Alien Contextual

I'm going to be looking at Ridley Scotts' Alien(1979). When it comes to films there are more that one persons artistic licence at work. To list a few the Script writer, Director, Concept artist, Costume Designer and Editors, The list goes on.

I choose to look at Alien because it first links to my Being Human project, secondly its a great example of story coming to life thanks to the directer ( Ridley Scott) and concept artist (H.R. Giger).

Thanks to Giger for designing the iconic Alien we know and love today. Giger is the person that came up with the original concept art for the alien and sets.

 

The screen writer's O'Bannon and Giger shared a common influence in HP Lovecraft. Due to the timescale of production and the budget, Giger would get upset due to the limitations he had, for example he wanted to make separate pieces for inside the Alien spacecraft but sadly due to the budget, they had to reuse pieces in different angles to create different areas. Giger's Alien manifested from his own nightmares. Giger may be not with us but his legacy life on with Giger's Alien still as scary as it was when it was first shown and still seen a lot of in present day. For example Alien isolation and Mortal Kombat X. 

Ridley Scott Directed Alien and I believe he recreated Horror as a genre, with the way it was filmed. The Alien not being shown till much later in the film with only showing parts of alien and only for spilt seconds. Keeping the mystery and tension, The film keeps to the horror setting by having mostly dark scenes, using these scenes to their advantage.  

But with the use of close ups and cuts done to give us slow terrifying scenes and jumpscares. But Ridley Scott Delieves on both and to this day yes its aged but still great by today standards. But the mistakes you see today were over looked due to the horror on screen, back before you could pause. 

 For example you can see the blood pipe in the chest burster scene. the pipe would of been used to pump al the blood out. 

When it comes to film making I am wanting to follow some of the techniques of story telling Ridley Scott does. Like the way he doesn't show the alien fully to later. In my project I am wanted to keep the mutantions hidden till later.

Being Human: Digital Arm Concepts

I have farer developed my designs, I am yet to narrow the characters down to three but here are the arm concepts for them.
Joy's concept, a blade that resembles light. To note the mutations are all formed from a material harder then steel.

The arms have a passive state of a regular arm but can be triggered into to its weapon state by the user's emotions.

sadness' concept, The arm looks as it is flowing like water. As the arm can move like liquid metal.

Fear's concept, razor sharp claws with spikes running all the way along the arm as defences.

Being Human: Arm concepts

I have chosen the designs  I am wanting to farer develop, I have drawn up larger versions of the design like I have done before with anger.

For sadness I choose this design as i thought it looked free flowing like water and I think it could be used well as a defence. I think of sadness as failing so that i wanted to create a design that can protect those around them. 

For Joys design, I thought the other design was too basic and didn't think it could useful. So I went with the sword arm design as I think of knights fighting to fight to protect what they care about.















 For Fear the design I choose i felt it represented what fear is all about, being in a spiked shell. Trying to escape and aggressive if approached.

Being Human: First character Concepts

I have done rough concept drawing using my chosen arm concepts, but because I've done that i have four character. I will be narrowing down to three so that I can make the characters a Freud Trio. The designs are based roughly of myself.
The Main character is called Rob, he is represents anger and Ego. The leader of the group

Rob's Best friend Steven, he represents Sadness and Super Ego. despite being sadness the word of reason

The third wheel Simon, He represents Fear and most likely the character I shall be dropping as he doesn't fit into the Freud Trio. 

The friend you can always relay on Kevin, he represents Joy and ID. Kevin and Steven may not always get along (due to ID and Super Ego conflicting) but friends to the end.

Being Human: First Arm concepts

With the use of Plutchik's wheel of emotions, i have used the links of the colours to the emotion I am trying to materialise. For example Sadness is blue, Anger red and Fear is green.
These are my first concepts on what the arms could look like. I will narrow down the designs to one per emotion, to then farer its design, like I've done for anger already. There is a bigger concept drawing of anger which i did before my digital concept which shall be on the bottom of this post.
My next step is to draw up the digital versions.

Being Human- concept and exploration

With the use of using a piece of my own life drawing as a basic. I have drawn my first concept of the arm i am wanting to create. With the goal being to make it seem mutated and distorted in a way, using wheel of emotions to base colour on and how it shaped.

I started with anger and this is the result:-

I showed my concept drawing around and told people the meaning of why the hand is all distorted. From showing people I was told to look into the 1982 "The Thing"

The Thing is a horror film in which a American research base is listed by a alien that assimilate Anything it touches and has the ability to disguise its self as a human (wolf in sheep's clothing). The alien like my concept distorts its limbs to attack. I am yet to watch this film. I was automatic drawing, after I was done I then went back tiding up this was the result.

Being Human: Three levels of Consciousness and the three parts of the mind

The mind can be dived into three systems, the conscious mind, the subconscious mind and the unconscious mind.

The Consciousness mind is your awareness, being aware of your environment and some specific mental functions, for example your breathing.

The Subconscious mind consists of accessible information (memories that are readily brought into consciousness). You can become aware of information once you direct your attention to it. for example smelling sun cream might bring back memories of the beach. If for example you have retain of walking to school and back everyday. The conscious information becomes subconscious information, so that you can walk home without being aware of your surroundings.

The Unconscious  mind is a part of the mind we can't access but is the core of what makes us who we are. Durring our childhood we acquire countless and experiences that form us. The unconscious forces drive our behaviours. Its believed  that thoughts and feelings never leave and that they are stored here

The three levels of consciousness concept was made by Sigmund Freud, true lots of his work has been proven wrong but to this day is the most influential person in modern culture. His work is still inspirering people today, For example me.

Sigmund Freud believed within these three levels of conscious, the mind was made of three parts the Id, Ego, Super Ego and believed that the inner conflicts between them formed our personalities.

The Id is your instinctual desire for instant gratification of your wants and needs. This is the part of your mind that's impulsive, emotional, that seeks pleasure and gets aggressive when it doesn't get what it wants right away. The Id is the first part of your mind to be formed, that's young kids will for example throw tantrums if they don't get what they want. The Id makes decisions based off of the pleasure principle.

The Super Ego represents the conscience, dealing with one's sense of morality. It operates based on the idealised version of one's self and even self criticises, if  one fails to live up to those ideals. The Super Ego makes decisions based off of morality.

The Ego is the most conscious part of our minds and it's what mediates between the conflicting wants of the Id and Super Ego. The Ego is the part that deals with reality and understand that other people have thoughts, feeling and desires. The Ego will make decisions based of what people will think or the consequences of given action.


In story telling its become a trope (Freud Trio) to have three characters based on Freud's ID, Ego and Super Ego. one character thats emotional and instinctual. Another thats is rational and logical, and one that tries to reconcile between them. This method of story telling is used all the time for example: Star Trek (Ego:Jim, Id;Bones and Super Ego:Spock.) Lord of the rings (Ego;Frodo, ID:Gollum and Super Ego:Samwise.) Supernatural  (Ego:Dean, ID:Sam and Super Ego:Castiel.)

 For my being Human i am wanting to create three characters that follows Freud model of the mind, the Freud Trio. So the character work together and makes them more relatable if not also human.

Being Human- Human feelings

When it comes to being human, I believe that fact we feel makes us human. We have eight basic emotions Joy, Sadness, Trust, Disgust, Fear, Anger, Surprise and Anticipation. Combining this emotions gives us Human feeling. For example Joy+trust=Love. In 1980 Robert Plutchik Constructed a wheel of emotions, that combined two of the basic emotions like the example I gave. Here is the wheel of emotions:-

This quote is very powerful and what I want to bring to my being Human project.

Emotions are shown in more than one way, that what makes us human.