Dane Hallett & Matt Hatton Interview

Dane Hallett and Matt Hatton are concept artists who created all of David’s Drawings in David’s laboratory in 2017’s Alien Covenant. Among many other things, Dane and Matt talk about how they got involved in the film, Ridley’s feedback on their illustrations, the time constraints and David’s descent into madness. The interview refers to a book they are trying to get published that would potentially contain all of David’s drawings. This was actually released after this interview in September 2018 (Read our Review).

Corporal Hicks interviewed them for Episode #52 of the AvPGalaxy Podcast.  You can listen to the episode below or read on for a transcription.

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Aaron: Before we got into Alien, could you just give us a little background on yourselves, who you are, what you do and how you got into the industry?

Matt: I started out in advertising and graphic design. That sort of thing. Moved into freelance illustration and I’d done comics and that sort of thing and basically, I got a call from Alex Proyas one day asking because he’d seen some comics to say do you want to come and do storyboards and that was great because I was just about to pull my finger out and get into film and television and that sort of thing. Yeah, and so started out in in storyboards and then expanded into concept art and all sorts of different departments and I do live-action and animation and stuff.

Dane: I’d always wanted to do movies as a kid as well. Matt and I are very passionate about films overall, but I started off working in the prop department, making props and in the mold shop molding stuff and replicating it and I did a lot of special effects as well. I love working with the special effects guys and then moved into doing concept art. I’d always been pretty okay at drawing and some people… I think it was on Fury Road, people started to take notice and then ever since then, I’ve primarily been a concept artist. 2009 when I first started on Mad Max and then one of the art directors followed on to another job Paradise Lost with Alex Proyas which is where I met Matt.

Aaron: So, the Alien films tend to leave quite an impact on fans especially those such as yourselves who are quite creatively inclined. That’s something we always love to hear from our guests on the show is about the first time they saw any of the Alien films. Do you remember the first time you saw any of the films and which would you say was your favorite?

Dane: I think I was 8 years old and my mom wouldn’t let me watch Gremlins and I begged and hounded and I wouldn’t let up until I could finally watch it and after Gremlins, I was like man this is a pussy movie man, I could do this any day of the week and when I saw Alien was gonna be on TV, I thought it was going to be the same kind of deal with these zany creatures running around and no man, ever since then like it absolutely paralytically made me afraid at that age and then I guess it started a long and loving relationship ever since then.

Matt: I don’t think I was much older than that when I first saw it. My uncle got it on VHS and stuff and yeah, I don’t know. I guess my parents didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to watch it because he was showing it to us and yeah there was freaky stuff and everything but the biggest thing I remember, like aside from how completely different it looked with all the Giger stuff and everything. I’ve been obsessed by Giger ever since like Dane has too but the one big thing for me was okay the chestburster scene… oh my god that was so full on and everything.

My lasting impression was that it was hilarious and I just laughed out loud because there’s the bit where it bursts out and everything and everybody’s horrified but then there’s that bit where it’s not really articulated and it’s on that sort of like mechanical track or whatever and it just goes like that and it looked hilarious to me and I was just laughing and stuff. So, everybody else was sort of devastated but I thought it was the funniest sort of muppet thing ever but not your typical reaction. I guess not but all that other stuff I was just so completely knocked out by all the stuff. Like the way the spaceship looked and the Derelict and all of that sort of stuff.

Aaron: What would you say is your favorite film of the series?

Matt: It’s so hard. That’s another one of my big movie memories is going to see Aliens on the big screen and everything and I just remember I couldn’t believe how long the climax went for it. Just seemed to go and go and go. It’s just incredible but I think overall I would say the first one because the first one has the action. It has the sci-fi and all of that sort of thing, but it also has the sexuality that at the time, nothing was like that and all the metaphor and everything which I didn’t get at first being a kid and everything but later on it all sort of sinks in and the allegorical stuff and everything. So yeah, I think it’s still the first one for me.

Dane: I mean I have to admit that the first one is probably my favorite but Aliens, it’s so hard to choose. I also really like the third one as well and like I know a lot of people aren’t on board with it and I understand it’s definitely got its flaws, but it just comes down to taste. It’s so gritty and merciless that I absolutely love it. So Alien is probably my favorite but the one that I watch the most is Alien 3.

Aaron: Alien Covenant is essentially Prometheus 2 while being a little bit more of an Alien 0. Now I was wondering what you both thought of Prometheus, and would you have been as excited to work on the film had it remained more of a Prometheus film without the aliens?

Dane: Prometheus was a bit of a heartbreaker because I’m so into the mythology of Alien and I mean it does it. I mean look it’s all there. All the patience of Alien is there. It’s kind of got so many of the beats but there just wasn’t enough character to love and it felt that it was more interested in being ambiguous than it was about being immediately thrilling I suppose and so look I wasn’t a massive fan. I was pretty disappointed by it and as for Covenant being a follow-up… I mean I liked it better than Prometheus and I was excited regardless because Ridley Scott was on it and because it was an Alien film and I could only have ever dreamt that I would have been able to play some kind of a role in the Alien world and so yeah, no I would have been excited either way man.

Matt: I’m pretty similar. I love ambiguity but I didn’t feel like… Prometheus to me, it wasn’t that there. They had all these this deep backstory and that sort of thing that we saw the skin surface of. It was more like; no, we’ll just not explain the stuff and we’ll be mysterious about it which isn’t the same thing at all. It looked amazing and I do think the character of David is great and is sort of worthy of being up there with the other films and that sort of stuff. Look for me, there wasn’t just an overall meh thing. I loved certain things. I hated other things and like Dane, I felt that this one was better than Prometheus but even there…

I don’t know it starts to get foggy for me because you split yourself into two pieces whereas objective as you can be a fan and then there’s the ‘you having worked on it and known certain story things that could have been’ and that I don’t know that you feel were better that didn’t happen in the end and that sort of stuff. Like things like everybody’s down on the whole Oram chestburster leaning over the egg and that sort of thing whereas we saw a draft where that was handled in my subjective opinion much better because it used the characters and the audience and all of that to build suspense and okay have a look, this is great but he says, look it’s fine, I’ll show you and he leans over the egg.

He knows because he’s David and we know because we’re the audience and we’ve seen Alien movies before that it’s because he’s not alive and everything and nothing will happen but Oram doesn’t know that so it builds suspense and everything and then there’s a reason for him to think oh it’s okay to lean over the egg and then he gets got. So, there’s good payoff for multiple reasons and then in the final film losing that I thought was one of those things where like oh man, you already had it sort of down. So funny thing that and you’ll always have your own things that you latch on to that you feel would have been great and that sort of stuff. So, it’s a strange sort of double-sided thing.

Aaron: Getting on to Covenant more specifically then. How did you both become involved with the film’s production and then a bit more specifically how did you become the ones responsible for David’s illustrations?

Dane: We’ve worked with the art director before and well for me at least when I heard it was coming to town, I wrote an email to the art director Ian Gracie the supervising art director and like I didn’t want to bug him with any questions and said “I’m not going to annoy you with any questions. I just want you to know that no one could draw those monsters better than I could.”

And that’s not an ego thing by the way. That’s just because I was trying to get the job and then the other thing was I said “You’ll never meet anyone who loves Alien as much as me.” I just left it at that and then I had an interview with a designer who was pretty keen to get me involved but I think it kind of took a little while for the job to get going and then by the time it was up and running, there was all this talk of these pencil drawings which when I heard about them and I think that they’d already contacted Matt but I said “Listen you must contact Matt. Like he will love this.” So that’s at least how I got involved and then when I saw that Matt was in there as well… because we were talking to each other before we got on it but when I saw that Matt was in there the same day, I was like sweet, let’s do this.

Matt: Yeah, we’d worked together on a few other movies before and we get on great and so that part of it, it really was a dream job in that way because to be on an alien film for Ridley Scott and both loving it the way we do and yeah was great.

Aaron: So why were you so keen to do these illustrations? I mean was that sort of style something you were previously interested in?

Dane: For me definitely not because I’d never used a pen in quill before and so I was a little nervous. That’s why there’s so many sorts of iterations of Giger artwork out there that I had done at least because I wanted to get the style down and I tried using pen and quill before it once before. I couldn’t understand how anyone could use it because it runs out of ink like it just pissed me off. So I’d never done it and so I was kind of a little afraid of it but when that’s what the job was, it didn’t matter because they just had to dive head long into it because it’s just how I approach the work really. If that’s what it has to be, then that’s what it has to be. So I’ll jump on it and I did heaps of those line drawings just to get ready and kind of fluked it into the job, I guess.

Aaron: If I remember rightly, you’ve both sort of spoken about and shared audition illustrations showing Ridley that you guys could do the style that he was after. Now did you choose which of Giger’s artwork you were going to be doing in this style or was it a case of make me something that looks like this kind of thing?

Dane: Yeah, there was a couple that Ridley was that he was keen on. Like where he felt that this is what the film is going to be, but I just looked at the catalog of stuff that I felt would be relevant and yeah, I just did any of those.

Matt: I did the ones that you didn’t do. They’d said oh here are a few Giger pieces that we think are appropriate and that sort of stuff and yeah Dane did certain ones. So, I did certain other ones that weren’t the same and that sort of… the whole thing was here is a Giger piece from Necronomicon, we want you to do it like Giger but with the crucial thing being not in airbrush. You have to do it in charcoal or cross hatching or whatever because these are the old school sort of tools that David will have because technology sort of stopped. It’s the dead planet and all of this sort of thing. I don’t think they explained all of that to us but basically it was, do it like Giger but in charcoal.

Aaron: Dane, you touched on this a little bit talking about doing lots of the starter work up to it, but did you do any specific preparations for working on Covenant? Did you binge on the original films or study Giger’s work or any of the other artist stuff like that?

Dane: Like I watch Alien pretty regularly, but I didn’t watch it when I knew it was coming. I was too scared because I didn’t want to be aware that I was participating. It was too surreal, and I didn’t want to watch the film because I would be so hesitant to get involved. Like I don’t know. It just creeped me out. So, I refuse to watch it. I usually watch it pretty regularly anyway. So, I didn’t do that, but I did start drawing some Giger stuff which as I’ve explained before. That’s what ended up being the drawing that was on the cover of the art book. There was that creature that I did, and I did a couple of other stuff just to get ready so that when I walked in to show anyone, just to prove I wasn’t a stranger to the world.

Matt: It’s sort of in our blood. I guess the only thing was those initial drawings. The other part of it too was okay because we’re both having to draw as if we’re David, as if we were the one person. They gave us some reference of Rembrandt pen and ink cross-hatching that he’d done on these shells and Leonardo for anatomical drawings and that sort of thing. So, trying to get into that space as well and I was trying to put Giger type language in there. So even if it’s a plant, have striations and have it segmented like Giger would. The ribs and all of that sort of stuff as working it in. As a structural thing that maybe that’s how botany is on that planet. That sort of stuff.