From: jdunning@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Alan Dunning)
Subject: Re: Alien 4 - NOT stop-motion animation!! (and it's a doggie)
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 13:53:07 GMT

In article <1992Dec11.141643.17109@cc.tut.fi> k113651@cc.tut.fi (Karhu Jouni) writes:
>
>From article <1992Dec11.022152.2303@Princeton.EDU>, by jdunning@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Alan Dunning):
>   In the movie the alien could not be seen too clearly in the scene
>you mentioned (in fact, in the movie the alien is not seen coming through
>the roof, it just appears behind the curtain...). 

That must be why the suit wasn't very detailed; you just see it in
silhouette through the curtain.

>When Ripley crawls 
>towards the corner and the alien approaches her, it looks VERY MUCH like
>computer animation, not puppet. Then, when the alien sniffs Ripley, a 
>life-size model of the head is clearly used.

I don't remember this scene very well.  Certainly a model head was
used in the Ripley-sniffing scene which was in all the trailers.  As
far as when the alien is approaching her goes, note that I'm not
saying they stuck a big life-size puppet in front of the camera along
with Sigourney (although I suppose that's possible).  What I
understood from the video was that they filmed a small, quarter-size
puppet separately, then combined it with the other footage.  

It's hard to completely hide the fact that this has been done, unless you
retouch every single frame (which is what they did in T2).  What
struck me about the brief shot of the alien in the trailer at the end
of the video was how *synthetic* it looked.  It clearly had been
spliced into the scene.  In contrast, you can tell that when the alien
picks up the doctor by his head, the alien is physically in front of
the camera along with the other actors.  So we're just disagreeing
on the source of the spliced-in footage: either computer or puppet animation.

>> director) wanted.  It was called "mo-motion" or something, and it
>> consisted of a computer-controlled camera which they could set up on
>> the soundstage and film the scene without the alien.  Then they would
>
>  Well, again, I saw a guy running along a corridor with a steadicam.

That was for the shots from the alien's point of view.

>   The programme was also made during the time they still had Giger's plans
>of the alien in use... plans that were altered later. Only in a couple of
>parts of the programme was a doggie-alien to be seen...

I don't think Giger ever worked with Fincher.  I think he was
originally going to work on Alien^3, but somewhere along the line he
got frustrated with all the shuffling around of directors and writers
and scripts and so he quit.  It looks like the interviews with Giger
were made back when Alien was being produced, because they show him
sculpting the giant alien pilot from the derelict ship in the first
film.  The puppets, on the other hand, all looked to be of the 
four-legged doggie type, so I think they were used in the movie.

>   And when it comes to computer animation... do you remember the shuttle
>scenes in the beginning? The capsule and the planet (in fact the whole scene)
>was made with a computer.
>   Do you know a TV-series called Babylon 5? Made with a computer. And you
>know what computer? Amiga. Not too expensive, even with the few extra graphic
>cards etc. needed... 

Still, there's a huge difference between modelling planets and
spaceships, which the computer can do very well now, and animating an
intricately shaped biological creature.

By the way, when/where is Babylon 5 on?

>    But keep those arguments coming... I, unlike some others in the net, can
>be 'converted' with solid proof. 

I don't really have any solid proof.  But in the absence of proof, I
think the simplest explanation is that puppets were filmed in slower
than real time and then sped up and spliced into the other camera
footage, especially given the fact that the puppets are shown in the
"making of" video, computers are not, and that Fox (I think it was Fox) was
being very tight-fisted about the cash and probably wanted the alien
effects done in the quickest, cheapest way possible.

Still, I'd like to see the movie again, and check out the credits to
see if anything is mentioned there.  Any idea when the video will be out?

John
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies