Below The Line - Creature Design & Practical FX (Starship Troopers)

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who’s contributed to more of your nightmares than Alec Gillis. He’s behind creature designs for monsters from Predators to Xenomorphs, Graboids, to brain bugs and everything in between. Join Chris and Lizzie as they discuss his career, creatures, and his favorite James Cameron memory. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Chris Winterbauer?

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• 1:43Chris Winterbauer?

  Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of Below the Line with What Went Wrong, where we interview the incredible artists and storytellers that you don't often hear from, responsible for some of the most interesting movie magic to grace the screen. Today is no exception, as we are speaking with a veteran of the creature design and practical effects industry, and that is Alec Gillis. Alec Gillis came up under Stan Winston and Roger Corman. He co-founded the Oscar-winning creature FX studio Amalgamated Dynamics Incorporated, and he currently runs his solo studio, Studio Gillis. He has worked on or designed nearly every monster under the sun, our sun and alien

• 2:26Chris Winterbauer?

  suns alike, from graboids to werewolves to xenomorphs to predators and so, so much more. And I'm not even including some of the directors he's worked with. So without further ado, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Alec Gillis.

• 2:41Chris Winterbauer?

  And action. Alec, if you, if you can, please describe your job as if you're explaining it to a three-year-old, or as you know, working in the film industry to your parents, or somebody who does not work in the film industry. What do you do?

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Well, I am broadly, I could be called the character creator. And the tools that I use are more traditional tools. Animatronics, special makeup, specialty costumes, we do props as well. I have another company called Pro Macina that builds miniatures, miniature spaceships and things like that. So it's anything that has to do with, in my heart, a character, because a spaceship could be a character, that we create through more traditional practical effects means. So otherwise, I get go like, you know, I'm a monster guy.

• 3:41Chris Winterbauer?

  Right. There are a lot of monsters in your history that we need to talk about. Nearly all of them, I would say, or at least all the ones I grew up with. But let's go back before that. Why movies and why monsters, characters, practical effects within movies? Of all the dozens and dozens of jobs that you could have had in this business?

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Well, I did. I did run through some in my mind as a kid. I've wanted to be a monster maker since about age 12. And prior to that, it was things like President of the United States.

• 4:20Chris Winterbauer?

  Sure.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  Thanks God, I didn't go that way. I did play the President of the United States, by the way, in a Neil Blom

• 4:27Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, nice. Wow.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  So called Bad President. So that was, I did achieve that goal, actually.

• 4:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Congratulations.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  But, you know, you know, childhood things that just sounded like, cool astronaut, whatever. But I also wanted to be a comic book artist for a little while. And I was, you know, when I was nine or 10, I was drawing all summer to try to, you know, be as good as Russ Heath and, you know, Joe Kubert and guys like that. But then, when I think I landed on monsters was the summer that I was, you know, looking at a bunch of magazines on the rack. And I saw a magazine called Castle of Frankenstein. And on the cover was Thalos from Jason and the Argonauts. So this would have been, you know, it was not a new movie

• 5:15Speaker 02

  at that time. But I thought, Oh, I love that, that monster. And I started flipping through it. And then I saw the Cyclops from Sin Dad. I saw, you know, the first men in the moon, the Silonites. I just saw the Eamer. I saw all these, like, creatures, the Hydra from Jason and the Argonauts, that were like, I thought were just spectacular designs. And then I realized it was an interview with one person, one artist who had created these things. And that's when it clicked in my mind, that this is a job, this looks like a lifetime of creativity. Ray Harryhausen, of course, is the, is the, is the guy. So that's who I wanted to be was Ray Harryhausen.

• 5:59Chris Winterbauer?

  Where did you grow up, Alec?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  I grew up in California, in, in, in Orange County. I could see the Disneyland fireworks from my bedroom window. And so I spent a lot of time at Disneyland, which was also formative for me because I, I, I really fell in love with the animatronics by, you know, hanging out in the park. Back when my mom would drop my brother and I off when the park opened at like 11, and then she'd pick us up when it closed at 11.

• 6:31Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, my God. That's the dream.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  We'd, we'd, we'd, we'd run out of tickets. There were ticket books back then. So we'd run out of tickets within 90 minutes. Cause there were no lines that I could really remember. I could, you could just like run through Pirates of the Caribbean and just get back on it again.

• 6:50Lizzie Bassett?

  That's amazing.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  But the tickets would be gone in 90 minutes. And then it was just all eating, like, you know, what can you buy? You know, giant dill pickles. You walk around.

• 7:00Lizzie Bassett?

  Anyway. So am I right in thinking that you came up in both Roger Corman's studio and Stan Winston's?

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. The order of events were, you know, I, when I was in high school, I was making stop motion movies and, you know, I took over my mom's garage and, you know, I was learning about foam latex, you know, it's all the self taught stuff. Cause there was no YouTube tutorial back then. And so that segued into, I went to two years at community college with the, I, I had the idea that I wanted to go to film school and I got turned down by the School of Cinema at USC. And then I was like, well, now what do I do? I guess I'll go to, you

• 7:50Speaker 02

  know, the local community college. So I went, I went to two years there and during that time. A uh high school art teacher that um that of my what that my wife, I wasn't married in high school, but let me back up. My girlfriend, you know, when we were in high school a couple of years, uh this uh high school art teacher that that I knew said, hey, my husband teaches oceanography at Cal State Fullerton, and there's this guy who is making movies and he kind of does what you do and you should connect with him. And I got a phone number and it was Jim Cameron.

• 8:26Lizzie Bassett?

  Wow.

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Who who li- who lived in uh Brea, I think. This was during his uh work, his very important work delivering school books for the uh school district there. But but you know, I I met him and I I like went out to Pomona to see a a movie that he had worked on, a short film called Xenogenesis, which you could find online. I think a really terrible copy, maybe you can find online somewhere. Um, and this movie was shot i- i- in thirty five millimeter. And I went back to his place afterwards and saw the models he had built. There were these giant stop motion models. He had taken a sixteen millimeter camera and stripped it down and turned it into a projector and put it inside a stop motion

• 9:12Speaker 02

  model for the woman in the cockpit. A- and I was like, holy crap. Granted, he he's six years older than me, so I I I'm like, okay, but what a great uh role model and example of sort of like, uh, he was on fire. Um, and that was that era between Star Wars and meeting Cameron and that kind of shifted my focus, expanded my focus away from the pure fantasy filmmaking of Ray Harryhausen to the broader sci fi world. And then I got an interview with Roger Corman's folks uh for Battle Beyond the Stars. So that would have been in nineteen seventy nine. And um if

• 9:55Speaker 02

  you'll if you'll hold on one moment, this is my um, sorry, oh, let me put this back on. You see, I'm a master of technology. Uh, this is my first paycheck.

• 10:08Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, wow.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Uh, from, from Roger Corman's for Battle Beyond the Stars. And I, I, so I framed it, of course. But anyway, that was Battle Beyond the Stars. And that led to a couple of other Corman films that I worked on Galaxy of Terror, Android, um, you know, some other things.

• 10:25Lizzie Bassett?

  What was that like? Cause he's come up so much across so many episodes and seems to be a place where people really learn a lot. Was it just, was it like very shoestring? What was that environment like under him?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  It was extremely exciting, but you know, being that it was my first professional experience, you know, I went from my mom's garage and shooting super eight movies with my friends and to working in a professional environment. But we were always aware that we were not top of the line and that this was, uh, there, there were limited, um, limited resources. But what was great about it was the opportunity that was there, the collection of people that were there. I mean, you know, Gail Anne Hurd was there at the time, the Scotac brothers who went on to win multiple awards for Cameron's movies, Aliens and The Abyss and stuff. They were miniature geniuses. And, uh, Bill Paxton was a carpenter there.

• 11:23Lizzie Bassett?

  I didn't know that.

• 11:24Chris Winterbauer?

  I remember reading that. There's so many people getting work in that studio.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. I met Rob Botin there. My very first time I met him, he kind of harshly yelled at me and told me to get away from his monsters. I'd never seen a, a full monster before. They were the humanoids from the deep. And they were shooting like they had a pup tent set up. So I think there was a, you know, it was probably Corman probably said, we need more sex. So they, so in the offices, they had a pup tent and Rob had his stuff set up. And I was like, you know, just drooling over all this. And I hear this voice, you know, you're not supposed to be in here. Go on, get out of here. And he was like a Sasquatch with the hair and I'm like, uh, and then I discovered we were the same age. And then that's where depression sinks in because you're like, this guy, when he did the thing,

• 12:13Speaker 02

  you know, at like age 22. And I'm like, is this what you have to do to fucking get your name noticed? So anyway, it was the people were there were just spectacular and it was great.

• 12:24Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, let's talk about that a little bit, like Botin kind of famously nearly killed himself on the thing. And like in those early days, it's kind of the wild, I'm guessing it's the Wild West with Corman a little bit. And, you know, what are, what makes a disastrous or difficult production in that early part of your career?

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Well, I think, you know, I, I built up to responsibility in my career, you know? Like, I think I was about 22 or 23 when I did the miniature shark for Jaws 3D. The famous one where it breaks the glass in a chilling, a chilling and most effective moment. And, and I cannot imagine being that same age and being in charge of the effects on the thing. Holy crap. So, so, you know, I know, I, I believe that from what I've heard, he did, he did have a rough time with that. And who wouldn't, man? Earlier on in my career, the things that had me most distressed were if someone entrusted me with an opportunity

• 13:28Speaker 02

  and I took it and I could not deliver that I was in over my head. Cause you know, that's what me and Cameron would, would do this. I learned this from Jim. You know, when we were at Corbin's, you know, cause we started off as model builders.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  And, and, and I was sort of, you know, Jim's assistant on that. Cause he was, you know, he was levels ahead of me in terms of self-confidence and experience and all that stuff. And so I would sort of like help fill in some gaps that he'd mold making, whatever that he didn't have. And then he would move up the rung of the ladder and then I would finish up that. And then I would join him on the next rung, you know? So it was a lot of fun. It was, it was like the best. I dropped out of film school because, uh, Corman's was. Unparalleled. There's no way. I was doing, working with motion control systems and loading thirty five millimeter bi-pack cameras and, you know, building miniatures and, you know, and this, this, there was nothing like that.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Why would I pay money to sit in and listen to failed filmmakers teach, you know, screenwriting classes, you know? What exactly did you do, professor, before you started screenwriting? Well, I was an assistant cameraman. Oh, so now you teach screenwriting. I get you. So, anyway, but, but that's, but I, and there were a few times where I, I kind of dropped the ball and I felt like shit about it and I just thought, my career's over. Because, you know, you're very dramatic when you're young. And, but there were very supportive people. Chuck Kaminsky, who ran the VFX department there and the Scotek brothers, they were very supportive and, you know,

• 15:15Speaker 02

  they, they saw that, well, if you're trying, you're really trying and let's figure out how to fix it, rather than, you know, abuse you and kick you to the curb. I'm very grateful for that.

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• 16:37Lizzie Bassett?

  You mentioned feeling like the worst thing that could happen is that you couldn't deliver on something. And I very much relate to that. I'm curious about the first movie that you did with your company, ADI, which of course is one of my all time favorite movies, Tremors. What was the experience of kind of going out on your own for that project? What was that project like? I would love to hear more about Tremors.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  Well, Tom Woodruff and I formed ADI after we left Stan Winston's. I was with Stan for about two and a half years. And two and a half years with Stan Winston was like 10 years.

• 17:17Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  You know, anywhere else because we were just doing, you know, the original Predator, Aliens, Monster Squad, Alien Nation, Amazing Stories, Leviathan, Pumpkinhead. You know, it was just hand over fist, great opportunities. And Stan was great about giving us responsibility. So Stan didn't really teach you technique. He put you in the deep end. And that was the best possible. And he gave you support. Maybe he gave you floaties. But that gave Tom and I enough know how to know that we could run a department. You know, we weren't, we didn't know business. We didn't know anything about payroll, really. So there was a lot

• 17:59Speaker 02

  of business stuff that we had to fill in. But we left Stan's because we had written a script that Gail and Heard's readers really liked. And it was an anthology horror comedy thing. And we thought, we'll go get this movie and then bring it back to Stan. And, you know, Stan will direct one, and I'll direct one, and Tom will direct one. And I think Stan couldn't wrap his head around that that might actually happen. And in retrospect, it didn't. So I guess Stan was right. So he said, you know, well, basically, like, you got to make a choice because I need you as monster makers. But you got to make a choice. And I thought, well, I'm not, I didn't really get in the business to be,

• 18:43Speaker 02

  you know, shackled to somebody, despite my love of Stan, and he is a mentor of mine. So I left. And then shortly, Tom followed me and then we shackled to each other.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  So we used to joke that the company was formed on failure because the script never got made. It was a valuable learning experience, but we were out of work for, for quite a while after we left stands. You know, that was like, ooh, do we go crawling back or do we? And we just sort of like, you know, hung on. I think we did some Laurel Entertainment had this TV show Monsters. We did a couple of episodes of that. And then Gail Heard contacted us and said, I've got this script. I think you guys would be perfect for it. You're going to get a call. And then Steve Wilson, Brett Manick and Ron Underwood, the two writers and the director,

• 19:37Speaker 02

  reached out to us and it was a little while before the movie came together, but we knew we could, we could do it. There was no question in our, in our minds that we could pull this off. And we were just like, chomping at the bit for an opportunity like that. And we were going to repeat the success of Aliens, right? In terms of the methodology, we said, we'll build big worms as we built a big queen alien for Alien. But you got to have a miniature version of, of the worms as well to do the really crazy, cool stuff that's going to put it over the top. And Gail's like, well, yeah, of course, because she was the producer on Aliens, you know? And then we brought the SCOTACs in to do the, the miniature photography.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  We built miniature puppets. And so that's how that all kind of came together.

• 20:27Chris Winterbauer?

  How much was the graboid described on the page versus what you and Tom put together?

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Not much, not much. I need to get a framed copy of my sketch that kind of was the one that we jumped off from. But they, they described it as being a.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  A worm and that its head opened up like a grotesque flower.

• 20:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Nailed it.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  And that was really all it was. So then we started talking like, well, you know, the only, the closest comparison is Dune, the De Laurentiis David Lynch Dune. And we looked at that because like, you know, this, we're going to be compared to that. And God forbid, they should feel like we're just ripping it off. So our thought was instead of going earthworm, which is more what the, what the David Lynch, um, sandworms were like, we would go more kind of what I was calling a terra dynamic, right? We'd have a sharp, bony head that was very, you know, aggressive. It could just punch through, push things away, scoop it aside, you know?

• 21:33Speaker 02

  And then a, a body that was more kind of, uh, leathery and reptilian. Um, and then they have in the film, they have those three different explanations when the character is going, it's from outer space. It's nuclear radiation, whatever. So prehistoric. So we had to make it look like it could be any one of those things, which was a blast. It was a great, really a highlight.

• 21:57Lizzie Bassett?

  Were there any problems from the set or from making that movie? Any what went wrong moments from Tremors?

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the thing about, about what goes wrong is that if you don't run away from it, but you, you know, run into the burning building, you tend to find solutions, sometimes better solutions than what you think, you know? When we worked with Ridley Scott, I had a million questions for him about the original Alien and he said that the, the suit could not move as much as he expected. It was very stiff and restrictive and he had to change the way he shot the creature, which is what led to the piercing mouth. Like instead of just like tearing you apart and throwing you around, it had to pin you down and go, right?

• 22:46Speaker 02

  And he said, thank God for those limitations. It made the film better. So I'm a believer in that kind of stuff. Like, like I don't. I like to solve problems. And the worms on Tremor basically work as we hoped that they would. But we did have some times on set where we hadn't really worked out. This is kind of typical of the practical effects work. You're given, you know, you ask for five months to build things and you're given three months. And then so when you're on set and you're out there in the sun and you're like, how do we get the tentacles to like, come out of the mouth and you're like shit.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Cause now you have these heavy tentacle mechanisms that you got like guys with big giant levers that are making them squirm. You can't really push them in a bundle because the whole inner mouth, rubber inner mouth then goes boop and prolapses. And which if we'd have thought of that, that could have been a pretty cool thing to work into it. But it was an undesirable serendipity for us. So we were going back and forth, you know, trying to like yank it out with cables. You could see the cables. It just didn't look good. And then we're like, wait a minute, what are we doing? We got to do this in reverse photography. So that's, and that was like, you know, we learned this on aliens, you know, the value of reverse photography.

• 24:10Speaker 02

  So when the worm opens his mouth and those tentacles come out and they come right to the camera. That's because we could position them at the end of the shot, right to the camera. And then we just start undulating them and then we count down and pull them in and snap everything shut. And it's a beautiful comedy, you know, like you have the miniature worm comes up out of the ground and hits the ground and then you punch in for the close up.

• 24:36Lizzie Bassett?

  It looks so good.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Beautiful. We also, for some reason, Tom and I were like, you know what? The whole bit with this movie is it's like, it's outdoors, it's naturalistic. It's not a scary alien movie and drippy corridors with lots of slime and all that.

• 24:53Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, it's very bright.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Let's not use any slime. So we were leaving the mouth as if it's kind of like, like if you've ever seen inside of a parrot's mouth or an alligator's mouth, they're not like wedding slimy, right? And so we did that. We had a shot where it its mouth opened and there was no slime. And the studio the next day, they came back and said, okay, there's something wrong with the mouth. And this is typical, you know, studio execs don't necessarily talk and, you know, they don't talk about viscosity of, you know, and clear transit. They don't, they say it looks like it was painted with nail polish.

• 25:29Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, no.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  And we're like slime, slime. From this point, from this point forth, we're just gonna, so we got the buckets of Ultra Slime, which is the brand name of the super sticky, stringy stuff. And by the time we did the, when the worm is dead and they, you know, and they pry the concrete in the gully.

• 25:48Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  It's just buckets, buckets and buckets. And we, in the, at the premiere, uh, the audience went through the roof on that. It was just applause and we turned to each other and said, slime from now on.

• 26:04Lizzie Bassett?

  That's great. So, you know, you talked about when you're making the worms that you were sort of working with, they had to look like one of three different things. So you're creating a creature, but you also have worked on films like Jumanji where you're making a lion. It's something that exists in real life. What are the different challenges involved with that versus creating something out of your own imagination? And what do you prefer?

• 26:28Speaker 02

  I like to jump back and forth between the challenges. Like it's nice to do like a little subtle character makeup. And that's a nice break from a, you know, 20 foot tall queen alien. But in general, it is more difficult to create a realistic, you know, a lion. We've all seen a lion. We know what lions look like. So you, you have, on the one hand, your design is kind of baked in. It's not like, what's this thing gonna look like? Well, it's gonna look like a lion. So it's a good starting point. But on the other hand, you have less leeway to, for wiggle room. In the case of Jumanji, though, um, our take on it was that because this is a game,

• 27:12Speaker 02

  it's, it comes almost from a child's imagination.

• 27:14Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  The game is like reading, you know, it's, it's age appropriate. So we stylized everything that we could. We, you know, the. The crocodile that Robin Williams is on, we modeled that after the proportions of the crocodile from Peter Pan from the Disney movie.

• 27:32Chris Winterbauer?

  Cool.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Great big jowls and slender nose, all that kind of stuff, but with realistic textures. We didn't want them to have like a Henson-y style to them. We wanted them to just be, you know, ultra-real, but, um, but a little distorted, a little stylized. So I, I'm always seeking to punch things up with style. I also think that in movies, uh, you tend to like, uh, lose about, I don't know what, 30 or 40% of your oomph if you don't punch things up a bit, you know? And sometimes you, you don't want to do that because it's dead real. Like a David Fincher movie, you're probably not really going to get away with like, you know, making something look spectacular or, you know, he, he's gonna, he's gonna say,

• 28:17Speaker 02

  "Look at this picture of an actual dead person. That's what I want."

• 28:21Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  Which is, which is good. That's what, that's his stuff.

• 28:25Chris Winterbauer?

  Speaking of animals and things that we've seen before a lot, the, the Alien franchise, obviously you've got experience with Predator, Monster Squad, Alien, and then Alien 3, we have the famous or infamous, depending on how you want to phrase it, Whip It costume approach to that character. Can you talk to us about what it was like kind of coming up with a new spin on, and then you did Alien Resurrection 2, I believe, right? Um, which had all of the different variations of Ripley's clone, right? With the, the alien DNA. What's get like that, like getting to play, it's like, I know what an alien looks like. Everybody knows what an alien looks like, but I'm getting to do my version or Fincher's

• 29:10Chris Winterbauer?

  version of, you know what I mean, of what the alien would be?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  I believe my, uh, people said we were not going to talk about the Whip It.

• 29:18Chris Winterbauer?

  Okay.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  No, I'm kidding. I love, I love talking about the Whip It. The poor, the poor little Whip It. Um, the, the, there's a lot of pressure in working within beloved franchises, right? Uh, because you have to, you have to give the fans what they want, but somehow you gotta freshen it up. You gotta make it somehow different. Otherwise you may as well rent the old movie. Um, and, and, and it's a funny, it's like, where is that line? You know, this is, I've been involved with the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise. I think, this is a bold claim, but I think it's correct. I think I have worked on more Alien movies and Predator

• 29:59Speaker 02

  movies than any other person. I think.

• 30:04Chris Winterbauer?

  I looked at your IMDB and it's, yeah, I would guess so.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  I, I, I feel like between the two franchises, I have worked on 11 Wow. of those movies. Um, and that's, maybe that's double counting the Alien versus Predator movies.

• 30:19Chris Winterbauer?

  That's fine. You're allowed to double.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Count twice.

• 30:21Chris Winterbauer?

  You had to do both the characters in those. Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, my, my introduction to the, to the, the pressure was when, um, when we did Aliens, when I was working for Stan Winston and, you know, Jim came to us and said, you know, guess what? Guess what we're working on? And we were all like, because Alien is like the massive artistic accomplishment in sci-fi horror, you know, and it's, and the weird thing was five years prior to Jim directing that, uh, I watched it in a movie theater in a mall, the Brea Mall with Jim. So like in five years, I went from that to

• 31:04Speaker 02

  directing the sequel to Sir Ridley Scott's. It was amazing. Yeah. But what was great was, you know, we would say, I remember with Shane Mayhan, Shane and I were like, so Jim, uh, wow, are you nervous about this? He's like, nah. And we're like, really? Are you, are you going to bring in, um, H R Giger to design stuff? He goes, nah. He says, I'm, I'm going to do it myself. And if, if we hadn't, you know, known him, seen what he could do with the Terminator and with, you know, I guess by that point he had written a Rambo sequel and stuff, you know, he was, he was pretty much there, young, up and coming, but pretty much there. And we were like, okay, he's got confidence. So, so that's a

• 31:46Speaker 02

  great sign. So we'll just throw ourselves into it. And we did have to kind of change things up a bit. And the Queen Alien obviously is a massive. Departure from from the warriors, but the movie was great and people loved it. If the movie is great, you tend not to get the pushback. It was also pre social media. So there was really like, you know, nobody was talking about what we were doing before we did. It was just unleashed onto the world and you just sit back and and wait. And our our English friends who were on the aliens crew and, you know, on the alien three crew. I mean, the vibe in England was they were a little bit, you know, not so thrilled about aliens.

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Because it's it's a very American sort of gung ho war movie. You know, that's it, you know, and and an alien is so dark and dour and creepy. And it has a high art quotient because of Ridley Scott, you know, and H R Giger, obviously.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  And it was the original, so the English didn't seem to love aliens as much as we did, but it's grown and morphed over time. Then Alien Three, because that was a retraction away from the big. Now you have like aliens, aliens kind of conceptually skipped over a couple of

• 33:11Speaker 02

  possible sequels, right? Like, and it just was like balls out, you know, an army of aliens and a power loader and Marines and all that shit. So so where do you go from there? They didn't really know where to go. So they kind of retracted back to one creature and no guns. And that had been the American side was like, well, you know, and the English were like, boo. They loved the they loved the the darkness and the and the the decay and and the cynicism and and all that kind of stuff. And that was where I see that was like the the beginning of social media. I don't know whether it come out in ninety one or ninety two. We're working on it in ninety ninety one.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  And by the time it it came out, I had never seen such vitriol aimed at me. Wow. You know, and Tom and and we were like, what the? Hell is this like people would like bring in printed out copies of chat room stuff because I wasn't online, you know, and I'm reading it going, what the fuck these guys are making really personal attacks Oh no. on us. And there was an interview with H R Giger and it was sort of like because of the aliens production, Alien three's production problems, right? It went over budget and it got shut down for a little while and all this stuff and Fincher was getting a lot of blame from the fans, which was completely misplaced.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  But Giger, who I had only had a few interactions with H R Giger on the production of Alien three phone calls because he was, he didn't want to leave Zurich. Fincher would bring us what he had done, which was faxed, you know, curled up Dead Sea Scrolls images of what Giger had drawn. And, you know, there's a lot of Bambi Burster, which led to the whippet and you know, and the, and the, the super face hugger, the, or the queen face hugger. There's a lot of great stuff, but it wasn't hitting all the notes for David Fincher. So he said, I need you guys to fill in the gaps. We're like, okay, that's what we do, you know? So, so

• 35:17Speaker 02

  in this article, you know, you, we would give a quote like, yeah, we, we designed the alien effects and we made sure that in the credits, when we were submitting our credits for the film, we made sure that we didn't want to step on Giger's toes because he's a genius. I mean, the guy's like, unlike any other film artist ever, and he's influenced, right? We know that. And we said, listen, it's, he designed the original characters and it is his body of work that has led to anything we're doing. So give us alien effects designed by, and, and he can have whatever credit you guys are negotiating with, just we don't want to step on the toes.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  But that somehow still got still got warped into us taking credit from him. And I think he felt that way, too. He was he was upset about the Oscar nominations because the Oscars say in visual effects say it's the four individual names of people who most influenced the effects of the film. And his assumption was because he got that on the first film where he was actually the department head and sculpting and he was called he was art directing everything. He just assumed that's how it was going to be.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  And it could have been that way if he had come from Zurich and worked with us, we would have happily worked under him. But it wasn't that way. So I think he had some, which was a drag because I, you know, he's somebody that I really I still respect him. He had the right to feel however he wanted to feel. And I know that he had some studio dealings that I'm not privy to. I'm just more aware about about that kind of hatchet job article that kind of painted us as villains, as upstarts who, you know, whose arrogance, you know, was attacking the HR Geiger that and it just wasn't the case.

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• 38:33Chris Winterbauer?

  Speaking of integrating with other versions, but in a slightly different way, and this is obviously true of Jumanji, but so I just rewatched Starship Troopers again last night. I watch Starship Troopers every five years and I say, and every time I watch it, I say, this moment in time is when the synergy between practical effects and visual effects, CGI, was at its, in my opinion, like it's, it's highest creatively. And every time there's a shot that's close, we get a practical insert, you know what I mean? Or an effect. And every time we're wide, we use the mastery of CGI and it's so smartly done. And I'm curious, what was that process like?

• 39:13Chris Winterbauer?

  Build, I mean, these bugs are enormous. They look fantastic. The practical effects look fantastic. The CGI also looks fantastic. How do you create something that has textures that then the CGI team can realistically follow through on? Like, what's that working relationship like?

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Well, in, in this case, which I think is not the case of Jurassic Park, which is the other pinnacle of the combo.

• 39:39Chris Winterbauer?

  I agree.

• 39:40Speaker 02

  In Jurassic Park, Stan Winston led the dinosaur design. So he was deciding on textures, et cetera. And, um, you know, Phil Tippett was involved with both Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers. So I believe Phil could correct me, but, but I believe that, um, the way this shook down was that Phil, who was in charge of the, of the whole effects approach, said in order to do something of this scale. On a doable budget, we have to let the CGI lead in the decisions of design, textures,

• 40:20Speaker 02

  colors, all that stuff, so that it's affordable. Because he knew how hard it can be to chase. I mean, he told me like, yeah, the digital stuff is amazing. It gets you 80% of the way there and you get feeling like really good about it. But the remaining 20% is exponentially more difficult to get to than that 80% was. And that's where it lives or dies. So Phil and Craig Hayes, who was his designer, they were the ones that designed the creatures. The warrior bugs, the brain bug. We did the autopsy beetles.

• 40:57Chris Winterbauer?

  Those were so good. And when Denise Richards vomits and it's actually real vomit, that's great.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  In the, right in the bug.

• 41:06Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  The, the, and there was no, there was no digital counterpart to those autopsy bugs. So they were like, you guys can do that. I'm like, yeah, cool.

• 41:17Chris Winterbauer?

  Lots of slime. Lots of slime.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  You know it, brother. We learned that lesson.

• 41:22Chris Winterbauer?

  Great slime.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  We learned that lesson. We also did like, we really wanted, because Verhoeven is a force of nature, right? And like,

• 41:29Chris Winterbauer?

  He's a nut.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  He's, he is so, yeah, he's so passionate and, and so energetic. I remember when we were walking around, hiking around in the desert, I don't know how old he was. He was, I feel like he was in his, he's at least 55, if not older. And he's out like, he's out like a half a mile ahead of everyone, you know? And it's, and it's like, people are like trying to carry their books and stuff and, and catch up to him. And we're like, this guy's going to exhaust everybody. And then at one point, I remember we were doing a location scout in Wyoming, I think it was. And we were like, all talking like, how do we even get giant bugs to this location? And we're talking, and we're like, where's Paul? Paul's, Paul's gone. We look up, he's on the top of a bluff. I don't know how he

• 42:14Speaker 02

  got up there. It was like, suddenly he was up there. He was like that big on the top of a bluff. And he's shouting down at us because he sees a road that could, we're like, oh, fuck, he's ahead of us and above us. He's everywhere. Anyway, you don't want to disappoint.

• 42:29Lizzie Bassett?

  I was gonna say, was there any particularly, like, what was your favorite thing that he said or did over the course of that film?

• 42:36Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Okay. Well, it's a personal interaction. This is where I just like, I love this guy because he is a, like I said, he's a force of nature. And I've worked with a lot of, really, you know, it's, it's movies. You have to have, as Ridley Scott said, you have to have an inordinate amount of energy to direct a film. And that energy can go out in all directions, you know, at once at times. And, and if you know that about the filmmaker, if you accept, they just want the very best thing for this movie. That's a good thing for you, too, you know? And, and I can remember thinking with Paul, like, you know, he can

• 43:15Speaker 02

  be so, so in your face, literally in your face. He is like the, the T-Rex, like he's searching for, for fear, you know, in your eyes. So there was one story, if I may, you guys can edit all this to.

• 43:32Chris Winterbauer?

  No, please.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  However much snippets, but there was one story where we had the brain bug, right? We built the front half of the brain bug for the, for the scene, you know, it's afraid, that whole thing.

• 43:43Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah, with the smoothie proboscis at the front, which I love so much.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Yes. So we had to like, drive that thing down in a big grade all, which is like this massive industrial forklift, right? So the brain bug is on it, you know, and it takes a long time to traverse these. And there had been rains, as there always is down in Hell's Half Acre in Wyoming. So there was mud and all. And the, the idea was, okay, on, you know, on Monday, you guys are gonna move the brain bug into position. And you're gonna rehearse. And then we're gonna shoot it on Tuesday. It took us all frickin' day just to get the thing there. And we didn't have our stuff set up. And, and I said, I

• 44:30Speaker 02

  gotta call this. I gotta let the ADs know that we are behind schedule and it's, you know, this, this is what happens. And I said, we are not going to be rehearsed tomorrow. We won't, we would like to take tomorrow to rehearse if you can move the schedule around. And then we were like, you know, setting up and. Paul comes down with a contingent, you know, of worried sweaty producers. And, um, and, uh, he comes, he, he comes right up to me like inches, you know, half an inch from my nose. And he says, he says, um, are you telling me that you are not prepared to shoot this bug tomorrow?

• 45:13Speaker 02

  And I said, we can shoot tomorrow. And he says, I understand that that is not the case. Well, we won't be rehearsed. Then you cannot shoot. And he, you know, his eyes are looking, you cannot shoot. And I said, I have confidence that my team will give you a performance that will be really great. And he's looking at me like kind of confused because I had to set the tone. I can't just say, no, we ain't ready, dude. And then I said, if you can reschedule anything to give us time. Why don't you have, why aren't you on schedule? Well, it took us all the, you know, I explained it and, and he, and he's looking at me and I said, uh, we would really love that to, to, you know, to, but it's up to you. We can shoot or not shoot.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  And he looks at me and he, and he realizes that there's no, there's no victim here. He's not, he's not, you know, I, and he, and he spins on his heels to the producers that I thought were all ganging up on me. And he says, shame on you for not giving him enough time to rehearse. And I'm like, wow. So he really.

• 46:17Chris Winterbauer?

  That's great.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  He's not out looking for blood.

• 46:19Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Well, he kinda is, but he, he just wants to make sure that it's as excellent as possible, right? We're going to a lot of trouble. And, and then he walks over and stands like 50 feet and leans against the boulder with his back to everybody. Looking like, you know, I wish I had a picture of that. And then he comes back cheerful and he says, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to, you know, and shoot this scene tomorrow, you know, instead of, you guys, you guys good with that? Yeah, good. And we all leave. And one of the producers who, who I also love comes up to me and he's just like exhausted because he deals with this all the time. And he says, why didn't you just lie?

• 46:55Lizzie Bassett?

  Oh, no, buddy.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  And I said, because I'm not a producer.

• 47:01Chris Winterbauer?

  Before we jump off of Starship Troopers, can you help our audience understand not just the scale of the bugs? But oh my God, there is so much gore makeup in this, like just the sweeping shots of dismembered mobile infantry men, you know what I mean amidst all of the bugs and stuff? And I have a question, was any of that? Miniature or was that all full size?

• 47:25Speaker 02

  It was all full size.

• 47:27Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  We did, our build list was the, the front half of the brain bug.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Two fully mechanical, you know, hydraulic and electric warrior bugs that could lift people up off the ground and the cranes that supported them.

• 47:49Speaker 02

  And then I think it was 13, 13 dead bugs. I'm looking around for pictures to see if I have anything. 13 of the dead bugs that we could kind of recombine into different poses and stuff. And then the gore was done by Kevin Jaeger, my old buddy. From way back when, from, I met him on Friday, the 13th part four. He does amazing work and he was, he like the guy getting shot in the head, you know, and, and, and the, the half body of Michael Ironside, you know, being pulled out as well as just like a, a ton of dead soldiers everywhere.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  And it was really grueling because, you know, my team was out there carrying like giant bug parts out and you set them up and then you shoot a, you shoot a plate and they, you know, lay some human beings around too. Shoot a plate locked off camera and they go, okay, next position. They have to disassemble the bug and set it, they got 13 bugs, but everybody's moving these bugs around so that they could do comps and make it look like, but it's all full scale.

• 48:57Chris Winterbauer?

  Wow, crazy.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  There may be some digital painting in there too, but yeah, it was, it was just a massive, massive undertaking.

• 49:05Chris Winterbauer?

  Did you have any issues with the hydraulic warrior bugs on set?

• 49:08Speaker 02

  No, the only issue was, um, there was a, because of the design of them, they have like this central, you know, torso sphere and everything goes up through that. So everything, the whole bug swivels around this one point of movement, which we made as beefy and as, and as structural as we could, given the size of it. Phil Tippett was great because we said, oh, you know, your design actually has a slimmer waist and we would like to bump it up for safety reasons. He said, yeah, do whatever you want. Because Phil, one of the great things about Phil is that he knows that intercutting between practical and digital, you can get away with a lot, you know,

• 49:53Speaker 02

  in terms of proportions. Because when you have a real thing and you're up under it and you've got a wide angle lens, it's got different distortions, you're never going to notice the sizes. So we bumped it up, but it still held everything. And there was one night where we had a guy in it that we were thrashing around for hours. And I said, I said to Paul, you know, the, if we keep doing this full, because everything with Paul is like 11, you know, max it out. And it wasn't like, we weren't really like building up to it because he's like, why are we wasting our time? I'm not going to use anything that's, you know, like that. I want, you know, and I said, okay, just be aware that we are going

• 50:36Speaker 02

  to break the joint. And he said, well, what will it be to fix it? And I said, depending on how bad the break is, you know, it could take us a few days, you know, because we're going to have to re-weld. And he said, yeah, well, we're not using it for a while. So we'll just break it. Let's just break it. We did, okay. And we just thrashed the guy around until the bug broke. And then we took a week to fix it.

• 50:59Chris Winterbauer?

  That's what it takes to get the shot that you need.

• 51:02Lizzie Bassett?

  That's right.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  It's his bug.

• 51:03Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 51:04Lizzie Bassett?

  All right. Well, we don't want to take up too much more of your time. So I want to end with this because there's a name that's come up a bunch over the course of this interview. And he's someone who's come up a bunch over what went wrong as well. And of course, that's James Cameron. Jim, to you, Alec.

• 51:19Speaker 02

  Jimbo.

• 51:20Lizzie Bassett?

  Jimbo, great.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  No, no, not really.

• 51:23Lizzie Bassett?

  What's your favorite memory of working with James Cameron? Or it can be good or bad, whatever you want.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I had a ton of great, positive memories. You know, because I had, I was in the great position of working with him at Korman's when he was working to become recognized, working to, you know, achieve and accomplish something. And it was a great inspirational time for me. But I do remember when I finished on Battle Beyond the Stars, we were winding down and he had I think around that time he had the Terminator script. And um, he had asked me to work on it.

• 52:10Speaker 02

  And I was kind of like, hmm, I'm gonna go to UCLA film. I got accepted to UCLA film school. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go finish that. Oh, wow. Thing, you know, that phase of my life. And he said, film school? He said, why? I said, well, you know, I just wanna, you know, I wanna learn aspects of filmmaking that I'm not. He says, I don't think you need that. And I was like, he said, I don't, I don't think film school's worth it. And uh, and I said to myself, I said, okay, mister, we'll see who uh, who, who, who gets further. You continue uh, working in the, yeah, I did not exactly. But um, but I thought, well, that's, you know, that's, that is what he would do.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Cause what he would do uh, in, in, in the time that I, I, you know, when I first met him, he was, if he had like questions, technical questions, he would go to USC to the, to the library, the film library, film school library. And he would just, you know, Xerox copy chapters of books. And that was, that was what the film school was worth to him, you know? A bu- a buck eighty in copy costs and then he had all the answers he needed. And a lot of people are like that, you know, David Fincher was like that. David Fincher has a great story about how he, how he got into ILM. He was, he was, he was doing a um, like a click, click, click with a thirty five.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  He had modified a thirty five millimeter camera and he's walking through the streets of San Francisco. And it would look like he was like rushing. And he entered that into a film contest. He was like seventeen. And he got a, he got a phone call from Dennis Murin. And it was kind of a, as Fincher told me, it was sort of like a stern, like you must stop doing what you're doing because we're developing something very similar at ILM for the speeder bike chase through the trees. And David's like, I'm not gonna stop. It's a 17 year old kid talking to ILM. Not stopping you. You can't tell me to stop. And he's like, well, well, what, well, you can't, what? And David said, why don't you hire me? And I'll, and I'll show you what you do.

• 54:21Speaker 02

  They're like, okay. So Fincher got a job at ILM at like 17 years old. And he was, David Fincher was a puppeteer on the rancor pit monster. He's down there, you know, on that. He did that secondhand smoke thing with the little baby that is smoking, which he told me he thought was just hilarious. He came up with the idea because he thought it was hilarious. Like, how did the baby light the cigarette? You know, he has all those logic questions. And then he was surprised that people found it chilling. And then that just kind of, you know, jump started his career. But, but I love that kind of like preternaturally ballsy people who like, how the hell, and Cameron was one of those people. How the hell do you come out of, you know, step out of just like apparent

• 55:06Speaker 02

  obscurity, fully formed and ready to go? I, I, I wasn't that way.

• 55:11Chris Winterbauer?

  Do you have any advice for folks interested in practical effects for the movie business in general, aside from don't go to film school?

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I think film school has value to it because, because people learn differently, right? Like those, those people who, who don't need it are probably people who are real fire brands who kind of like have a fire and they're got, other people like community. They want to be part of the, you know, a group of people. And there's, you know, what you, can you argue with Lucas and Coppola and Spielberg didn't, Spielberg went to Long Beach. Right? Okay. I guess that's school. But my difficulty in giving advice now is that it's such a weird and messed up time, right? Because apparently the movie industry, at least the Hollywood movie industry, is crumbling around us. And my optimism says, well, that must mean that

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Opportunities are being created and you just have to be able to spot those and it's just more difficult than ever. I think that for people who want to sort of be plugged into a system and there's a lot of, you know, a lot of my artists are like, I don't want to run a shop. I don't want to be out hustling. I want to, I want you to tell me what the parameters are so I can ply my craft. And that's very honorable and I couldn't do what I do without those people. But I don't know really how to advise young people, especially with AI coming in. And the, and the AI shit that you see on Instagram is like, is it, I can say it's soulless and I can give you all the, all the reasons why I hope it doesn't become

• 56:47Speaker 02

  super pervasive in the arts. But it's here and it must be dealt with. I'm hesitant to say learn AI. It's just a tool. It's not just a tool though. It's, it's more than a tool. So I don't know. I just, I hope, I hope that, I mean, I think maybe my flip on advice to people wanting to get in is to say to them, what do you think we should do? Do you have any, because you're young people who have, who have some idea of, you may not know exactly where things have come from, but you're, you're, you know where they are. And can you envision where they're headed that does not exclude artistry and human

• 57:31Speaker 02

  experience and camaraderie and, you know, and, and the team spirit of, like, if AI takes over, we're not going to be talking about tromping through the desert, getting yelled at by Paul Verhoeven. We're going to be talking about what prompts did you use? I can't think of anything less alive than that, you know? I mean, I'm not diminishing it because I know you have to, you have to, you have to learn how to use the AI stuff, which I don't know how to use. I just don't know. I'm just sad for, for, I'm sad. You caught me in a real sad moment.

• 58:09Chris Winterbauer?

  Well, to try to get us into a happier moment, is there anything Alec that you have coming out soon, or that is out now that you want to plug?

• 58:17Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, what's out now that I'd like to plug? We had a nice run there with the Werewolf movie. We had Smile 2. We have, you know, Prey.

• 58:30Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 58:31Lizzie Bassett?

  Yeah.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Hulu. There's the, there's the Bone Mask.

• 58:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:35Speaker 02

  From Prey. Uh, you can always go back and look at the Point Break if you want. Or Tremors.

• 58:43Chris Winterbauer?

  There it is.

• 58:44Lizzie Bassett?

  Yay!

• 58:46Speaker 02

  But there is a movie that you should all go watch, which is a movie that we created in-house. It's called Wellwood. There is the monster.

• 58:54Chris Winterbauer?

  Oh, great.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Um, it's available on Amazon, and if anyone wants to follow me on Instagram, Alec underscore Gillis, the link in the bio has a link to purchase Wellwood. We're starting to kind of creep across the world with it, but it's a good practical effects-based movie.

• 59:12Lizzie Bassett?

  Awesome.

• 59:12Chris Winterbauer?

  Nice. That's kind of like, uh, I remember watching Harbinger Down.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:16Chris Winterbauer?

  A few years ago, and that, like, because I was a big, like, Leviathan, Deep Star 6, like, sort of fan, and it really tickled.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:25Chris Winterbauer?

  That, like, aquatic Lovecraftian itch.

• 59:28Speaker 02

  Yes, I do enjoy that. It is, it is probably closer to Leviathan than, than anything else.

• 59:34Chris Winterbauer?

  Yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 02

  And I love that. That whole era is, is pretty fantastic. But yeah, so, I don't know, keep a lookout. We've got, we got another Boots Riley project called I Love Boosters that will be coming out probably in six months or so.

• 59:49Chris Winterbauer?

  Great. We will check it out.

• 59:51Lizzie Bassett?

  Well, thank you so, so much. This was really amazing. You've been very generous.

• 59:55Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you so much, Alec.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:06Chris Winterbauer?

  Thank you again to Alec Gillis for joining us for today's conversation. We hope that you guys found it as interesting as we did. If you're interested in more of Alec Gillis's work- Head to studiogillis.com or go watch Prey on Hulu or Smile or No One Will Save You, Werewolves, I'm a Virgo, Wellwood, or Take It Back to Aliens, or Alien 3, or Alien Resurrection. We still haven't covered that one. As always, if you guys are enjoying this podcast, feel free to leave us a rating and review on whatever podcatcher you're listening on. Check out our Patreon for an ad-free RSS feed or a shout-out at the end of our episodes. And we've got a live show coming up, October 8th and 9th in Manhattan at the Caveat Theater. We are covering Deep Impact and Armageddon. If you're interested

• 1:00:50Chris Winterbauer?

  in seeing us live, head to cheerfulearful.com/podlifeevents, scroll down to our dates, click on our logo, and you can get tickets. Thanks again, guys, for tuning in to this week's episode of Below the Line, and we will see you on Monday for Bohemian Rhapsody.

• 1:01:11Chris Winterbauer?

  What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom Podcast, presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Editing and music by David Bowman.

• 1:01:31Speaker 07

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• 1:02:01Lizzie Bassett?

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.