Andrew Lee Interview!!!

Started by Darkoo, May 26, 2007, 05:41:43 PM

Author
Andrew Lee Interview!!! (Read 29,414 times)

Darkoo

Darkoo

Andrew Li. A science-fiction veteran, Andrew has worked on films like The Core, The Chronics of Riddick and X-Men: The Last Stand, with the latter, coincidentally, being a film that the Brothers Strause also worked on in the visual effects department. Six degrees and all. Here's an excerpt:

AXP: As the setting is unique to both the Alien and Predator franchises, what kind of influences did you draw from the previous installments?

AL: For the Predator, we got a glimpse of their starship at the ending of the last AVP when we see one of their own lying dead on a Predator altar bed. We take cues from that design and ramp it up for our version of the altar bed and the Predator spacecraft. We developed our own version of the Predator alphabet which is similar to the characters that have already been established.

Al: I worked mainly on the sewer set and the predator spacecraft. Andrew drew from his experience in designing Dawn of the Dead to create the creepiness of the sewer set. We wanted to keep the sewer relatively small so that the aliens and predators would look very menacing and horrifyingly huge in the set. In fact, when the predator is standing in full costume, he is over 8 feet tall!!! 

When we seen him wading through the sewer water hunting down the rogue aliens, he definitely looks VERY, VERY scary!!! For the spacecraft I built a physical model. Our very talented illustrator Rob Jensen had established the look that we wanted. We did not have a big budget for this set so we tried to put a lot of the money in the beautiful sculpted predator architecture of the ship and we used lots and lots of aluminum extrusions and pipes to fill in the rest of the set. In some ways, the detailing on the set is similar to what I did on the Virgil "earthship" on The Core. But we were careful to keep the design non-human like as well. I got a lot of inspiration from the creature and prop design work coming out of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. We wanted to make the predator spacecraft organic and beautiful, but also very rugged and macho.


More: http://www.alienexperience.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=802

Pvt. Hicks

Pvt. Hicks

#1
"The Strause brothers with our Oscar-winning costume designer Angus Strathie chose clothes for our teenage actors that were hip but not too stylish for a small town."

"What's unique about this Alien movie is that we finally see the Aliens invading somewhere that most people would be familiar with - small town U.S.A. In a sense, this puts the movie in the classic horror genre where some evil being is killing innocent people in places that were once considered safe. So by this measure, it was not difficult to create new and convincing settings. The Alien is an incredibly resilient character."


Oh no...

Predboy

Predboy

#2
Im really looking forward to the scene where the predator is in the sewer hunting down the aliens, I cant wait. I want to see if the pred will look scary like Al said it will.

Johnny Handsome

Johnny Handsome

#3
I like what he said about the Predator spacecraft, looks like were getting a predator 2 style ship, which i always loved 8), great news, im happy ;D

jimmylace

jimmylace

#4
The references to the pains of a smaller budget and not securing locations are a bit alarming though. It also looks like the alien is going to be slap-bang in the middle of familiar earth environments...I don't think the alien is THAT resillient. Teenages, earth environments....there is a concern that this is going to feel like a b-movie slasher film. I don't know what to make of this interview, if anything, it's deflated the anticipation for me a bit. Theres a positive and a negative to any decision in a movie-on the one hand, a smaller, more horrific movie sounds good, on the other it does make me wonder if this movie is going to look a little cheap. It boils down to the acting. If youve got decent dialogue and actors, then a smaller movie will work wonders, but if you don't...then youre going to wish this movie had least had some spectacle. I'm reserving judgement until the trailer though....the sewer scene sounds like a highlight.

SiL

SiL

#5
Budget doesn't bother me in the least, but I'll never like the idea of teenagers in the movie and 'small town USA' is always gonna irk me. They're not going to make it scary, they're playing into a tried and true cliché. I've seen way too many bad sci-fi B movies and slashe flicks to be scared by that setting any more. And Aliens in it ... nah.

I liked hearing what he had to say about the Predator ship, though. Dunno why they'd change the Pred alphabet, but so long as it isn't too drastic (IE, now we can actually read it...) shouldn't be a bother. Rigging shirts to make 'em g 'spode for bursters made me smile.

Darkness

Darkness

#6
Quote from: jimmylace on May 26, 2007, 08:25:12 PM
I don't know what to make of this interview, if anything, it's deflated the anticipation for me a bit.

Same for me, I think. The stuff about the sewers and ship is cool but I can't get over the budget.

If Anderson made AvP with $40m, what's AvP2 going to be like? And where have they focussed the budget? And the Strause Brothers are visual effects guys so a lot of money needs to be spent on FX. What about everything else? I thought AvP's cast were bad, horrific acting, and AvP2 has a bunch of kids.  >:(

Not happy.

SiL

SiL

#7
The guy did say it was the smallest of them all.

...Which I honestly seriously doubt. It doesn't get much smaller than Alien or Predator. One creature, seven people, there you go.

Darkness

Darkness

#8
I assumed he meant small in terms of locations.

Champiionser

Champiionser

#9
Quote from: SiL on May 26, 2007, 08:49:18 PM
The guy did say it was the smallest of them all.

...Which I honestly seriously doubt. It doesn't get much smaller than Alien or Predator. One creature, seven people, there you go.

Yeh i guess you're right about that.But maybe he meant it in some other way,i'm not sure.I still have a pretty good feeling about this movie.

jimmylace

jimmylace

#10
I don't think the budget is going to be drastically smaller than AvP's already small budget. I think, if anything, AvP2 maybe around 30-40 million anyhow. The budget isn't my greatest concern here- in this case, the script doesn't call for it. But like you say Darkness, it's the teenage cast that bothers me. Aliens in familiar small town USA, teenagers being chestbursted, I don't know how this movie can avoid feeling like a b-movie. If they had a stellar cast with interesting characters, then fine, a smaller movie would work, but it doesnt sound like they have that either.
Despite the horrendous acting in AvP, at the very least there was some visual spectacle to compensate for it - but a small movie & AvP quality acting? good lord.

Darkness

Darkness

#11
Quote from: jimmylace on May 26, 2007, 08:54:59 PM
I don't think the budget is going to be drastically smaller than AvP's already small budget. I think, if anything, AvP2 maybe around 30-40 million anyhow.

I've been thinking $20m-$30m for a long time now.

SiL

SiL

#12
I don't think they'd go quite that low...

jimmylace

jimmylace

#13
no they couldn't feasibly go that low. plus budgets dont make good movies:

8/13/2004   AVP: Alien Vs. Predator 20th Century Fox $70,000,000, Domestic $80,281,096, Worldwide $171,181,096

8/6/2004   Collateral DreamWorks SKG $60,000,000 Domestic $100,170,152 Worldwide $217,670,152

Champiionser

Champiionser

#14


8/13/2004   AVP: Alien Vs. Predator 20th Century Fox $70,000,000, Domestic $80,281,096, Worldwide $171,181,096

Ah avp budget was so big?

AvPGalaxy: About | Contact | Cookie Policy | Manage Cookie Settings | Privacy Policy | Legal Info
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Patreon RSS Feed
Contact: General Queries | Submit News