Chapter 6: Production

"Good morning James! How's work?"

"It's fine Rich. It's all pretty interesting actually. I'm learning a lot."

James replied to Rich, as he held up a very grotesque-looking alien facehugger. Multiple models of this facehugger were made. They had to purpose them for different scenes such as the scene where it attached to Kane's face or the dissection of the facehugger scene, as well as extras in case something went wrong.

"Well, that's good. I'm very happy to hear that. It's always good when the creator of a work is passionate."

The studio had been planning to do the actual filming within a couple of weeks, so even now they were cutting it close with the production. In this way, James' direction and quick learning of prop making was proving to be very helpful in speeding things along. It was very good to have the creator of the story be someone who is artistically inclined, James could help production more quickly piece together the designs needed for various things on set.

Another problem was the fact that the studio wanted to find another director. Dan offered to do it, but the studio wasn't looking to take much more of a risk on this film. They wanted to find someone established, but there also aren't that many directors that want to do a "sci-fi" film as those are seen as low-class, C-tier, movies doomed to fail. Once a director gets that stigma, it's hard to come back from.

James suggested the original director of the first Alien movie, Ridley Scott. The crew probably would've eventually come to the same decision, but it seemed they were just getting more grateful to James, so he just let it be.

"Morning Director!"

Speaking of which, Ridley Scott walks in to look at the props.

"Morning Rich. I just came to finalize some things with James. So, in this scene, what were you planning to have as the backdrop? How do we get the Alien to be shown, without it looking tacky? And how do we..."

"Well, we should probably just show close-ups only, and only show the body with dark shadows around it. We probably don't want to show much and just leave it up to the audience's imagination. In this way, we focus more on the hunting abilities of the Alien, its elusiveness, and creepiness. We can also..."

Rich smiled as he looked at James and Ripley. Their cooperation was instrumental in moving along production as they planned out every scene together. Ridley had a great talent that could only further be supplemented by James who already had the whole movie in his head. His 30 years in film editing came in real handy when splicing a film and being able to memorize it.

Rich was also further blown away by James' effort to help him. James would constantly make him feel a part of the production and a part of his idea. Often scriptwriters don't like to make concessions and feel as if the director is intruding on their work. But, with James it wasn't like that, it felt like they had the same vision for every scene. He was also impressed at the lengths James would go to at planning out a scene, going as far as drawing out multiple scenes.

It impressed Rich greatly at how fast he was able to do it and with such realism.

"You know, you can just draw some stick figures, and I would get the general idea."

"Yeah, but that's no fun. And you'll miss out on the aesthetic I'm trying to portray. The crew has to have an identity, but not an over-the-top sci-fi look. Just enough where you know they are in the future, but not enough to make the audience disassociate with the characters."

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"I see... yeah, that sounds good. Okay, I have to go meet with some actors who want to audition. Did you want to join in?"

"Nah, we have a lot more work to get done. Things like the control room and engine room still have to be done."

"Okay, well, it's probably gonna take a while to find every actor so you can come by any time."

"Sounds good, cya."

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While James did want to help in the casting, at the end of the day, sifting through C-rated actors that reluctantly agreed to their agents to audition, did not seem fun. Most of the actors either weren't good enough to audition for other movies or were looking to get a quick salary by acting in what they would consider Alien, a 'low-budget Alien horror movie.'

James would much rather work on things like props and the Alien costume. He did not want a single thing to not be perfect for this movie. He also did not want a repeat of some of the failed visual effects of the first Alien movie, such as when the xenomorph is ejected into space and it looks like a mannequin being ragdolled.

James planned to include many teasers as well as easter eggs in this movie, hoping to leave the audience waiting in anticipation for future movies.

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Two weeks later

James eventually joined in on the hunt for actors for their movie. After working like a madman for several months, the crew had finally found a lull in work that needed to be done. He decided that auditions might serve as a break and get him away from prop-making for a while.

James also wanted to come along for auditions because they wanted to sign Veronica Cartwright as the lead role of Ripley. It took James a while to convince them that they wanted Signory Weaver as the lead role instead. After a lot of convincing, they finally relented. At this time, Weaver wasn't seen as the same badass as in his time, mostly because her only acting experience was in theatrical plays.

James had to convince them because Ripley's role was integral in future parts of the series. The other roles in the movie weren't as important but some still had to be looked over, like Parker and Ash. For those roles, James had to pay extra attention, eventually helping in choosing the same actor for Parker, Yaphet Kotto. His dynamic in the movie was one of James' favorites as his dialogue made you believe he was just your average construction worker, the only difference being he served as a space engineer.

And, although he did find the original actor for Ash, James came across another actor that might be able to play the role much better. His name was Anthony Hopkins, and as soon as James saw him he wanted to give him the role on the spot. But, for the sake of not wanting to step on the director's shoes, he didn't say anything at the time.

Ridley wanted to give the role to the original actor, but James again meddled and said that he believes Anthony Hopkins would give even more life to the character. Ridley was starting to get a little annoyed at this scriptwriter, but his vision hadn't been wrong yet. They also looked fairly similar, and he believed they were both pulled off the character at around the same level, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

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