Sunday, July 3, 2016

Details everywhere.

Looking at this again, this is actually one of the cheapest looking sets in Alien. It's not that it doesn't look nice, it's just not super-expensive (for Alien).

So. Reshoots and stuff. Which means the word "greeble" is all over the place in my vocabulary. Also, it seems like the cheapest small monitor is really a Kindle Fire 7". Because using VLC media player you can play .mp4 movies on a loop on the Fire (also you can "lock" the display so you can design your graphics for, and use it, sideways.)

This is a closeup of the newspaper in Blade Runner.
I've been looking at pictures of ISS recently. Mostly dorking out about Suni Williams. The station is filled with plain-old laptop computers. And from what I can see there's basically no in-wall wiring. Everything's exposed.
I believe this is in the Russian part of the station. Although the display is in English. I do so love the super-simplicity of the readout.
Inside the cupola of the ISS. There is more duct tape in use there than you'd think you'd want to have on a space station.
This is the inside of a garbage truck. It's actually a right-hand-drive truck, or rather it has both left and right hand steering wheels but you're looking at it from the "working" position.

1 comment:

Joe Falcon said...

Alien medical bay, The seams were sanded and then painted, some of that is plywood and fiberglass as well and Bondo... lots of Bondo.

As for sets, why build more then what the actors interact with and just CGI the fill in. Easier and even AE can take a OBJ panel and insert it into the footage.

Why buy a bunch of panels that are not going to be touched. Why not just back light Chroma-Blue transparencies with tracking markers on locked or non-interactive panels and save a few quid.

ISS: Actually it's because if something breaks, if it's behind a panel on a 100 ft run of cable, running it down in Zero G makes finding a roofing leak on the white house with one eye closed look like a milk run. If you look all runs are tagged with a number.

The duct tape secures controls (and negates their use) and wiring that has been and will most likely be struck again by foot or grabbed by a hand. Zero G, not as fun as the movies makes it look. When ISS gets the gravitational habitat getting crew out of that thing will require lots of cookies and probably a few threats as well.

Joe