ParagonsParagon

ALIEN  SPACE CRAFT IN MICHIGAN

( model by Ted Rae)

In Rochester Michigan I am setting up a forced perspective (photo below)  for the scene when the Alien first lands on the planet to retrieve the zoo specimens from the big mother ship seen later in the film “The Alien Factor”. Directly below this top photo  is the actual result of this set up.

(Please excuse the images the scanner isn’t working properly)

The vertical stick is holding the white space ship up.

Forced Perspective result above off view screen

NEXT ARE  SOME ACTUAL FILM CLIPS FROM FOOTAGE OF THE ORIGINAL  ” LEMOID CREATURE “THAT WAS NOT USED IN THE MOVIE

 The creature was supposed to be a ” “ghost like”energy thing that goes from invisible to visible at the end of the movie.  The reason for the “ghost” idea was so that it could be a double exposure which would keep the special effects simpler and less expensive to do. Britt McDonough did the armature, creature and the original special effect battle.  I ran  his version (which was on on a short version of the movie) for friends and relatives in order to raise  extra money necessary for our 35mm print.

Don somehow got Ernie Farino to do another version of the Lemoid  battle. Ernie had already done  the title credit  sequence.

(Ernie Farino’s Lemoid )

   Britts Lemoid was replaced. I do not think that was very fair to Britt and I am embarrassed that I did not fight to keep his version. Sometimes “right” is more important than “might” , or in this case a product made by a more experienced person. Yes, Ernie’s is pretty cool. However, I never asked Britt how he felt about what happened.  Maybe he was totally in favor of doing the switch and it never bothered him? I know it would of bothered me!

I might have some footage of Britts  original version , but like all this material in my blog  it is someplace in storage. I’ll keep my eyes open for it in my good ole pile of goodies. It is only available on certain Alien Factor DVD’s  as part of an “extras” package.

HERE ARE SOME MORE FILM CLIPS OF BRITTS LEMOID IN ACTION

ERECTOR SET ARMATURE

OK,  I am just tossing this armature photo  in . I think the armature  is one of Britts and it might even be for the Lemoid. I honestly can not remember.

Here is Britt with some of his other creatures. He was a great guy to do movie projects  with. We worked well together. As noted in previous articles; together we built the mother ship model, did lobby cards in his darkroom, and he was our cameraman. He used his Bolex  Rex 16mm to shot the movie.

KEEPING WARM

Since I am on the topic of Britt here is a neat photo of how he had to keep the camera warm by wrapping it in a blanket. Baltimore had one of their coldest winters that year. He is shooting a scene that takes place just before the mayor(Dick Dyszel)  gets killed.

Speaking of COLD here is HOW MONSTERS  STAY  WARM in the woods before they attack. That is Larry Schlechter in his Infrabrice suit. It was kind of a hard shell paper mache type suit.

KEEPING RESTED

Our ladder that we used for high camera shots  came in handy as a leaning post for a tired Zagatile.. The creature  suit kept me warm, but my fingers got pretty cold. Monsters were not allowed in houses so they toughed out the cold. Just kiddin.  The truth is it simply was too much trouble to walk on the stilts back to the house, or get out of the suit, so I just waited for the next camera set up most of the time all by my lonesome.

HOW A ZAGATILE  LEARNS A NEW WALKING PATH

Don is about to take my hand and WALK me out of one area and over to another. The stilts, besides being tough to walk on,  had  feet  that weighed about ten pounds each.(the feet were constructed over ski boots)  When I walked I could only see out of slits in under the Zagatiles eyes (half moon slits) which limited my vision to  right in front of my toes at best. It was almost like being blind.  The eyes of the Zagatile were marbles that blocked most of my vision.

John,

Thanks for coming to my blog and if you want to learn more about me you are welcome to visit my carpet repair web page cosentinocarpet.com

John,