So how was the pandemic? I thought I was going to refurb the blog back there in 2021, still hanging onto the vestiges of what came before. Then some crazy person decided they didn't want to stop being president or something like that? horrible nightmares about people hurting other people for ridiculous reasons. Blanked out on purpose, resurfacing only now in May of 2023 a changed man awed by magic and loss.
Visiting Grand Teton National Park, July 1976
Still working the found object diorama angle with the vintage toy pieces and lots of terraforming with acrylics. This series utilizing 1:87 scale Volkswagen bus vehicles as a metaphor for our family unit, traveling across this great country seeing things many only read about. Such a lucky childhood had we, and young adulthood. And most of adulthood, with things picking up nicely around 2009 when I found my artistic voice again. Several years of hard work later found me directing my own gallery at a pinnacle venue for the Central New York Arts Continuum, for five years. Last show was incredible, will find some pictures to finally share up. We had so many incredible shows, so proud of all we managed to do there with so many talented and hard working people.
Visiting the Yellowstone Hot Springs, July 1978
All of which ended in March of 2020 when COVID came to town. Our venue closed indefinitely. I relocated back home to help my elderly parents weather whatever the End of the World was going to be like. I needed to know every day with my own eyes how they were. Phone calls would not suffice. Departed the studio life in Utica NY to shack up in my dad's basement with the spiders, my life in storage.
Which actually wasn't all that bad as long as you had no inclination to go anywhere. Full quarantine for almost three years with grocery deliveries, claustrophobia, endless Syracuse weather, crazy people on the news doing crazier things every day. We got rid of the spiders. Plenty of time to paint or just sit with mom, help my dad as much as he allowed me to. Which pretty much accounts for March 2020 thru November 2022. I hardly remember a thing.
Visiting Two Lights State Park with the Carter's, July 1979
Last winter was impossible, filled with terror and heartbreak which I will speak of in further updates: I need this blog now. The world really did end, and we must craft & rebuild anew. Healing will take a generation and I am a changed man in many ways. But I don't want my old life back, I want a better one, and this is how we start.
Still in my dad's basement though now that's where I choose to be, and my what a difference that can make. I won't leave him to it, and he respects my dedication to my arts quest even if not maybe understanding it. I paint every day and its the strongest work I've yet produced, craft level now very smooth. At night I work on my webs or edit video, maybe play some Quake II. Would like to teach a class about ALIEN, write about art for real, show my paintings to new audiences, and maybe have a gallery to manage once again.
Will be back with more as it happens, and it will. We're good.
Most recent upload YouTube as of this time, discussing current art strategies.
Please do bookmark & subscribe to my channel! all sorts of cool stuff to see, will keep it coming.
New alternate email address is space.trucks1138@ gmail.com
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Will remove these notations when it can be shared publicly. Thank you!!
(Note - This first part intended as a "pitch" for the class, written during two sessions on two different days and may need re-compositing. Some of it may also be repeated in the class breakdown section.)
Introduction
This is a proposal for a semester long participatory lecture class regarding the conception and filming of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film ALIEN, outlining the cultural influences which suggested the ideas; the background and preparation of the filming material; the production of making the film; and its continuing influences on popular culture & filmmaking in general.
The course should include digital projected screenings of both the original Theatrical Print and the somewhat different 1999 Director’s Print of ALIEN in a manner that would not take away from class periods. The course sessions are designed to run about 50 - 90 minutes each, once a week for however many weeks would be required. My vision would be to have the class meet somewhat later in the day on a Thurdsay or Friday so participants would be finishing their class routine with something enjoyable they would not want to miss.
The classes would require routine use of multimedia playback to demonstrate certain sequences from both the film and other media sources which relate to the course. Playback projected a large screen the class is assembled in front of like an auditorium. Video content shown via Quicktime or other video application which would allow the instructor to sequence clips from assorted movie sources manually from remote control as the lecture progresses.
My vision is that the course would be geared towards 2nd or 3rd year students as an art history, film history or aesthetics elective. Students would not be required to be familiar with ALIEN or its franchise to take the course and have an enjoyable learning experience. There would be focus on the model effects work, miniatures work and technical methods used to stage and photograph the film. Equal time would be spent discussing the writing and human performances onscreen, the unique chemistry between the actors and how they translated the written word into the film's visual spectacle.
While the trademark alien science fiction terror which defines the film would be examined, equal if not more time would be spent on how the human world of the future is depicted. Not just onscreen using special effects but through the performances of the very unique and critically acclaimed cast of just seven people. Their world of the future provides the backdrop on which the thrills and terror play, and if we were not convinced of their real world the Alien and all it’s trappings would have just been another R rated movie monster.
We will be frank about our discussions of ALIEN’s implications of Freudian psychosexuality including both the dark netherworld of the creature’s biology as well as the traits and tendencies of the human crew. The film’s narrative allows for a diverse discussion about LBGT+ concepts including a seemingly genderless monster and a crew whose gender roles seem quite different from our own. The film’s hero is female and its monster bears its child within a male. Other surprises await.
And we will have fun with our dialog about the absurdity of the fictional situation which is presented, including the many layers of avoidable failure by ship’s command which resulted in a grinning seven foot tall monster with a steel jaw having a run of their tramp steamer in space. We’ll also go over a few of the film’s red herring tropes including the nagging question of how the monster knew it was time to escape the Nostromo before it exploded?
The class will conclude with a discussion about how ALIEN has impacted the popular culture which made it possible. How more or less every action adventure thriller made since — in space or not — has been influenced by how ALIEN was put together. And a fun look at the trashy ripoffs, spinoffs, and ongoing series of franchise films that have kept us closing our closet door at lights out, lest anything come crawling out.
The course concludes with a 1500 to 3000 word essay describing what the participant may have come away with - A better understanding of a film they admired, or had never heard of? Ideas about how science fiction filmmaking often push against current boundaries of social codes? Ideas about the mechanics of filmmaking or screen writing which they may utilize for their own projects? Or perhaps an insight into the film they hadn’t considered before which may have changed their understanding or impression on the finished film.
I stress again that participants would NOT be expected to be familiar with the film to enjoy and learn from the series. In fact I feel will be just as enjoyable for first timers looking for an interesting elective as for bonafide fans of ALIEN and its subsequent media franchise, which has been in existence as long as STAR WARS. Indeed there wouldn’t have been an ALIEN if STAR WARS itself hadn’t succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations just two summers before.
By the time ALIEN slithered onto screens we were ready for a darker vision of the future, and it’s been a heck of a ride ever since. I’d like to talk about it.
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My very modest collection of ALIEN material, some dating to 1979 and looked after over the years. There are people who have rooms of ALIEN stuff including full size Alien creatures. I wish them luck. Recent video on the collection with commentary on ALIEN in general here or use the embed at the end.
ALIEN Course Class Sessions Outline
Here broken down into an *eleven class series with an option for an extra two two-hour “movie night” or screening sessions to watch the film as a class. Movies are always best seen with an audience, and preferably in a darkened theater type setting. I would imagine the class could handle at least *fifty students per semester or per class grouping, possibly more, for a 50 to 90 minute presentation with active discussion period closing each class. Participants would look forward to being present!
The class could be easily restructured into an *8 or *12 session courses if more or less sessions would best fit curriculum schedule. I can see a pop quiz every other week to see what ideas are sinking in, and the final assignment would be a *1500 to 3000 word essay on their thoughts about ALIEN both pro or con assigned and evaluated in a manner which would reflect upon the content of the course discussions.
* All values subject to modification as per calendar needs, class size capacity, class level or writing proficiency etc. My guess is that it would take a minimum of eight sessions plus the two screenings to supply a meaningful course that would not feel rushed.
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Class Number and Name:
01) Introduction to Ridley Scott’s ALIEN (1979)- An R rated science fiction film which succeeded to the extent of spawning a media empire which stretches to this day, encompassing a series of 15 films or spinoffs, endless television specials, fan fiction, books, videos, websites and merchandise like toys and games which thrives to this day. The course explores *why* ALIEN succeeded rather than fading into obscurity as another medium to low budget monster movie thriller. Somehow it struck a chord, resonated with audiences, and went on to be one of the longest running pop culture franchises.
We also draw the line that the course is concerned only with what takes place in ALIEN, and are not going to be sidetracked by retconned ideas introduced by later sequels. We aren’t interested in what took place in the remakes or the prequels, just the 1979 film as a singular work of art. We will discuss the film franchise it spawned in a later session, but the point is made that we are here to talk about ALIEN and there’s more to go over than one might be aware. The class is also presented from my perspective, who was 12 years old when the film premiered, and represented a step forward into adulthood. The film and I have grown older together and it's still there, as powerful & entertaining as ever.
02) Dark Star, The Star Beast, and Dan O’Bannon - Discusses the early career of writer Dan O’Bannon and his often misunderstood DARK STAR collaboration with John Carpenter from 1974. And how it’s ridiculous beach ball monster and zonked-out surf punk space astronauts evolved into “Star Beast”, O’Bannon’s initial name for what became ALIEN. Also discusses O’Bannon’s character and the agony he went through in some ways literally which manifested itself in the finished film. O’Bannon had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to oversea the production from start to finish and his attention to detail led to frequent confrontations with the film’s producers. Who learned to compromise with O’Bannon, often leading to changes in his script which had impacts upon how the finished story evolved.
03) Precursors To The Star Beast- Dan O’Bannon went on the record that he didn’t just “steal” the idea for ALIEN from anyone, he stole it from everyone. And this segment explores the speculative fiction stories, comics, movies, and even television shows which likely contributed to the ideas harvested by both Dan O’Bannon and director Ridley Scott in conjuring up the scenario which takes place onscreen in ALIEN. The sources come from across the world and back through time right up to cartoons of the early 1970s which appear to have suggested ideas, many of which have been acknowledged by the filmmakers.
04) Small Used Universe Some Days, Isn’t It- An unspoken of fact about ALIEN is that it would never have been made if George Lucas’ STAR WARS had not succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest expectations two summers before. This session takes a look at how 20th Century Fox ended up financing the production, and how their STAR WARS property directly influenced the film’s “Used Universe” look of grungy machines and a cobbled together retrofitted human culture. If we did not believe in ALIEN’s machines we wouldn’t believe the science fiction horror that awaits.
05) Special Forces Behind The Paniflex- Discusses the uniquely talented and now legendary production crew that 20th Century Fox and Brandywine Productions managed to put together in the United Kingdom to undertake bringing ALIEN to the big screen. Director Ridley Scott found the model makers, effects designers, set designers and alien technicians he needed and the unique methods utilized to stage the film became a model for others to follow. ALIEN’s production design defined the later era of practical effects photography and it loaned a look of solidity to ALIEN’s speculative facade that is still convincing forty five years later.
06) Meet The Producers - One of the more infamous tales of ALIEN’s production were the seeming endless clashes between the director and his writer, his producers and their money, and the studio executives who were ready to shut the whole production down and write it off as a loss if the two sides couldn’t function together. The film ultimately went about a month and two million dollars over budget, easily made up when the film proved a box office success. But then began the claims and counter claims for production credits for which blood still boils in certain quarters. Why all the fuss? And did any of the interference actually result in a better movie?
07) To Not So Boldly Go - Let’s meet the cast and ship’s crew of the space tugboat Nostromo, to whom the story happens. Fox’s casting director Mary Sellway pulled together one of the most effective small ensemble casts from the era of taught 70s lower budget thrillers. The cast was diverse, older than we were used to in throw-away thriller films, and their star performer was a woman. The session provides a basic background for each of the actors and a precis on the characters they play. There were only seven, five males and two women, easy to keep track of them. One went on to be perhaps the biggest action star of the 80s and 90s after Rambo or Arnold Schwartzeneggar, and she was a girl.
08) Meet The Star Beast- Your basic 101 on Swiss born surrealist artist H.R. Giger and his bio-mechanical alien life form creations which infest the darkest realms of ALIEN’s dank, mouldering corners. Walks participants through not just Giger’s “biomechanics” based art creations but maps out the practical evolution of the “Star Beast” idea into the three forms of the Alien creature seen in the film. We also talk about the specifics of its toothy menace and the delight audiences have taken in being terrorized by the damn thing. Which I think works great within the context of the film but don’t want grinning at me from the other side of the room.
09) Up Close & Personal: Sexuality and ALIEN - The white elephant in the room whenever discussion about the film comes up … What’d it do to them? And what’s up with all the latent sexualized imagery in the film, including how the human crew is depicted? Opens up the opportunity for a discussion on LGBT+ topics, starting with: Did the Alien have a gender? Is it important? Why did it choose male crew members to impregnate? And what was up with this mixed crew all “sleeping together” during hibernation? Is that a metaphor for a future human civilization where the gender roles and personal relations of human to human have evolved into something different?
10) How Did The Alien Know To Go To The Shuttle? Or “Pardon Me, Mr. Ash, Your Head Just Came Off Again” - The if’s, why’s and great maybe’s of the movie, which will likely turn out to be the most enjoyable discussion of the course. Starting with my favorite question about the Alien: How did it know to go to the shuttle at the end, so that it could escape with Ripley when she blew up the ship? Also, what if Ash the Robot had been a human being. Ash was introduced by producer Walter Hill during a late production rewrite and I agree that he is one of the best things in the film. But what if he had been a human being? What could have motivated him to betray the rest of the crew? And other points of speculation to be thrown back & forth for the 2nd part of the session.
11) Aliens Aliens Everywhere - Takes a look at the nearly endless series of sequels and spinoff films from the franchise and how ALIEN has pretty much influenced every action / adventure / science fiction / horror or thriller film since it was made. If the film has a scene with a dark room you can find a bit of ALIEN if you know what to look for. Then there’s the endless parade of low budget knockoff ALIEN clones, many of which managed to be just as entertaining as the original, especially if they went straight for the gutter.
Ends the course with the participants thinking about “What else do I know looked like ALIEN?” and talk through their recollection of the sessions with other fans & enthusiasts wherever they go. One thing is for sure: Most people have an opinion about the film. They’ll be able to talk it up.
SN 051023
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Steve Nyland (b. January 1967) is an artist living & working in Syracuse NY. Steve obtained his BFA in Media Studies (Experimental Studios) at Syracuse University’s School of Visual & Performing Arts in August of 1992 and his MFA in Studio Arts at State University of New York at Albany in June of 1997. He did post graduate work at SUNY Empire State College in Manhattan NY and has exhibited his artwork across Central New York since 2002, working also as a curator in both Syracuse and Utica NY areas. From January 2015 through May 2020 Steve served as Artist in Residence and Curator for The Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse NY.
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Multimedia Examples
Demonstrations of certain ideas and recurring themes which are applicable to the seminar. Some of these could serve as introductions to a given class. Am currently re-gathering my library of digital ALIEN media sources to prepare clip assemblies to use as multimedia aids for each of the 11 course sessions.
One of the video presentations I would show during the class is this 11 minute reconstruction of the Planetoid Sequence from ALIEN I made in June 2017. Utilizes clips sampled from a dozen media sources with animated still images with a specially mixed audio soundscape. The upload has been monetized by 20th Century Fox as an acquired property and is now entering its sixth year of public screening on YouTube with 188,000 views. Some 3,000 discussion comments on the viewing page, which I am even more proud of than the views: Encouraging a dialog on the film between enthusiasts, some of it quite lively.
Video is workplace safe with no profanity, gore or graphic alien horror. Just guys trudging around in their spacesuits in search of trouble. Rumor has it the original duration of the planetoid scenes ran half an hour with a raging sandstorm that the cast members actually got lost in. Six minutes ended up in the finished film, my video has about four more and took two months to scour the clip sources & work the edits.
Culture of Collection upload from October 2021 - Galoob's Micro Machines diecast ALIEN derelict spacecraft, with video art interlude using footage conjured up at my home studio workshop. Runs 3 minutes.
Very brief upload from May of last year fathoming what variety of miniature spaceman figure HR Giger used when creating scale models of his ALIEN derelict sets. Gotta find em.
Culture of Collection upload with Mr. Ash from Science Division as realized by Funko & Reaction as a 3.75" action figure. Also seen is their Kane figure whose unboxing was pre Space.Trucks era.
Video upload from last week discussing my modest collection of ephemera related to the film. Plus commentary on the movie's many tropes delivered in the voice of my performance art persona Sid Butterball, the Worlds Worst Curator. Runs about eight minutes and has nearly gone "viral" for me with about 400 views as of this update. For me, that's a lot.
Part two of the video series, here opening & reacting to the Parker and Brett action figures seen at the top of this page. More of a Culture of Collection upload but has some insights on ALIEN which could pertain to the curricula.
Additional uploads from my YT channel relating to ALIEN can be found here.
Will continue to expand upon this concept, am already thinking each proposed class section could have its own accompanying video outlining the intended content.
Feel welcome to comment using the page system,
you don't have to sign in to chime in.
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EDIT LOG MAY 2023
05.11 Proposed series title changed to "Ridley Scott and Dan O'Bannon's ALIEN (1979): Its Origins, Implementation and Implications"
05.11 Added video clip of HR Giger using unknown space figures to demonstrate scale models of his ALIEN derelict sets.
05.15 Added Space Jockey image as page header for a more recognizable preview thumbnail.
05.18 Added active email address & fixed a few spwelling errors.
05.18 Fixing syntax errors and improving flow.
05.19 Trying to fathom how to match the fonts in the closing video embeds section, some of which were transcribed using Google Mobile. Never again! Also re-worked the tags/labels to heighten search engine visibility.
05.19 Added the video with Mr. Ash from Science Division. Re-worded and shortened certain passages. The blog got 19 views within 3 hours of amending the tags.
That's Camp Nyland, February 2021 in Syracuse NY. Snowdrift on the picnic table is a passive nature-based sculpture I've been observing all winter, and am eager to see it melt. The COVID 2020 hijinx sent me running from Utica NY back to Syracuse fulltime: Need to have two sets of eyes on my 80+ year old parents every day even if they be my own. Had to choose between waiting out last spring's lockdown here or there and it didn't take much time to decide. Was finally able to move everything back to Syracuse in October and have indeed been making art all the while. The Tech Garden functioned on skeleton staff for nearly all of 2020 and I have not been queried about new show ideas thus far (and have a few in mind for someone, somewhere).
So here we are with little to do but wait, my parents on their 2nd shots next week and I should get mind round about the same time the Herd Immunity kicks in -- Just what I expected, though I will be surprised if life actually does return to "normal" so soon. We did a show about The End of the World at The Tech Garden summer 2018, and were sadly more correct that we thought. The one happy thought is that at the time I'd concluded there's no way our consumer driven society could come to an "end" in the traditional sense of the words. It'd take a swift kick to its collective gonads but walk it off, sort out priorities, and address them. We continue, sadly having lost way too many in a collective tragedy that has left me numb & not knowing what to say until I was ready.
My priority has been making art and I found my groove last year when utilizing space toy forms to overcome my issue with rendering skills. Now I don't have to, and am finally crafting the "playsets" as static diorama like paintings enclosed in assorted boxes. Here's some in varying states of completion.
Boxes are 4x4 inches, all acrylics by Golden's and the space figures all pre-1980. There's something about the vintage forms in particular which fascinates me. "Retro-Futurism", using the forms of the past to draw a possible vision of the future. I also try to only use generic figures -- No Han Solo! or other branded franchise characters, the painting automatically becomes about that character, its franchise and its fan's expectations.
Some of the boxes are planets, some are seascapes, one is a city and my favorites are the swamps & marshes. It's the same objectives to the painting as the Frog Ponds were c.2018, with the focus on use of materials and "surfacing" rather than sketching out a landscape. The substances accrete over a period of weeks, and these figures won't necessarily go into these boxes.
I'd rather be using figures I fabricate myself but even a 3d printer would be an investment beyond current means (including a new computer which could run the software) let alone even a basic casting set with centrifuge (!!!). So for the time being I'm using other people's space people and their vintage pedigree is part of the formula, favored companies being non-character figures by Marx Toys, MPC / Multiple Toymakers, Tim Mee Toys, LP / Lik Be Plastics & Metal, and anonymously made copies thereof. I also try to only paint figures which have damage, are visibly playworn, or copies of dubious ancestry that a "real collector" wouldn't care about -- Those are the best! And the disclaimer rule is that No vintage space toys are harmed in the creation of my artwork! Five minutes under a hot water faucet with a toothbrush and they are clean. It's acrylics on plastics so the trick is keeping the paint on the figures.
Display could be on a shelf or hanging, and to make sure the bottoms of the boxes aren't blank I made more of the planet.
Moon
Marsh
Ganymede
Self Portrait
Volcano
Bog
Urban Hipster Space Turtle
Some sort of dispute over parking ...
Chance Encounter
Lost in the Space Swamp
The Lovely Dr. Chandra Lakes, and her ingenious Plutonium Energizer Module. The power of which, in the wrong hands, could destroy entire worlds ...
Crackle Paste, Glass Bead Gel, Clear Granular Gel, Cobalt Blue, Green Gold Fluid Acrylics, Iridescent Acrylic Blue Green and Pearl, buckets of Micaceous Iron Oxide, Matte Heavy Gel Medium and Clear Tar Gel (love it!!), Pyrrole Orange Fluid Acrylic and Cadmium Orange Red for space suits, Iridescent Copper Light Fluid and Iridescent Copper Fine in full body for priming the plastic figures (the bits of ground up metallic looking stuff sticks better), Iridescent Stainless Steel for gritty "used universe" metallic surfaces, Bone Black Fluid Acrylic for darkening tones, Carbon Black Fluid Acrylic for outlines, Indian Yellow Hue Fluid Acrylic for that Martian sky, and cotton wadding for volcano ejecta or atmospheric inversion. Just in case you were wondering what I'd used. Boxes nicked off Amazon at 12 for $25. Go Fish.
