here are some more interviews that I have cobbled together into one peice. Hope you enjoy, there is another Fincher interview at the end.......
Richard Edlund (SFX Supervisor) on Alien 3
Q: What were your own personal views on Fincher?
Edlund: First of all, this movie was trial by fire, because David came in on the project when the original director Vincent Ward, who I thought was a really interesting guy, left the project. I really liked Vincent because we had already been involved in his Alien 3 and sold our company’s (Boss Effects) involvement to Vincent and 20th Century Fox. We were working with Vincent on designs and ideas when all of a sudden Vincent disappeared. Apparently he had some creative differences and so he left the project. We were really dismayed by this, because we had already been involved in Alien 3 for a couple of months.
Q: This must have caused a major disturbance, seeing Ward’s script was set in a Monastery?
Edlund: Right, and certain parts of the monastery stayed in the movie, but got shifted around a bit. Norman Reynolds (the Production Designer) had already built numerous sets for Vincent’s script and had to start all over again. So it was kind of pandemonium.
Q: How did this affect Fincher’s direction?
Edlund: David was basically in the position of having to shoot pages as they were coming in on the fax machine. The problem that David had, which I think was a tremendous one, was that he didn’t know what he would be shooting next. This is quite disquieting when you are directing a picture because there are lots of set-ups and pay-offs in a movie, and if you don’t know what’s going to be happening next, you don’t know how to set something up correctly. So it was an extremely difficult task for David and I really think he did a marvellous job under the circumstances. He is an extremely gifted visualist.
Q: Did you suffer the consequences of the film’s shaky beginnings?
Edlund: There was a lot of crisis management involved with the production. There were delays, new decisions and changed to the release date. The production started off with one director, one producer and one director of photography, and all three of those changed at various times. The opening sequence of the movie went through about three variations, so we did a lot of different designs.
Q: Was it an enjoyable experience working with Fincher?
Edlund: I very much enjoyed working with David, and we all had post-production blues when it was over. Even though we ended up reshooting the whole ending within a few weeks. It was still a shame when the production ended.
Q: That was my next question, what did happen to the ending?
Edlund: The original ending was not that much different to the new ending, other than that the chestburster was added and the background changed. The new background just happened to be some material that we had in stock, which was filmed by a fellow country man of yours, Peter Parks, and I just happened to have that material, which was lucky because I didn’t have time to shoot anything else. So the original background had Ripley falling into what was solely white, and had her just dissolving into it. It was very stylistic and a much more cinematic ending. It was really quite beautiful, but David Giler came in and told us what he thought of it and that he felt the movie should be book-ended by Ripley having a chestburster, and I think Weaver did a really good job in those shots. You kind of get this motherly attitude towards the alien that busts out of her chest.
Q: So Weaver came into your studio and got rigged up?
Edlund: Yes, there were several shots, I think there were four cut, of which three were done here in our studio and the other one was done over at Fox. So essentially, Norman Reynolds came over to rebuild the sets because they decided to pull the plug at a certain point over in London. It was a real crisis management production.
Q: There are a lot of rumours about the host of the original Alien, and that at first it was an Ox and then it was changed to a dog. How did that affect you?
Edlund: Well, this was a conceptual thing and David’s opinion of which version would work. There was also the problem of ‘where does the Alien come from?’ and ‘how did it get on the planet?’. Originally, the scene was written that there was a group of oxen towing the EEV on the shore of Fury 161, and a facehugger was going to impregnate one of the oxen. In the end however, David didn’t like the sequence we shot with the chestburster coming out of the Ox, and for a reason I’m not sure of, they changed the host to a rottweiler.
Q: It seems that opinion on Alien 3 is divided. What do you think of the movie?
Edlund: I like it myself, and think it’s more in the spirit of Blade Runner. To me its got more disturbing things to say. It’s not a rollercoaster ride that the second one was. I guess it more in line with the first one in certain ways, so personally I liked the movie very much and I also think it was extremely beautiful.
THE EEV CRASH, OXEN, SUPERFACEHUGGER, RIPLEY’S IMPEGNATION and THAT ENDING
The crash of the EEV and its subsequent retrieval onto shore by a group of oxen was the only sequence slated to be shot off the Pinewood lot. The crash in particular was designed as a composite, with a miniature EEV to be shot in post, backed by an ocean element filmed off the cost of England in the north sea. George Gibbs’ physical effects team were responsible for creating the explosions at sea that would simulate the impact of the craft hitting the water. “The director wanted enormous explosions,” said Gibbs, “Some were as big as eighteen hundred feet wide, with water towers that went one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty feet in the air. It was difficult because Fincher wanted a really rough looking sea and it was nearly impossible to work in those conditions. A plate crew from Boss filmed the explosions with a newly developed field recorder motion control system.
Because of it’s unusual, otherworldly look, a beach at Newcastle was chosen for they scene where the damaged EEV is pulled on shore by the oxen. “It was a terrific looking spot,” said Boss effects cosupervisor, Rich Fitcher. “There had been a colliery nearby and they had dropped all their slag onto the beach. So the sand was black and the water had a real brackish look to it.” A Full size EEV was constructed by the physical effects unit for the sequence. “The EEV was quite difficult to build,” explained Gibbs, “because Norman Reynolds got away from the aerodynamic in his design – the ship looked somewhat like a door hinge. On one end of it – where it had hit the sea on impact – it had to be crushed. We made that end out of aluminium and the rest of it out of steel because that was the easiest and most economical way to get the shape. When the set dressers were finished with it, it was unrecognisable anyway, because it was covered in seaweed and all sorts of other rubbish.” Miniature and matte painting work in postproduction enhanced the sequence. Boss also produced a number of miniatures, among them a set representing the huge gantries that dominated the Fury 161 station exterior that was eventually cut from the film when the oxen scene was dropped.
ADI began producing various representations of the alien’s lifecycle – among them the supper facehugger, an entirely new concept for the sequence in which a dead facehugger was to be found, thus explaining Ripley’s impregnation with the queen embryo. “We designed what we called the ‘Super facehugger’,” said Woodruff. “It was supposed to be a new strain of facehugger, presumably one which could implant the seed of a queen. It was much bigger than the regular facehugger, had translucent webbing between the fingers, and was heavily armoured with plates and spines. It was cast out of urethane and had an armature inside built to look like bones. It was articulated so you could put it in any position, but it was never meant to be seen alive.” Despite a considerable expenditure of effort, nothing of the super facehugger made the final edit.
The next phase of the Alien’s lifecycle was to be revealed bursting from the dead carcass of the mysterious deceased ox. “We came up with what we called the bambi-burster,” said Gillis. “It was kind of a lanky, four-legged chestburster built as an articulated cable puppet.” A nonarticulated ox carcass was also needed. With the ox equipped with ADI’s bambi-burster, they shot the scene, but not to Fincher’s satisfaction. “To really do it right would have coast a couple of thousand dollars,” Fincher admitted, “and we only had sixty thousand. It looked stupid. We put masonite filters on the lens and we still couldn’t shoot the thing so that it looked right. The ox stuff just never played.” Wanting to retain the idea of the alien gestating in an animal, Fincher decided to change the host from the ox to a dog. “I wanted something faster and more predatory than an ox. As a result, the final Alien is not as elegant a creature as it was before, but it’s more vicious. The change to a dog broke everyone’s heart – because it had already been done before in The Thing- but it helped when we got to the big chase sequences at the end, because it gave us exciting POVs and explained the ravenous attack mode this thing was in.”
With the ox scrapped, Gillis and Woodruff were faced with creating a mechanical Rottweiler for a scene of the dog kicking and thrashing as the alien burst from it’s chest. ADI completed the assignment promptly – but Fox officials declined to authorise the shoot. In fact, early test screenings of the film had no chest-bursting sequence at all. “We previewed it to audiences,” said Fincher “and people would ask, ‘Where did the alien come from?’ So I said to Fox, ‘Can I shoot the f***ing dog now?” With less than two months remaining before the release, the studio finally authorised a two-day shoot to fill in the narrative gap.
Ripley’s impregnation with the queen embryo was originally meant to be revealed during the montage sequence at the beginning of the film. ADI had built a puppet with showed the embryonic organism travelling through a face-hugger tubule into Ripley’s throat. The sequence, eventually cut from the film, was enhanced by Video Image.
As originally scripted, the alien’s death was to be followed by the violent birth of the infant queen from within Ripley. Clutching and tearing at the small beast, Ripley was to reposition the crane and allow herself to fall into the furnace – thus ending her own life and preventing the continuation of the alien species. Gillis and Woodruff prepared a chestburster that – unlike the ones used in the previous 2 films – would attach directly to Weavers chest without the need for a false torso, which would have been logistically prohibitive given the setting. “We had a whole effect built where Ripley’s rib cage was spreading and then the queen bursts out. The articulated rod puppet had moving arms and snapping jaws. But the director felt that it had been well established in the first 2 films that when a person had a chestburster come out, they die instantly. Ripley’s falling off the precipice would then be an involuntary thing instead of a heroic act.”
“The chestburster in the original movie was great,” Fincher elaborated, “because it had been grounded in reality. There was a loss of control there that was really frightening. And the victim was lying on a table, which gave them the ability to do the effect. But we had Ripley standing forty feet in the air with nothing but steam around her for one hundred seventy five feet. How were we going to put this thing on her so she didn’t look like Lou Costello? Sigourney’s a very statuesque woman; and to hang all this stuff on here, as well concealed as it was, just made her look porky all of a sudden. It was inelegant all round.” By way of compromise, Fincher shot a stigmata effect, with blood blossoming across Ripley’s shirt before she falls. But that too, was eventually cut. “Everyone felt it was too religious; and to be perfectly honest, I thought it was vulgar. If she gets ripped apart before she falls into the fire, that’s not sacrifice, that’s janitorial service. To knowingly step into the void carrying this thing within her seemed more regal.”
Gillis and Woodruff on Newt’s original autopsy.
Ripley’s rage with the beast becomes further inflamed when horrific research is performed on Newt. Gillis and Woodruff provided a gelatin double for Newt for the scene, complete with a close-up section for the scalpel incision. As Clements digs his hands around a layer of flexible ribs, Newt’s foam organs were rigged to pump fake blood. “That scene is part of David Fincher’s brutal world, and though the scene has been cut down with each repeated preview, he uses that autopsy to show audiences that Alien 3 isn’t going to be a fun experience.
Charles Dance on his cut scene.
Ironically, the work which Dance found most physically draining was for an eerie early sequence which has now been cut from the finished film. “The movie originally began with me walking along this strange, weird, desolate beach, with a lot of huge, derricklike constructions all around. We were going to shoot it in Newcastle, but Fox decided they couldn’t afford it, so in the end Norman Reynolds built this wonderful, great big beach on the backlot of Pinewood Studios. It was very cold and we had these huge wind machines, so I was breathing in dust all the time. And I was running along this ridge carrying Sigourney, having just rescued her from the crashed EEV. The scene was shot over a 2-day period and was very uncomfortable.” Despite the pains which Dance endured while shooting this sequence, it sadly fell victim to the re-editing that has plagued the production.
Fincher on HIS cut.
Forced decisions were the order of the day for Fincher and his crew. It seems ironic that the final extraordinary image of Ripley, swan diving backwards into the flames, as the queen foetus erupts from her chest – one of the most complex images that Sci-fi cinema has delivered in a long time, was far from Fincher’s original wishes.
“I didn’t want to have the alien come out. I still don’t like the idea of the alien emerging. Originally she falls backwards, standing on the gantry, with an explosion of blood on her chest and this thing pushes out. It’s more of a stigmata and she falls backwards into the furnace.”
“There was a whole section where they actually cut three minutes out of the end sequence when Bishop comes and presents his case. I always wanted it to play like she listens to him and she’s really tempted by it. Originally that scene played out much longer and there was a 40-second pause from the time Bishop said, ‘Please trust us’ until the time Ripley looks up at him and says ‘No’. It wasn’t as quick as it is in the theatrical version. I always liked that – the idea of her making a choice as opposed to having a choice made for her.”
“I never thought it was necessary to show the creature. We showed it to preview audiences and it was voted that we would do this. I was very much against this and dragged my feet and said ‘I don’t believe in it, I don’t think it is important to see the monster, but if we are going to do this then we’re going to have to do something that has a little bit of top spin to it, something else going for it.”
“ No matter what cathartic experience we could expect form finally seeing the two strongest images from the first movie, the chest burster and the character of Ripley, if we left the movie with her choking on her tongue then the audience would feel worse going out of the film than they do now.”
“I said ‘what ever happens, she has to be a peace at the end.’ It has to be a sigh rather than gritting teeth and sweat. So we talked about it and went over and shot this blue-screen element. I don’t know if it works.”
More probing on the subject of cuts brings forth a low moan from Fincher. Fincher’s original cut of Alien 3 ran at 2 hours 17 minutes, audiences now see a version some 22 minutes shorter. “We never showed the 2.17 version (publicly), we showed a 2.7 version.” Somewhere amidst the reels of offcuts lies Paul McGann’s (Golic) performance along with a major subplot. If Fincher gets his own way they will be restored to the laserdisc version of the film.
“Oh God, if you could only read the original script. It just makes me weep. It was difficult to meet McGann because I was such a big fan. What happened was that test screening audiences of 18-year old kids in Long Beach, California, decided that they weren’t interested in what happed to Golic. They weren’t interested in what he gave to the movie. People also wanted the movie to be shorter because you can play it more times a day. So a whole subplot was lost that to this day I feel is very important and certainly answers a lot of critics questions about my inability to tell a story.”
“The original idea was that Golic would believe that the creature was feeding on everybody else to leave himself and Ripley alive. That they were going to be sort of Adam & Eve. And then that idea basically got cast aside because it was considered to be too strange. But that was the initial idea – why is the alien killing everyone off? The one deluded point of view in the whole thing is that its weeding back all the human refuse to leave Golic and Ripley.”
When David was asked if during the opening montage the alien was originally going to be in Newt, he replied, “There was an idea that was originally banded about because they needed to frame the specialness of the Queen. The original montage on board the Sulaco was planned with a facehugger that was going to crawl out of Newts mouth. Id seen that effect in The Company of Wolves and it just always looks like a rubber casting of someone’s head with somebody else’s fist being forced through it. I just never thought it would work. The beginning of the movie was supposed to be a lot more elliptical than what it was, we had to make sense out of it and I wanted it to be more extreme in it dreamlikeness.”
“ I always wanted the film to be more graphically violent. A lot of stuff got cut because of the censors.”
edited to correct some poor spelling!
