Chris Foss' derelict designs inspire Firefly?

leading from

Alien echoes

a) On the 10th of December 2013, "Matfink" said to me on my blog "Amazing similarities between derelict 1 and the design of Serenity's Firefly..." and seeing an immediate connection I decided to take a further look


b) One of Chris Foss' initial concepts for the derelict ship showed a long bodied vehicle with a thick barrel shaped part in the middle of its body and from that part the front of the ship rose up as if it has a bird like neck sloping upwards ending in something that would be the head with an almost beak like nozzle.

concept for derelict Chris Foss

c) In 2002, a few years after Joss Whedon wrote the script for Alien Resurrection featuring a band of space pirates aboard a relatively small spacecraft called The Betty, he went off to make his TV series Firefly followed by the cinema movie Serenity. The main space craft was the Serenity that was a Firefly class ship. It looks slightly similar to the front half of the derelict concept art by Chris Foss, with the barrel part as mentioned forming the main body of the ship which also has a half raised  bird like neck ending in a beaked head.

d) First impressions about Foss's concept is that it resembled an oversized prawn and the Serenity from Firefly has the general shape of a bird with its wings replaced by engine arms and the head has evolved into something almost reptilian. Other concepts for the Serenity ship Firefly went in other directions.

Serenity. Early Concept Design by Carey Meyer, courtesy of Rocco Passionino.
Source: Firefly- Still Flying Titanbooks.com

The Serenity

The Serenity

remains of a large version of the Serenity spacecraft ( source io9 ) 

Read More

Vidocq

Leading from

alien resurrection

a) Pitof's movie "Vidocq" was released in 2001. It featured the 19th Century detective Vidocq hunting down an ancient alchemist who was using magical means to kill various people. Vidocq tracked the alchemist to his layer where hung many dozens of bodies inverted from the rafters and their blood dripped down a network of pipes and ducts into an iron womb like tank below to feed this strange featureless mirror mask inside. There was an idea from a script by Joss Whedon for Alien Resurrection in which in there was in the queen alien's lair , many the victims upside down in cocoons with their blood dripping down into the pool where the Queen lay with her womb about to give birth to the Newborn and the blood was feeding the Newborn creature. 

Sylvain Despretz conceptart for the queen's layer in Alien Resurrection

b) Pitof worked in the special effects department for Alien Resurrection and was a well known collaborator of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's having worked in his previous films. In fact there were talks with Pitof with the idea that he would be directing the fifth installment for Alien, but he bowed out and made his detective action movie Vidocq. Seeing the movie, one might wonder if he actually borrowed at least one idea from the Alien Resurrection production and expanded on it.  The film enabled the director to have a brief stint with Hollywood with his ill received movie Catwoman. Vidocq over the years, despite not being a film much talked about years later did retain a cult following.

hanging dead bodies in Vidocq

inverted head of hanging dead body in Vidocq

visible arms of a hanging dead body in Vidocq

inverted hanging dead body in Vidocq

blood trickling down into bowls

bowls collect blood that enter an iron womb

the alchemists lair

c) The Alchemist mask leading to the Deacon?
And then looking at the ways ideas flowed further into the distance of time, one might look at the possibility that this film Vidocq might have been a noteworthy movie to take notice of when it came to exploring the future of Alien concepts as much as it did for me.  I personally had the idea of having an alien with this creature's featureless face because it got to the point where thinking about the face of the Alien, one had to step back and realise that there was no way to make any further impact beyond what Giger had given us with the Alien's face in cinema.   

In 2012, the images of the Proto-Alien are revealed as designed by a group of designers followed Ridley Scott's ideas and the head is seen by numerous people to resemble a cycling helmet with a smooth featureless face. This creature was nicknamed by Ridley Scott as the Deacon and he thought that the point of the head was the evil Deacon's mitre. I thought that the answer I had for designing a new face seemed to reach a similar situation. And this mask of the alchemist ended at the top in a point slightly like that of the Deacon's but not at long

Read More

Did Pablo Gargallo's horse sculptures inspire Salvador Dali's Autumnal Cannibalism?

leading from

Salvador Dali

Top left: Gargallo's "Urano", (1933)
bottom left: Gargallo's "Petit cheval de cirque " (1932).
Right: Salvador Dali's "Autumnal Cannibalism" (1936)

In an issue of Tate Magazine around August 2001, Jason Rosenthal revealed a previously unacknowledged source for Dali's iconic painting 'Autumnal Cannibalism' as being Pablo Gargallo's bronze sculpture "Urano", however the body itself look so directly like the form of the horse that was buried in Dali's painting.

On Jan 17th 2014 I found an image of Gargallo's "Petit cheval de cirque " which when it has parts of it mixed with parts of "Urano". The back leg and lower part of the stomach seemed to have lended themselves much more openly to Dali's needs

Read More

Giger and the tale of the Scarecrow

leading from

Development of Giger's art

sketch from 1961 published in the book Giger ARh+

As a child, HR Giger was told the story of a scarecrow and the impressions that it left followed him through life and he noticed that it occasionally found its way into his artwork. He thought that this stake-bound life showed him the senselessness of existence, and existence better never begun. Many of his works reflected this hopeless state of enslavement which left no room for religious beliefs  He lived much of his life with a nihilist point of view but towards the end of his life, he actually felt quite fulfilled.

Sources Quotes

1. HR Giger: The first impaled figure to fascinate me as a child was a living scarecrow in a local fairytale, which I made my mother read me again and again. I think this stake-bound life, for whom redemption meant death as soon as possible, showed me the senselessness of existence. An existence better never begun. Many of my works reflect this state of hopeless enslavement which leaves no room for religious beliefs.  (Giger ARh+ , p26, 2001)
2. Petra Wallace, via email : In HR Giger ARh+, you speak of a story your mother used to tell about a scarecrow, and how it spoke to you as a child about the "senselessness of existence". Do you still feel that existence is worthless today? Or, given the passing years, has life become more important to you? Does life make more sense the older you get?
   HR Giger:The story you are referring to is a fairy tale which impressed very much in my early youth and has followed me through life. Such dark fairy tales left quite an impression with me at the time. It has occasionally also found its way into my work. I actually do feel quite fulfilled with my life these days. (Bizarre Magazine  #195, 2012)

Read More

The Windowlickers I, II & III

leading from

Development of Giger's art.

 

a) Windowlickers I, II & III (lithographs 1999)
Giger created the Windowlickers series of drawings in 1999 according to the Giger 2001 diary by Taschen. Drawings from this year have 999 merged with 666 as if they are loops with two hooks. The first one shows the terrible mask with penises coming down the side and flowers around the upper part of the head. The second shows heads with the same face hanging in the air with beards of long whispy hairs. One platted the other sticking out in the form of spikes.  As if they were shrunken heads. The third in a series is a toilet bowl with perhaps flowers around the seat

When I first picked up the HR Giger diary by Taschen in 2001, and noticed the Windowlickers drawings by Giger, I assumed it was a homage since he might have been so inspired by what he saw in a photo or the video and still do today, whatever the truth might be.

The Windowlickers I (1999) (source https://plus.google.com)

The Windowlickers II (1999) (source https://plus.google.com/)

The Windowlickers III (1999) (source https://plus.google.com)

b) Windowlickers video for Aphex Twin with special thanks to Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis
The video for Aphex Twin's Windowlickers is often said to have been made in 1998 but it's definitely known to have been released in March 1999. There is one character who is the most ugliest of the women who are all ugly with caricature masks of Richard D James. This one has flowers in her hair and side plats suspended in the air. The masks were sculpted and designed by Paul Catling and Jordu Schell worked on masks and hair as well. Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis are thanked in the final credits.

c) Giger involved in Windowlickers rumour hits the media
Since then it has come into people's beliefs that H R Giger created the concept the design of this one mask which I might assume was based a concept by Chris Cunningham's. It has got to the point where the Guardian newspaper believes this and even Creativereview.co.uk have jumped onto the idea of Giger's involvement as well. However Giger has not talked about any involvement in Chris Cunningham's videos and the nearest thing he had said of any acknowledgement Cunningham's work was when he admitted in 2000 in an interview for Esoterra magazine #9 to being a fan of the "Come To Daddy" video by Chris Cunningham for Aphex Twin and we have the Windowlickers drawing too. Chris Cunningham who has been a sculptor for the Alien costume for ADI in the Alien 3 production and concept designer for Alien Resurrection has not talked in interviews about working with HR Giger at all let alone asking him for a concept drawing. Perhaps Giger , if he were involved, would have taken the project a little bit more seriously than just the evidence that we've seen, and would have offered side views etc and have some concern about what was to be made of his design considering that what amounted to generally being the ADI team were involved. It might be a issue over a single mask briefly used in a single pop video but as a fan of Chris Cunningham's music videos and a fan of the work of HR Giger this matter is of importance to me. Before I believe that Giger was involved in the actual video's concept design rather than an appreciator of the imagery afterwards, I want some hard information, none reveals itself

Source Quote

1. R.F. Paul:  What about electronic music?
   
   Giger: No, not too much. I like Aphex Twin though. Come to daddy is very good. Very amusing. (Esoterra #9)
2. A still from the video for the 2005 song Windowlicker by Aphex Twin. Original conceptual art by HR Giger. (http://www.theguardian.com)
3. The two women, among others, accompany James in his limousine while their faces morph into James' own likeness, and are later joined by a woman with a horrifically ugly, buck-toothed, deformed face, which is a likeness of a sketch by Swiss artist H. R. Giger titled "The Windowlickers". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowlicker)
4. He would work on other projects ("Poltergeist II: The Other Side," "Species," as well as uncredited stint on the video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker") but it's "Alien" (and the franchise) that he'll be remembered by film fans for. (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/rip-h-r-giger-1940-2014-watch-2-hour-20-minute-documentary-on-the-making-of-alien-20140513)
5. Until towards the end of the song when the booming bass part comes in and there is a heavily deformed, buck toothed Richard James’ face based on HR Giger’s sketch “The Windowlickers” (http://www.director-file.com/cunningham/aphex-twin/)
6. In 1999 a sketch by Giger also made its way into one of the most infamous music videos of all time – Chris Cunningham's unsettling ten-minute epic for Aphex Twin track, Windowlicker. Called The Windowlickers, Giger's original grinning face became one of the Aphex Twin 'masks' adopted towards the end of Cunningham's film; the most bizarre of them (if that's possible) and the only one that differs from the legion of Richard James faces. (The masks in the film were designed and sculpted by Paul Catling.) (http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2014/may/hr-giger)
   

Read More

X files Season 6, Episode 1. The Beginning

a) Gillis and Woodruff were given the task of creating the vicious creature that would become a stereotypical grey in X Files Fight for the future and the creatures final transformation into the grey would occur in the X Files Season Six, episode 1 that would carry on the story that took place.

b) Dan O'Bannon came up with the idea that a victim would be implanted with a foetus and it would be used as a host for this thing. The creature, known as the chestburster is the Alien's second stage, and it simply runs about eating, mindlessly carnivorous. It's tremendously hungry and needs to reproduce. But at this stage, the creature is still controlled and nurtured by adult aliens. It then grows to maturity with incredible speed, until the chestburster begins losing appendages and becomes more and more harmless. Finally, its bloodlust gone, the Alien becomes a mild, intelligent creature, capable of art and architecture, which lives a full , scholarly life of 200 years.  In the movie, the chestburster's transformation to the near human sized alien is implied by the discovery of the chestburster's skin

Brett discovers the shedded Chestburster's skin in Alien

c) Gillis and Woodruff went ahead and basically used to this general concept to further the idea of the alien grey's life cycle without mentioning the source of the ideas and those who would have known enough about Alien would have wondered what's going on here.

d) A human becomes infected, he dies and the creature draining the body of all it's proteins etcetera bursts out through the victims chest.

 

The creature soon sheds its skin in a way similar to the discovery of the skin shed by the chestburster in Alien

The wild alien creature in the nuclear reactor pool begins to shed its skin to finally become an adult grey.

Shedding the skin on its fingers

The creature sheds the skin of its face finally revealing the face of the new adult grey within. We never got to see the adult version of the alien creature as Dan O'Bannon might have imagined it.

Read More

Giger's letter to Twentieth Century Fox no.2 (December 19, 1997)

GIGER'S SECOND LETTER TO: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FROM: H.R.GIGER December 19, 1997 However Twentieth Century Fox is maneuvering its way through the legal issues in order to keep HR Giger far away from proper credit and profit, one thing is certain: the Biomechanical style of HR Giger in any Alien sequel is obvious to everyone. No future Alien copyist or imitator will be able to hide that fact. The Alien Lifeforms, environments, the whole Alien world is created and copyrighted under the law by HR Giger. This is confirmed in the Academy Award of 1980 for "Best Achievement for Visual Effects." I reserve all rights to my own intellectual property. The copyrights granted to Fox are only for the uses which have been contracted and paid for. In regards to the new Alien development called the Newborn, it is just another Giger design, which you will realize when you look beneath the shell of the adult Alien head, as seen in the photos on page 60 of my book. The human skull under the face has been exposed and the creature's sinewy body has been contaminated by deformed features. Fox, however, tries to deny HR Giger's influence. No objection was ever voiced to the title of the book named after its mentor "HR Giger's Alien", published by Sphinx in Basel and Big O in London. It would have been wise for Fox to add my name into the main and final credits, immediately, five weeks ago. For every day that passes without this embarassing wrong-doing being fixed the damage grows. Since Fox refused my request for a screen credit, I have received hundreds of e-mail messages from Alien fans, all of them stating what an outrage it is that hundreds of million dollars are made on Giger's Alien but that his name could not be mentioned among the several hundred other names, even in the credits. Tom Woodruff's Alien design style is simply "HR Giger's Biomechanical". Woodruff, an excellent effect specialist, said about his "Alien Viper's Nest" : "It is like an HR Giger's painting come to life." Yes it is. It has been newly stolen from my book "Necronomicon". As photographed from above, you will see that it is a section of my painting "Passagen-Tempel / Eingangspartie" (Passage Temple / entrance section) Work # 262. This painting existed three years before the first Alien movie had even started to be filmed. During my participation on the first Alien, Fox was permitted to use my books as a guide and my book "Necronomicon" was Ridley Scott's bible. There can be no Alien sequel, not even in the future, that is not influenced by H R Giger's Biomechanical style. (at present the only source for me for this letter is http://jingleheimerschmidtj.tripod.com/giger.html)

Read More