The Digital Bits - Inside Aliens on Disc

[Editor's Note: Presented below is an updated interview on the Alien Anthology Blu-ray. Enjoy!]

Q: So it’s been seven years since Fox’s original Alien Quadrilogy box set was released on DVD. At the time, it was one of the most loaded and elaborate special editions that had ever been compiled for a series of films, and it remains one of the largest collections of such material to this day. As the original special edition producer on the set, I know you were pretty proud of it. So my first question is, is it true that everything that was in the original Quadrilogy DVD set has carried over to the new Alien Anthology Blu-ray? Every single image, bit of footage and Easter egg?

A: That was the original idea, yes. Whether it’s 100% true on the final product, I have no idea. After I delivered all the new content, I was involved in the authoring of the Anthology set but there was additional work done by Fox afterwards without my involvement. So I haven’t seen the final product yet and can’t really confirm one way or the other. But when I last saw the discs in emulation, everything seemed to be there.

Q: When we last talked about the Quadrilogy for our 2003 DVD book, The Digital Bits: Insider’s Guide to DVD, you had said there were a few things you wanted to include in that set that you had to leave out. Can you talk about what some of those things were?

A: The “Burke Cocooned” deleted scene from Aliens was a big one. That’s now been included. Some early VFX storyboards drawn by Ron Cobb for Alien under Dan O’Bannon’s direction have been added. All of the Ridleygrams that Ridley drew for Alien were partially omitted [from the DVDs] due to an authoring glitch. That’s now been corrected and beautifully up-rezzed. And of course, my complete and uncut documentary on Alien 3, which has now been fully restored and then some. I actually added extra material to the complete cut just in case I was asked to make edits again. No such directive came from Fox legal this time. There were also some archival pieces that we just kept running out of space to include on previous releases, such as the Alien Legacy documentary and a few other extras. Since all of this content was SD, it was much easier to take advantage of BD’s disc capacity to collect everything on a single archival Blu-ray disc.

Q: And how much new material has been added beyond that?

A: Nearly five hours of Enhancement Pods, which are basically interview outtakes or bits of raw footage or in some cases, mini-featurettes. They chase the documentaries on Disc Five and the plan was that you could access them at certain topic points during the documentaries or you could watch them on their own. Hopefully they still function that way. One of my favorite Enhancement Pods actually comes from an interview I shot for Kingdom of Heaven. It’s well-known now that Jon Finch was originally cast as Kane in Alien and even went before the cameras for a day before it was obvious that he was too ill to perform. When I interviewed Jon in London for his role in Kingdom of Heaven, I just had to ask him about Alien. So for the first time, we have Jon Finch talking about his brief stint as Kane and the real reason why he had to leave the film.

Q: Talk a little more about your Alien 3 documentary, Wreckage and Rage. I know that the original title was Wreckage and Rape, and the original version included a lot more material on David Fincher and the sheer hell he went through on the set during the production. What material was cut by Fox for the original DVDs, and what’s been added back in?

A: It’s difficult to detail it like that. First of all, the original cuts demanded of me were so random that they made no sense to me and my crew back in 2003. Some edits involved admittedly controversial material, but some didn’t. Some omissions were completely benign. The title changes asked for were bizarre, and I wasn’t even allowed to explain why the original titles were not only safe but entirely fitting. Case in point, one of the documentary chapters is titled Where the Sun Burns Cold. It’s a line used in one of the trailers and since the piece was about the production moving to Los Angeles for additional shooting, it seemed appropriate, especially since it was not under the best of circumstances. An unpleasant production moves to warmer weather for more difficult shooting… and it’s a line in the Fox-approved trailer! What’s the problem? It wasn’t even that they didn’t like or understand the title. It was that they didn’t even want to discuss it with me. It was those types of decisions that motivated me to remove my name from the credits last time. Fortunately, Sven Davison, who used to work at Fox and was instrumental in shepherding many of the amazing discs Fox produced in the past, made it a point to get my uncut documentary through the legal process safely this time. And he succeeded.

Q: A lot of people will probably wonder, was David Fincher approached again for the Blu-ray, to see if he might be interested in participating this time? Perhaps doing a commentary for the “workprint” version of Alien 3?

A: Fincher made it abundantly clear last time he has absolutely no interest in this film and no desire to revisit it in any way. Rather than try to re-open that can of worms, which last time resulted in the Alien 3 documentary being cut-down, I think we all just wanted to move forward with restoring the original content that now cooler heads at Fox were in place. Believe me, I would love nothing more than a brutally honest interview or commentary from Fincher on this. You might think it’d even be therapeutic for him to let it all out. But it’s his choice. And he’s chosen to move on. So we did the same.

Q: Speaking of the “workprint” version, we know that on the original version the audio mix was a little rough in spots. Can you talk about why that was, and what you’ve done for the Blu-ray version to correct this?

A: When you’re shooting a movie with a lot of on-set atmospheric effects and wind machines, there’s a good chance your production audio is going to be unusable. It’s just the nature of the beast and there’s not a lot you can do about it. Such was the case with some of the restored scenes in Alien 3. There are things you can do in the mix to minimize that, but even those measures are limited when you’re dealing with a track as dirty as those new scenes in Alien 3. So last time, with the Quadrilogy in 2003, we did the best we could, but given how ambitious and long-term that restoration project was, there came a time towards the end where that restoration simply ran out of gas. We had put a lot of effort into expanding three of the films, then completing necessary visual effects shots for those additional scenes, and finally, color-timing those new scenes to match the rest of the existing film. By the time we got to sound, Alien 3 was unfortunately given short shrift in the audio department. When a big, ambitious, unwieldy project like the Quadrilogy reaches its final stages, the studio has already spent a lot of money and is anxiously looking forward at very real delivery and distribution dates. If Fincher had been involved, we might have been able to convince Fox to spend more time on this, but since he wasn’t, I think the general feeling was, “it’s the best we can do under the circumstances.” I was pretty disappointed when I heard the final mix but at that time, I had no power to do anything about it. And since Alien 3 is the only special edition in the set without a director’s introduction, Sven and I discussed a simple title card to explain why the sound was so bad in certain sections and provide subtitles during those rough spots. Not an ideal situation, but it was really the best we could do given the circumstances.

Flash-forward to 2008, when the Blu-ray project started becoming a serious reality, and one of things on my wish list for the new release was completing the sound work on the additional scenes in Alien 3. I proposed this to Fox during that sweet spot in the production when they were still highly enthusiastic about making this the best release ever but before they were burned out on what it takes to actually make the best release ever and they just want to get it done and ship it off. So they said “yes.” Over a few months, we re-recorded dialogue with Charles Dance in London, Lance Henriksen in L.A. and Sigourney Weaver in New York. Once those new performances were in the can, Andy King at Fox Sound did an amazing job in not just working those ADR lines into the mix, but also beefing up the sound design in the rest of the special edition scenes. It now feels like a complete experience. Finally.

Q: Was all of the new special effects footage that was created for the Alien Anthology (for parts of the Alien 3 workprint and for the end of Resurrection) rendered in high-definition originally? Did any of it have to be re-rendered in more detail? In other words, was it Blu-ray ready from the start?

A: It was Blu-ray ready. Those visual effects shots were rendered in HD. Although it’s interesting to see how some shots hold up pretty well, while others, like the alternate opening of Alien Resurrection, are really just there as a narrative placeholder. It would take a serious amount of work and money to make a shot like that 100% state-of-the-art.

Q: Can you talk about the new high-definition presentations of the films? We understand that all four films were given brand new high-def transfers for this Anthology Blu-ray set.

A: Alien and Aliens have had new transfers. Fox felt that Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, being more recent masters, were acceptable as they were. Lowry Digital worked on the first two films, with Modern VideoFilm doing some additional work on Aliens, which needed the most help considering how problematic its image has always been. Ridley Scott and James Cameron approved the new masters.

Q: I know that early on, when this title was first announced, there was some concern among fans that the transfers might have too much Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) applied, but thankfully that doesn’t seem to be the case here at all. There’s also been a little bit of concern, however, that the films may have been reframed or cropped slightly from the image that appears on the DVDs. Ultimately, are you pleased with the HD presentations of these films as they appear on the final Blu-rays?

A: Based on the last time I saw the films in emulation, they look fantastic and represent a major upgrade from the DVDs. Until I see the final product, I can’t really go nuts in my enthusiasm, but so far, so good.

Q: Have the “golden” color-timing issues with the original theatrical cut of Alien (vs. Ridley’s 2003 Director’s Cut) been corrected?

A: First of all, it’s just one scene that’s in question. The golden look of the chamber adjacent to the landing leg bay was entirely Ridley’s decision. He always saw this set as being like a Pharaoh’s tomb, filled with treasures. So he enhanced the warmer colors in the 2003 transfer, making the scene look more amber. I remember he even added a dynamic power window to accentuate the contrast between the warmth of the first room and the coolness of the landing leg room. Now, having said that, one of the things on my Blu-ray wish list was making sure there was clean picture hygiene between the two cuts, unlike last time when there was new 2003 visual effects shots, subtle as they were, integrated into the 1979 cut. Again, I haven’t seen the final product yet, but a lot of work went into not just making sure the 2003 visual effects shots stayed in the 2003 version, but I also asked that the original color-timing of the 1979 version of Brett’s death was seamlessly-branched in to the 1979 version.

Q: Probably a small point of controversy in the new Blu-ray set is Sigourney Weaver’s participation. Many readers will recall that she game an interview to the L.A. Times back in January in which she indicated that she would be recording new audio commentaries for the films on Blu-ray. Did that actually happen, and if not why?

A: It didn’t happen. When I was on the phone with Sigourney conducting her ADR session for Alien 3, we ended up having a very long, pleasant conversation about a whole host of topics, including what I was planning to include in the Anthology set, at which point in the discussion, her screen tests came up. Now, we had included most of her screen tests last time in the Quadrilogy set, but there were two scenes that were killed last time, which have now been mostly included this time. I say “mostly” because one of the scenes, which I titled “Ripley Does Dallas” and Fox predictably made me change to “Ripley and Dallas,” involves nudity. Sigourney didn’t want that included, so now the scene fades out before we see anything. But in order to include these two additional scenes, Sigourney wanted to record commentary for them or shoot an introduction in order to give the viewer some context. Naturally, I was thrilled that I was going to get to shoot some new material for this, but while we were talking, she then said she wanted to record feature-length commentaries for all four films! So I told this to Fox, and to their credit, they agreed to foot the bill for flying me out to New York for a few days to record the commentaries and shoot a new HD interview with her. Unfortunately, this was also around the time she was doing ADR and promotional work for Avatar and her schedule was pretty demanding. So I basically sat around New York for a week in the middle of a terrible snow storm just waiting to see if we could ever line up her schedule, but it never happened. We kept trying even after I came home, but finally, we just ran out of time and had to deliver the project. It’s a real shame but I assure you, we tried like crazy to make it happen.

Q: We’ve talked about how elaborate the original DVDs were for their day. So what does the Blu-ray Disc allow you to do as a producer, in terms of interactive extras, that DVD wasn’t really designed for?

A: I think the answer to that question is summed up by MU-TH-UR Mode. Troy Benjamin, who used to work at Trailer Park, had an idea to cross-index all the materials from the four films into one customizable flow of information. Eventually, I suggested we use MU-TH-UR from the Nostromo as the guide through this experience, and once we had that theme established, it provided us with a clearer path to presenting the countless hours worth of material housed across the six discs. The idea is that you can still access everything the old fashioned way, using the amazing menus designed by Raleigh Stewart, also formerly of Trailer Park, or you could activate MU-TH-UR Mode, which would allow you to tag topics of interest that would be collected for you later in the supplement discs, access and identify supplemental audio streams or give you production factoids, all while watching the movie. And you could turn things on or off as you wanted. What’s really cool, is that when you put Disc Five or Six in, MU-TH-UR will then look at the subjects you tagged while watching the movies and point you in the direction of where those subjects are further explored in the extras. For example, if you tagged a Chestburster scene in any of the films, either while watching the movie or from the topic index, MU-TH-UR would then take you to materials devoted entirely to the Chestburster, whether it was a portion of the documentaries, or the Chestburster section in the image galleries, or whatever. That type of immersion simply wasn’t possible on DVD and is one of the areas where Blu-ray interactivity provides a whole new experience and a lot of new potential for interesting supplemental experimentation.

Q: We understand that a few of the people who worked with you on the original Quadrilogy have returned to be involved in the new work for the Blu-ray Anthology. Who was all involved in the Blu-ray production and how did they each contribute?

A: From the Quadrilogy set, there was Associate Producer Jon Mefford and editor David Crowther, and going back to the Collector’s Edition LD, there was Mike Matessino who put together the isolated score tracks under the supervision of Nick Redman. But for the most part, it was a new team. Joan Malloch and Sung Chae handled a lot of the production work at my company for the new MU-TH-UR Mode Enhancement Pods and some of the other new extras, and then there was the Trailer Park team, many of whom work elsewhere now, but during this project, it was like the interactive A-Team: Troy Benjamin, Adam Vadnais, Dorthe Baker, Raleigh Stewart, Amy Searles, Amy Lowe Starbin, Cara Mandel and the rest of the Trailer Park team. And there were countless people at Deluxe Digital, Lowry Digital, THX, Fox and other companies who made major contributions. It was a very creative and, frankly, rare collaboration amongst people who really love these films and could unleash their enthusiasm by coming up with new ways to present this material. Given the hostile climate out there right now, I seriously doubt I’ll see a collaboration this positive and creative ever again. But I hope I will. Because this is how you do it. Not with a lot of studio interference, micromanagement and creative suffocation. You unleash talented people and let them do their jobs. The results will always be better. Always.

Q: Alien was the first DVD project you ever worked on. I still recall getting your original e-mails asking about the project back in 1998 I think it was, when we had posted word in The Bits’ Rumor Mill that Fox was getting ready to release their first Alien DVD. So it must have been a pretty cool moment when, after nearly a decade of working on various versions of Alien on disc, you found yourself sitting in a replica cryosleep chamber in Fox Home Entertainment’s booth at Comic-Con, designed to promote the new Blu-ray set. What are your thoughts on your involvement with these films over the years? What it’s like to have the chance to revisit one of your own best DVD projects from the past in a new format? And how do you possibly top this?

A: Well, I’ve now been actively involved in three home video releases of Alien and two releases of the entire series, and I never get tired of the films themselves or the stories behind the making of those films. And each time I’ve been involved, I’ve tried to include everything I could possibly find, and each time, there are a few casualties that don’t make the final release. So whenever the question comes up, “What can you possibly add that wasn’t on the last set,” I always have an answer. There is always more. It’s not that anything was left out intentionally, waiting for the next set. There’s no evil plan to milk people out of their money with multiple dips. At least not from me, anyway. But consider that each of these films took a few years to make from conception to completion, and that each one of these films had hundreds of people working on them. That’s a lot of stories. Even with over 60 hours of behind-the-scenes content, that still wouldn’t scratch the surface of a comprehensive “Survivors of the Shoah”-style matrix of stories devoted to these films. But each time out, I try to fill in more blanks, find new stories or present new material. It becomes increasingly difficult, but certainly not impossible. And the interactive muscle of Blu-ray has allowed us to integrate a wide variety of material into an evolving collection of stories, footage and images.

Q: In addition to the Alien Anthology, you’ve also produced the recent releases of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and the new hit TV show The Good Wife. What upcoming projects are you working on now?

A: Well, I can’t really go into any detail on them, but I’m currently working on Transformers 3, which has been an amazing experience. Even though I produced the Revenge of the Fallen disc, this is the first time I’ve been on a Michael Bay set and it’s an extraordinary thing to see in person. The way he commands such a huge army of talented cast and crew members in the midst of some truly jaw-dropping practical spectacle has been an education for me. I’m also working on the new Spider-Man movie for my friend Marc Webb. Marc and I first met when he edited a series of commercials I directed 13 years ago and have remained friendly ever since. So when he asked me to produce the (500) Days of Summer DVD and Blu-ray, it was a no-brainer and it was a lot of fun to do. And now I’m working on the new Spider-Man film for him and having produced the Spider-Man 2 DVD where I had very little access, it’s nice to be able to revisit a franchise I love but with a more DVD-friendly director who I also have a personal friendship with. I’m also gearing up for Season Two of The Good Wife, which I’m looking forward to. Beyond those three projects, I have a few others in the works, but it’s too early to talk about them, including the obvious one.

Q: Let’s talk about your feature film directorial debut, Crave. You’ve also been working on that the last several months. What’s it like to switch roles from special edition producer to director? And here’s the classic question we’ve always asked directors in the past: “When do you start thinking about the DVD and Blu-ray special edition content for one of your films?"

A: Considering that I’ve been directing in various media since I was a kid, it’s not that big of a switch in terms of the job. You’re still telling a story, leading a crew of people to realize that vision. The biggest transition was going from documentary and short form to feature length. In that regard, I think the biggest challenge was simply stamina. Keeping things going, making your days, and most importantly, maintaining your vision day-to-day is what’s challenging over a longer period of time, often with six-day weeks, only a few hours of sleep each night, and almost always with unexpected logistical curveballs thrown at you. As for the “making of” stuff, I have to be perfectly honest and say, I haven’t really started thinking about them yet, aside from making sure that as much of the production be documented as I can. My assistant shot behind-the-scenes video every day on set, and quite often during pre-production as well. We haven’t shot much in post-production yet, but we will as things get more interesting. I know this is going to sound bizarre coming from me, given the elaborate DVDs and Blu-rays sets I’ve produced, but if I include any extras on the Crave disc, they’re going to be very protective of the process, at least initially. I imagine I would include a couple different commentaries, a collection of deleted scenes, and maybe some design galleries. I think I might hold off on including a comprehensive documentary until at least five years down the road, once the film has hopefully found its place in the world.

Q: Having recently had the opportunity to see your rough cut of Crave for the first time, I have to say I was impressed – and somewhat surprised, frankly - at just how audacious it was. Not surprised as in I didn’t think you were capable of it, but surprised that you tackled such a challenging narrative for your first film. In purely visual terms, it’s gorgeously shot – and I would certainly have expected nothing less from you, given your long association with Ridley Scott, and your admiration of Stanley Kubrick and other such directors. But it’s a dark, cerebral story – I would say even noirish – one that frequently blurs the line between moments of reality, fantasy and memory. It’s the kind of film where the music and editing makes such a huge difference to a viewer’s perception of the story. So major props to you, sir, for tossing your hat over the wall and really going after it! But I guess my first question would be: Have you found that aspect of the process – the post-production – as challenging as you expected?

A: Well, first of all, thanks for the feedback. I’m glad you could be at that screening, as it was the first time we screened it for a bigger audience and hearing the audible reaction was a huge help in finishing off the cut, which we’re currently doing now. To me, the biggest challenge in editing was in finding the right tone for the opening of the film where we see so many conflicting internal and external facets of the main character’s life, something my editor David Crowther and I are still trying to perfect. I don’t think we’ll get there entirely until Chris Drake’s score goes in, which he’ll start composing in a few weeks. Also, we’re going through and nibbling at some scenes, just trying to tightening things up overall. I’m actually surprised by how much we’ve cut out of the film. There were scenes in the script I felt were essential in the read and now that they’re gone from the final product, I’m actually relieved and happy to see them go. We’re gearing up for scoring, visual effects and the rest of post right now, so the end is almost in sight. We’ll see how it all ends up in the next couple of months.

Q: How was your first experience of working with actors in a more traditional, dramatic sense? And I’d love to know more about the way you photographed the film – how did you get such a striking look and style? Detroit has seldom appeared more interesting…

A: Yeah, Detroit is a hell of a backdrop. I was actually first attracted to it visually because of the urban decay. But I left there with an unexpected love of the city, which I really believe is a hidden gem that just needs some love. As we were prepping in Detroit, I came across this beautifully shot documentary called Detroit Wildlife by Florent Tillon, and it really inspired me to look at Detroit as a place of fallen beauty, rather than just the infamous American ruin that so many people see it as. I rewrote the script to take place in Detroit, incorporating a lot of local lingo and landmarks into it. So Detroit is a character in the film, which is a nice metaphor for what the main character is going through, which is a combination of self-destruction and spiritual examination, surrounded by a ton of colorful characters and insane situations. And as far as the actors go, well, I learned a lot. And I still have a lot to learn. But I was lucky to have a cast that was fully invested in making this a special, unusual film. I had directed actors before in the several short films I made before, during and after my USC Film School days, but the stakes were much higher here obviously and I was spread much thinner because of how many more things I had to juggle. But I left Detroit feeling like I wanted to make another movie right away. I mean, like, the next day. Right away. So I think that’s a good sign.

Q: So when will people get to finally see Crave?

A: I’m hoping to start hitting the festival circuit in early 2011. As for any kind of distribution, that’s still to be finalized, but I’m guessing that it will be released in some form next year.

Q: Finally, as someone who’s been involved in DVD and Blu-ray special edition production, almost from the very start, and as someone who has produced some of the best-loved special editions on both formats, what do you think is the outlook for the future? Where is the industry going, and how is it changing? In short, what’s next and how is that changing the kind of work you do?

A: Well, I’ve heard a lot of negativity from other people in this industry about how DVD is dead, special features are over, etc. I think it really all depends on the filmmaker and their enthusiasm for the process. Increasingly, that enthusiasm needs to be backed by some political muscle because the days of every film automatically receiving an elaborate special edition are certainly over. The studios, in varying degrees, are scrutinizing everything far more than they used to and in a couple of examples, far more than they need to. There are some studio executives who are probably afraid of losing their jobs, so they’re micromanaging and creatively suffocating things to such a ridiculous extreme, it’s actually self-destructive. Fortunately, there are still a few studios who want to put out quality product and support the filmmaker’s vision. So in some ways, things are going back to the way they originally were, which has its pros and cons. For an independent supplement producer, filmmaker relationships are more important than ever. If you want to do something truly special, you need an enthusiastic filmmaker to support you through the process. So in working with directors like Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Bay and Marc Webb, I’m afforded increasingly rare opportunities to put together quality material. One thing I think all home video execs and content producers alike should remember is that without the filmmaker, we have no job. Everything we do should support them and their process. And for me, that’s always been Job One.

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