I thought I’d add a quick post as an addendum to previous 2001 Space Odyssey post’s I featured late last year – http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/2008/12/10/2001-a-space-odyssey-1/ & http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/2008/12/11/2001-a-space-odyssey-2/
basically here’s a collection of further reading / Cool stuff.
First up some links regarding the late Harry Lange a former NASA Illustrator whom Kubrick employed due to his extensive astronautical design experience. Harry helped to produce authentic prop and set designs, a sample of his concept art is above.
Read about Harry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Lange_(film_designer) and via his official site here: http://www.harry-lange.org.uk/index.html which has a page dedicated to all the major book’s on Kubrick’s masterpiece http://www.harry-lange.org.uk/products/products.html
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Also of major interest and extremely cool: Joe Mackenzie’s nicely designed tribute site http://www.halproject.com/ which includes the chance to download your very own Hal-9000 screen saver! basically whilst running it will show random samplings of the HAL 9000 monitor animations, very authentic and strangely calming… it’s available for Mac or PC and it’s completely Free!
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And finally… I came across these well rendered 2001 Desktop Icon’s at zyotism.com… So you can now have one of the Discovery’s Pod’s as your Hard Drive Icon! http://www.zyotism.com/aesthetics/iconsets/2001/index.html
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Update: April 2009 - More Resources / Interest at http://www.simonatkinsoncreativearts.com/ – Thanks for the tip Simon!
Before I start I’d like to point out all material is sourced via this amazing Aliens tribute site: http://aliensarchive.tripod.com/home.html. Though it doesn’t appear to have been updated for a some time it’s still extremely extensive, with script revisions, FX info and costume design and detailing – a must read!
So with regards to this post… here we have a small selection of storyboard frames from everybody’s favourite “Vietnam in Space” movie: Aliens – (Directed James Cameron, 1986). Theses samples are taken from across several drafts I believe and were illustrated by artists Roger Dear, Maciek Piotrowski and Denis Rich, apparently these scan’s are taken from the films Laser Disc Release, although full versions (copies?) of the storyboard do crop occasionally on ebay. The first thing you notice is just how close to the final film print they actually are, you can almost hear them! I’ve tried to arrange them in chronological order from top left and across - I’m not sure the final “fueling” thumbnail (bottom row) made it into the film.
As for the film itself, well I think there’s a fair chance that if your reading this you’ve probably seen it more than once. Better than Ridley Scott’s original? well it’s hardly worth arguing over as both will forever be tagged as visionary film making. As for the sequels? Alien 3 nullifies the events of it’s predecessor and ultimately pails into insignificance, though Fincher’s effort does have it’s merits including some great sets and very nifty camera work. Ressurection as with 3 is best enjoyed when you remove all thought’s of the first two movies, it’s watchable nonsense which is more than can be said for you know what….
Here’s a funny clip giving you a insight into James Cameron’s thoughts on that which is unmentionable: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aKnS7CGWNmU
Ridley Scott’s Storyboard for Alien is here: http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/2008/08/26/alien-storyboards/
Following on from the prior post here’s more from Jodorowsky’s gloriously doomed Dune, this time featuring the efforts of Devon’s finest - Chris Foss… nice to feature some of Foss’s work pre-airbrush-gloss!
As before all artwork featured via the excellent http://www.duneinfo.com/
I will endavour to find something original soon!
Top left: “Duke Leto Atreides”
Top right a “Sardaukar” – I still prefer this depiction
Bottom left “Feyd” – played by Sting in Lynch’s 84 Version
Bottom right “Kynes”
All concept Art from Mobieus for the aborted Alejandro Jodorowsky 1976 version of “Dune”. With Mobieus in charge of Costume Design and Storyboarding, Chris Foss taking care of Spaceship’s and Vehicles and H.R.Giger creating the evil Harkonnen Homeworld + a Pink Floyd soundtrack & starring Mick Jagger and Salvador Dali amongst others! it goes without saying this is definitely the greatest film never made. The project stalled when funds dried up and other assorted spanners randomly flew into the creative machine. Truly a project of immense scope and scale – alas never to be, at least not in this Universe!
Read all you need to know about the project, see all the art, interviews and more at this amazing site: http://www.duneinfo.com/ - Thanks Dan for the tip on that! The Mobieus feature is at http://www.duneinfo.com/unseen/moebius.asp
It’s also well worth having a read about Alejandro Jodorowsky himself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jodorowsky -
Also some more at:
Manny Z’s Cininite Blog: http://citinite.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/jean-moebius-giraud/
And the excellent io9.com http://io9.com/5088014/costume-designs-and-storyboards-from-the-dune-that-never-was
Another Frank Frazetta concept painting for the Original 70’s Battlestar Galactica featuring one of his trademark muscular female rumps and some pretty evil looking Cylon Raiders. This is a follow up to the earlier Frazetta/BSG post which Charlie Jane Anders (cheers!) has expanded on over at i09.com – article: http://io9.com/5064127/the-savage-barbarians-of-battlestar-galactica
Also check http://www.galactica.tv/ a very extensive Battlestar Galactica fan site…
