Memories from people who worked on the classic Ridley Scott movie, Alien... Plus many other talented individuals and other projects, documented by a truly great British artist - Dennis Lowe.
His Video productions are highly informative, entertaining and recommended to anyone interested in learning more about classic film and TV production, though many reading this blog will be familiar with digital techniques, you may find many things from the pre-digital era still apply today.
One of Dennis' major contributions to the films effects was the fantastically eerie looking alien planet, as viewed from space... In the following passage from the Alien Makers website, Dennis describes the sneaky process used to create this creepy looking surface texture:
An example of texture for the planets: This came from a trick I learned at art college, a tray of white spirit and pour in some aluminium paint, light with a lamp either side and convection currents will start to produce globules in a cellular form as detailed as the lens will resolve. The paint or spirit can be coloured with powder pigment and with a little patience it's possible to roll off a lot of surfaces. These transparencies can then be projected onto a white painted sphere. I still have 30 trannies of the original surface textures but most of them weren't used. A Hasselblad was used to take these shots.
(try recreating this with procedurals;) - Coolhand)
