Alien: Romulus is a practical delight. Right from the start, filmmaker Fede Álvarez and all involved establish this sequel is going back to the past not just in storytelling but in approach. With the miniatures, notable lack of blue and green screen, and immaculate sets, Alien: Romulus feeds the hunger for tangible science-fiction.
Plenty of credit there goes to production designer Naaman Marshall.
A part of Marshall’s job was to bridge the universe between Alien and Aliens. He did just that with the proper balance of claustrophobia and scale. Recently, the production designer behind Don’t Breathe, Knock at the Cabin, and Underwater spoke with Immersive Media about going back to the past to create the future of Alien: Romulus.
How much was H. R. Giger on your mind during Alien: Romulus? How’d his work influence you?
The idea of carrying on the legacy of H. R. Giger was of huge importance to Fede and I, just staying true to what he established and throughout the films and making sure we didn’t veer too far from his overall vision.
One of the biggest influences on one particular set was the Hive and really trying to bring in the Giger references to skeleton and bone structures and all of that. We pushed really hard to create kind of a homage to him throughout that set and staying true to not creating something that was completely outlandish, but actually giving something that the audience felt like they’ve been before.
Where does your work start on a set like that with the Hive? What’s the trial and error involved?
Well, it starts with what the set needs to accomplish and then starting to create visuals based on the illustrators and through choosing the right team for that particular set. Every illustrator, every designer has kind of a strong suit, and that one was definitely a set that we had to lean on multiple people to give the look and everything that we were doing.
Then it becomes, how do we actually do it? And that’s where I lean on my art directors, my construction departments, my sculptors, and everything to start coming up with concepts. We started coming up with concepts based on the illustrations of different materials, and that was quite a mission. We started with maquettes and small visuals so that we could see if we were headed in the right direction, put a camera in it, light it, do all of that through models.
And then from there we started going full size and coming up with techniques that would practically lend a hand in what the overall vision was. So, we sculpted big structures of bones and vertebrae, and then we took molds off of all of those and created them in plastic and different materials.
On a set like that, you have all the parameters with the shooting and being able to change the set over to make it look longer. All of that stuff starts coming into play. So, the Hive was a set that when I saw the film, sometimes you don’t know how it’s going to read on the big screen, but that was a nice surprise to see that one.
What about the set for the zero gravity sequence? What did that set need to accomplish?
That one needed urgency. It needed a sense of entrapment. This was a big challenge because we had to build that set in multiple forms. There were sections of that particular set that we built vertically. We would pull the actors through it so that we could get a different take on them spinning around a handrail or them backed up against the wall, just creating a sense of hopelessness for a moment. And then it ramps up into that next phase of what Fede and I were trying to do throughout the film, transitioning from horror into action and then back into horror. We had different points in the film that needed to accomplish different goals.
Let’s talk about claustrophobia. How did you want to maximize that effect?
Absolutely. Fede is not afraid of small spaces. In fact, to the point where we have to mock up a set we’re going to build and then talk about how big the actual physical camera is that needs to travel through it, that’s how tight he likes to get with it. Some of our parameters were set up on the actual camera being able to get through, not necessarily the actors.
There was one set in particular when they enter the Renaissance. They’re coming through the airlock for the first time and the door opens, and then the actors get in that tunnel. That went through multiple mockups, because I just didn’t want to put our shooting crew in a position that it was unfilmable. It was about making sure that it got as tight as it possibly could. Many times Fede and I would be on the ground shuffling through and I couldn’t fit through. There was one moment when I said, “Fede, this is just too tight. I just really don’t see this happening. I can’t even fit through it.”
As I was going through the mockup, the pieces were moving and he said, “Yeah, I understand, but you are not an actor. These actors are much smaller than you. We’re going to be able to make it work.” And that’s what we did. Once the actors got in it, they were feeling claustrophobic. We had to create the roof panels that could come off at any time. So you’d be standing over the actors being like, all right, they need a break, and let ’em stand up for a moment and breathe. It was definitely tight.
The cockpit was the same way. Fede’s initial brief on that set was, “I want it to feel like when you’re 16 years old, you get your car for the first time and you take a whole bunch of buddies to that first outing. It’s that first hangout. You’ve got everybody in the car and everybody’s piled in over the backseat.” That’s how I want that cockpit to feel. So, that one definitely just started coming in on us, and it was a challenge with all the logistics of shooting in that one. I think it felt right because then in the film you see floor, wall, ceiling, you kind of feel it all.
You got the grime and beauty you hope for from an Alien movie. Which flaws did you want to empathize for beauty?
To me, the beauty in the Alien films is that they use space and the idea that it’s not slick. They are utilitarian vehicles that are used every single day, and they’re not just this one-off. So for me, that’s where I get the most satisfaction is painting a set, sanding a set, grinding a set, repainting the set, and getting all of those characteristics. We might put graphics on a wall and then peel ’em off, so you get that leftover. Then we’ll go over it again. There was a lot of that within the set.
A lot of furniture polish and stuff to just bring out the highs and lows of every set. What we’d do is, we’d go with what we call “the strike zone,” where we were going to be filming mostly. We’d put a lot of energy into that, and then we’d transition out a little bit where we knew we were going to be further away from it. So, it was important that we utilize the craftsmen, the carpenters, the painters, the set dressing, everything was touched.
The colony is a big location yet a claustrophobic environment for the characters. Where’d your work start with that location and how did it grow?
Well, we started with a massive location scout in Budapest of any cool space we could find. We also scouted deep pit mines where they were mining coal. At one point, we were going to film inside one of those mines. When we transitioned into building the set with the trailers and all of that, we did it in the backlot, but we had so much good reference from a real deep pit, dark dirt, muddy machinery.
The grimness of that location started evolving and becoming what was actually out there. What we chose was a power plant outside of Budapest, that was an actual operating power plant. Where we’re shooting in that particular scene was the cooling vents. So, that set with the steam and all of that, that was actually operating a real power plant.
When we were scouting it, the representative for the power plant said, “Just so you know, we can’t turn it off.” We’re going to have sound issues. It’s going to be wet. Some mornings you wake up and the wind’s blowing the wrong way. This whole thing could be fog. And they actually had landing strip lights coming into that location just for the workers, because some days, it was so heavy that you couldn’t see. A lot of that stuff we brought into the set, we realized the practicality of that, and then we introduced it to the real set.
Then we ended up going into that particular space and building out the colony affairs office within that space. They let us in the inside yard of that, and that’s where we created that crop field with all the lights, all the dressing, and all of that kind of stuff. It became a real location built in.
The area where they walk up to the trailers, that was all done on the backlot. We brought in hundreds of tons of dirt and created the backlot, landed the trailers, and then groomed it all for the ships coming down. We brought in vehicles from Ukraine as the rovers that were driving around. It was a fun build.
So you took advantage of the problems created by the power plant?
Absolutely. Every day was kind of like a different challenge knowing what we were going to be up against, but Fede is very much into what’s not easy, but what’s best for the show. Everybody, we just figured the pluses and minuses and went for it.
Was the scene in the mine shot or not?
No.
The movie spends just the right amount of time in the colony, but was more shot there?
We shot it for what it was and pretty much used everything that we shot there.
It doesn’t look like much blue screen on those sets or, really, many of the sets in the film.
The colony was a big set that we extended with very little blue screen. We really worked closely with VFX and coming up with the concepts and then making sure that what we were offering on the day would transition nicely, individual effects. Fede really didn’t want a VFX movie. He wanted us all to come up with the best way to approach the problem, using practical, visual effects, and miniatures. All of that kind of stuff was kind of the directive at the beginning of the film. We never just leaned on the blue screen.
It was very satisfying to see those choices on a big screen.
Thank you. Yeah, for me too. It was a refreshing take on something that has through the years gone to the other extreme. It was a nice kind of pulling it back and giving a relevance to the first films.
With the timeline, how did you want to bridge Alien and Aliens? Were there certain elements you wanted to show advancing after the first movie?
Well, what we did early on was decided that we wanted to slip in between the two films, so ‘79, ‘86, and at that time, those technologies were cutting edge. What Ridley was doing back then, and what Cameron was doing, was absolute cutting edge. We had to have some restraint on how we designed the sets and built and shot the sets in order to stay within the pocket of those two. It was decided early on that not only do we want to stay in that, but we also want to have sort of a story of starting in the Ridley world and ending in the Cameron world.
We always said the Remus was slightly older, and maybe the Romulus was brought up later on and attached. And when we got into that space, we were able to play a little bit more with the cleanliness and the slickness and all of that. And you see that in the Romulus lab, and the spaces became a little bit bigger, a little more grander. So it was definitely a decision we were cognizant about the whole time without being too obvious.
Not to use a bad pun or anything, but did your experience on Underwater make you feel like you dipped your toes in the waters to make an Alien film?
It definitely prepared me for the set builds and the design aesthetic. I already had a leg up because I’d kind of done an alien [story] underwater. I’m not afraid of big sets or afraid to push the envelope. It gave me the confidence to just go, “You know what? Let’s just design and let somebody tell us it’s not possible.” So that’s how I proceeded with Alien.
I had the support of Disney and obviously had the support of Fede and the producers. We just pushed as hard as we could until we hit that breaking point where it wasn’t doable. We’d rethink or renegotiate or come up with a different plan. But the idea was always to push as hard as we could, and that’s exactly what I did on Underwater. I was already in that mode.
What was an example of reaching a breaking point and realizing what wasn’t possible?
Well, size became an issue because of limited stage space. We had to get clever on how we could fit all these sets within a certain amount of space and how we would have to strike one set to turn it into another. For instance, the Romulus Bay was turned over a couple times in order to create a new set out of it.
We did that through reshifting the set and flipping it around, adding an elevator or adding a different staircase, bringing in machinery and all of that in order to tweak it a little bit. But what happens is you certainly don’t have endless funds or time to do that stuff. On a practical level, you were kind of bound by what you could accomplish within the timeframes.
Alien: Romulus is now playing in theaters.
