that because that has happened many times.
There are other things that we didn’t even attempt the CG, like the hive.
So I think it is way harder.
To say that its practical is easy.
People go, You should do it practically.
So, it’s tricky.
And, of course, they worked onAliensandAlien 3andResurrection.
They worked on all of them so they know exactly how to do it.
So, it was a challenge to do a practical.
If you do it right, it’s totally worth it, but you oughta have the right team.
BARBA: We also almost kept everything.
I think it’s much higher.
Probably 95%, we kept.
MACARIN: That was the directive.
They’re like, Yeah, throw it away.
It didn’t come out right.
It’s like, Well, okay.
That’s not necessarily the right team that went into it.
We were looking at a lot of stuff from [H.R.]
Giger and the original work on that kind of stuff, and it shows.
This was done with all the right intentions.
The first question was, We know what we’ve seen.
We know what we want to see again.
We thought, Zero-G, which is normal in space.
We havent seen that.
So I was like, Here we go.
We wanted to avoid that, so we knew we were going to need a great stunt team.
As soon as the gravity leaves in the movie, the cameras are always rotating.
There’s no up and down anymore, and that really helped.
We did it through good wire work, avoiding CG doubles.
There might be a couple of shots there of CG.
I’m sure there were a few, but hopefully you didn’t notice.
The third part was, in a few of those scenes, there are two sets, usually.
One is horizontal, and one is vertical.
We had a moment with Eric that was like, That’s it.
Get rid of that in the budget.
We’ll do wind.
There’s always wind.
That was the last part of the massive puzzle that it was to do this zero gravity thing.
So then, of course, the floating elements on the CG sides were CG extensions.
Some of these sets were not complete, so we needed CGI extensions.
These guys did amazingly, so seemingly, we managed to hide all the all the tricks.
I just want to point out that a wind machine saved millions of dollars.
ALVAREZ: $2 million.
MACARIN: CG hair is not a joke, man.
ALVAREZ: Its a lot of work.
BARBA: It would have been a lot of grief.
This is a hugely successful film.
I’m sure you have your choice of what you want to do next.
What are you working on now?
But obviously, with the studio,we love the idea of making a sequelfor this.
So, most likely.
Its such a big universe.
Do you think a sequel is your next movie, or do you think it could be something else?
ALVAREZ: Yeah, I think the sequel is my next movie.
ALVAREZ: It’s a good question.
I hope I can shoot it this year.
If you guys are available.
[Laughs]
I like that.
Are you currently writing or its just ideas in your head?
ALVAREZ: Im writing it.
ALVAREZ: Theres one, and since Dan is here, they were such sports with this one.
This is going to get me in trouble, but okay.
Its a lifeboat; it has a beacon.
Yeah, you’ll find her, right?
It will be a place to figure out the research of what’s going on.
You should go get her.
So I’m sure they did, right?
So I was like, At some point, the Narcissus has to be inside the Renaissance station somewhere.
So I thought, Because they picked her up.
It’s amassivestation, right?
You get to see, like, probably 3% of the corridors that that station has.
When you see them, think about the scale.
I asked these guys, Can you give me a Narcissus there?
And they were like, We’re on it!
And they were all excited about it.
As the Corbelan is escaping, you could see the Narcissus with Ripley inside just flying out of there.
Don’t don’t worry about it.
And its that kind of thing of a love for the series of, like, Absolutely.
Its important and we want to put it in there.
BARBA: I think hed already done it, modeled it.
Secretly, he had it ready to go.
MACARIN: We had our collection.
Alien: Romulusis available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
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