H.R. Giger

H.R. Giger was born February 5, 1940 in Switzerland and is a well-known painter, sculptor, and set designer best known for his work on the film Alien.

Alien (1979)

Giger was originally brought onto Alien by writer Dan O’Bannon. They both had worked for Alexandro Jodorowsky when they were making Dune, which was later cancelled. O’Bannon contacted Giger in August 1977 and asked him to design the monsters for Alien. Giger made a few paintings and some sketches based on the story he was told over the phone. At this point, it wasn’t decided if Giger was to continue on the project. 20th Century Fox were wary of hiring Giger because they thought his paintings and designs could be too disturbing for audiences. Ridley Scott came aboard as director and was given a copy of Giger’s new book ‘Necronomicon’ and became fascinated by it. In February 1978, Ridley Scott travelled to Zurich to meet Giger to discuss the project. Giger then started coming up with designs and later travelled to Shepperton Studios in London to work intensively on the film’s sets and special effects. Giger designed the alien planet, the landscape, the derelict spacecraft, the interior and exterior, the Space Jockey, and the egg chamber below. He was also responsible for creating the different stages of the alien life cycle: the Egg, Facehugger, Chestburster and adult Alien. The cocoon sequence which was cut out of the theatrical release (later added in the director’s cut) was also designed by Giger.

The Planet, The Derelict Spacecraft & Space Jockey

The planet and landscape was made out of a mixture of bones and tubes in order to achieve ‘biomechanics’. Giger wanted to create the impression that something may have happened a long time ago on that planet, like a highly-advanced civilization has been wiped out for some reason. Unfortunately, most of the landscape footage was cut out by Ridley Scott. Giger had made a lot of models, but very few were actually executed full-size. Due to lack of time, the one made for the landscape is not really biomechanical. There’s only one scene where a model is used for the landscape which is when you see the three characters with the derelict in the background.

The derelict spacecraft is a great example of Giger’s work. It looks almost organic in nature which is what he was aiming for. Giger was mostly happy with the design. He didn’t have a lot of time and money. In still photos, there’s a lot more detail on the derelict than what you can see on screen. The model of the entire derelict was about four metres and the landscape took up the whole studio. The ship is made of plasticene and polystyrene over metal arms. The entrance to the derelict was built full scale on a sound stage. The curved openings were built from timber covered with webbing. Final layers of plaster were added to the openings by Giger and then the surfaces were painted.

The space jockey creature was said to be based upon one of Giger’s paintings called Necrinom V. If you look at the top-left part of Necrinom V, it resembles the space jockey’s head. Giger modelled the space jockey himself in clay which was then cast in polyester. He worked a lot on the head and painted it. Initially, 20th Century Fox did not want to spend the money for such an expensive set that would only be used for one scene. The production team was able to convince the studio that the scene was important to impress the audience. To save money only one wall of the set was created, and the space jockey sat at the top a disc that could be rotated to help get shots from different angles. Giger airbrushed the entire set and the space jockey by hand. The egg chamber that was below the space jockey was originally going to be inside of a pyramid. You can see one of Giger’s early drawings was of an Egg Silo. This was changed for budget reasons and so the derelict and egg chamber were merged into one. The floor of the chamber with the alien eggs and the section of wall above it were fully constructed for the scene. When the scene shows Kane descending down into the egg chamber, the chamber is a matte painting.

The Alien Life Cycle

The alien egg was constructed from various plastics using Giger’s paintings as a reference. In O’Bannon’s script, the top of the egg wasn’t organic, but completely mechanical. Giger wasn’t fond of that and initially designed the eggs with a much more obvious vaginal appearance. The producers complained that they would have problems with the censorship board and Catholic countries would ban the film if it was too obvious. Giger then changed the top of the egg so that it resembled a crucifixion cross.

The facehugger itself was the first creature that Giger designed for the film which went through many different versions. To start with, it was really big, had eyes and a spring-like tail so it could jump out of an alien egg. It was redesigned so it was small enough to wrap around a victim’s face. Writer Dan O’Bannon made his own version based on Giger’s design which became the final version. O’Bannon originally thought the facehugger would resemble an octopus with tentacles. When Giger made his designs, he decided to have finger-like digits instead of tentacles which worked a lot better. Giger’s initial design had the fingers facing forward but when O’Bannon redesigned it, he moved the fingers to the side. O’Bannon decided to design the facehugger prop himself and the technical elements of the facehugger were added by Ron Cobb. The prop was left unpainted so that it resembled human skin. Giger also made his own facehugger that had a skeleton inside which you could see through its translucent skin but there wasn’t enough time to finish it.

Giger’s original chestburster design looked more like a plucked chicken and was far too large to fit inside a ribcage. It had to be completely redesigned. Ridley Scott made a few alternate designs for the chestburster. Its arms and legs were removed and all that was left was the head and tail to create a phallic-like creature you see on screen. Roger Dicken was given the task to design it.

The adult alien design was based on a painting Giger made in 1976 called Necrinom IV which was featured in his book. Giger initially offered to completely design the alien from scratch, but director Ridley Scott insisted that he base his design on Necronom IV. Giger made several conceptual paintings of the adult Alien before creating the final version. Giger’s alien is often described as biomechanical which is a stylistic representation of organic matter and machines fused together. Originally, the creature had big black eyes but then Giger figured it would be more frightening if the creature didn’t have any eyes at all so you wouldn’t know if it was looking at you. Giger also gave the alien’s mouth a second inner set of jaws which could extend rapidly and could be used as a weapon. He sculpted the creature’s body using plasticene and used real bones for the rib cage along with tubes and piping. Then he made the suit out of rubber for a stuntman to wear. The alien’s animatronic head was designed and constructed by special effects designer Carlo Rambaldi who followed Giger’s designs closely.

Legacy

Alien brought H.R. Giger international recognition for his unique style of art and design. It also earned him the Academy Award in 1980 for “Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects”. Giger was responsible for creating one of the most terrifying creatures in cinematic history and many people believe, including myself, that Alien simply wouldn’t have been has successful as it was, had it not been for Giger’s contribution.