ALIEN Makers Documentary

[Sebastian]

Excellent to hear, Dennis!
And something I've been meaning to ask you - is there some way I can download the Giger interview from you + the deleted skeleton question just so I can make a DVD backup for myself to watch when I get old?

[metalalien]

Awesome Dennis! Can't wait!

I love those shots..."El Ninio" indeed...apocalyptic skies right out of my own ALIEN BLOOD or Richard Stanley's HARDWARE or DUST DEVIL. Terrific atmosphere.

Thanks Jon! You should have seen it in person! Looked just as spooky.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

Gosh Dennis, this is good to know about the Alien Makers IV. I'm also interested in possible further ones that you have probably no plans or even the slightest conscious intention to make.

However I admit now that I'll wonder what Nick Alder had to say about Alien in the other one hour and forty eight minutes that wont make it into the documentary.

[Simon Deering]

BTW Nick had some great stories and also some that I couldn't put in the film!

Yeah .. you naughty teaser  Den

[Dennis Lowe]

Yeah .. you naughty teaser  Den

Sorry, it's the only pleasure I get in my time of life

[Dennis Lowe]

Gosh Dennis, this is good to know about the Alien Makers IV. I'm also interested in possible further ones that you have probably no plans or even the slightest conscious intention to make.

I'd really like to do one with Ridley but it's so difficult to get to him, I've been through his assistants and all the like but to no avail.
I'm out of that loop.

[metalalien]

I'd really like to do one with Ridley but it's so difficult to get to him, I've been through his assistants and all the like but to no avail.
I'm out of that loop.

I bet if one of them actually told him who is trying to get in contact, he'd respond.

[wmmvrrvrrmm]

I'd really like to do one with Ridley but it's so difficult to get to him, I've been through his assistants and all the like but to no avail.
I'm out of that loop.

I'm excited about the idea of this interview and I'll remain so.

[Jon Sorensen]

I'd really like to do one with Ridley but it's so difficult to get to him, I've been through his assistants and all the like but to no avail.
I'm out of that loop.

Just picked up on this. Dennis...out of the loop?

I'm going to share with you guys that this is the man who quite recently turned down supervising the visual effects in a Francis Ford Coppolla movie. Yes, that's right. Francis Ford Coppolla.

So I would say Ridley is out of your loop. If his flunkies are'nt getting him to at least respond, then they are not worth what he is paying them. But, of course, the flunkies themselves may be a new generation who studied at UCLA  on the degree subject How to Take Care Of Howard Hughes and Control The Pot.

For many years, Julie Payne was Ridley's assistant and she always attended to communications and got back to everyone. But that was in the days when mainstream film production was fairly human. I believe Julie is producing films now.

In any event, things move on and take a different make-up, like when the future son-in-law was mooted to direct ALIEN 5. Commercials. With the time and money available, they can be directed by R2D2. I know. I did a few. I've never seen such poncing about. You can also choose to do them if you do'nt mind telling lies. There has been a plethora of such commercials lately telling people that banks are honest, for example.

In the 1960's and 1970's Ken Russell did a few. He drew the line with one famous British TV commercial about how the soap powder suds drain out of the washing machine faster than any other brand. Of course, they just reversed filmed it and pumped the suds in. And TV commercials have changed a lot since the heyday of Ridley Scott and Alan Parker. Not so long ago some young film-makers saw Parker coming out of the BFI in London. Politely telling him that they were about to shoot their first no-budget feature and asked if he had any advice or tips to give him. Parker told them point blank to fuck off. The commercials today are the pits. Right out of Orwell. However, I did catch one I liked, beautifully shot and very simple with a cow running along a beach thinking it's a horse with John Hurt on the soundtrack falling in love with the cow. Which made me worry a bit about John Hurt. But overall, they are doing what Ken Russell said they'd do all those years ago. Disappearing up their own creative soul-less funnell. (Some of the commercials in Europe are quite good, though, and I worked a fair deal in Holland doing them. The Dutch had'nt developed any sense of their own importance and still had a sense of non-capitalism, liberalism and a sense of humour, that's why).

(By the way. Perpetual Motion: A cow drinking milk).

David Fincher(s) do not grow on trees. But anyone who has done a commercial for a bank or a video game seem to automatically think they are the new Fincher and start buying books about DW Griffith as if framing an ice-cream beautifully somehow qualifies you to remake a classic. The sum of anyone's work is what you had to say. In the end, there is no getting away from that. Otherwise it's all just bling.

Ridley Scott was spotted on the national news in the UK not long ago promoting something called A DAY IN THE LIFE. This self-serving idea is that people shoot some video on a certain day and Rid will help edit it into a Google feature length doc. "If you want to do what I'm doing, there's no excuse, get your video cameras out and shoot", said Ridley, patronisingly fogetting the millions of short features and 100's of feature films presently being made and shown on the internet already, on an absolute shoestring, including the very films made by Dennis Lowe himself. Perhaps his assistants don't tell him about those either and he ought to get out more.

Anyway, if Coppolla had asked me to do his film, I'd have said yes so that I might have been able to hang out at Napa Valley vineyard and shoot the breeze with all the characters. But then that's the difference between Dennis and I. I'm an cosmic existential sociologist and a Russellesque composer film-maker "artiste" pantheist bohemian visualist and bum.

The other real difference between us is that Dennis is actually truly talented.

Let him keep his loop.

Meant to add...caught Peter Jackson's THE LOVELY BONES. My wife turned to me and said "This film is right out of your head". Draw your own conclusions.

Still researching the "virtual studio" techniques since they might be applied to my screenplay of WITCH. Other than that, still taking a break from music and getting into all the usual trouble.

Stay cool, guys. Take care of yourselves and each other.

X

[metalalien]

Ha, give'em hell Jon! Nice. Yea I can't see Ridley brushing off Dennis, it has to be his people not letting him know or something.

Dennis and you guys are the loop.

[Dennis Lowe]

I hope the loop doesn't turn into a 'noose'

Just a quick update on AM4

It's rendering as I type (I'm still waiting for the go ahead from Michael Seymour as he requested a preview of his section) so I'm hoping he'll like it.
I usually render  3 types of formats (PAL, NTSC and a progressive mpeg file that I convert to a streaming file for the net)

I've tried to contact Pete (Hicks) but he must be on holiday as he hasn't replied  to my email mentioniong that soon I will be uploading to the AlienExperience servers.

All things being well I hope to upload by Tuesday.
BTW it's running at 1 hour 30 mins.

[metalalien]

Awesome Dennis, very excited as always!! Love these.


Hey completely off topic but I finished my vacation video. I went atv riding at St Anthony dunes Idaho two weeks ago.

anyway you guys might get a kick out of it. Some nice video of the sky during a forest fire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7AdW5Dvzu4

[Faltskogian]

Groovy

Will you be sending out DVD's to those on your mailing list as before? Please!

 

[Dennis Lowe]

Groovy

Will you be sending out DVD's to those on your mailing list as before? Please!

 

Yes, I'll send them out from my original list

[Dennis Lowe]

ALIEN MAKERS IV is now online on my site.

Tomorrow I'll also upload it to the AlienExperience server for viewing here too.