All language subtitles for MasterClass - James Cameron Teaches Filmmaking 05.Aliens Egg Chamber Breakdown Eng

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The moment in aliens
when Ripley's running

through the station and
everything's blowing up

and it's on fire and she runs
through a kind of wall of steam

and she finds herself in a
room, a big chamber surrounded

by alien eggs and looking at
the egg laying creature itself,

seeing its giant egg sack,
seeing the creature itself,

and everything goes very quiet.

And you're in this kind of
a dream within the greater

dream of the movie, this kind
of very dream-like out of body

kind of moment where
everything's in slow motion,

and it gets very quiet.

Even though you know the
explosions are going off

and all sorts of
stuff, you're suddenly

in this subjective reality.

That came from a dream where
I went into a dark room,

I walked to the center of the
room, and I looked around.

And as my eyes adjusted
to the darkness,

I realized that
every square inch

of the walls and the ceiling
were covered by wasps,

and I knew I couldn't make it to
the door before they got to me.

So I just froze.

And I don't remember what
happened next doesn't matter,

but the point is that
idea of suddenly realizing

you're in an extremely
threatening space

and the only thing you can do
is freeze and think your way out

of it was the nucleus of an idea
that then got turned into what

ultimately became the first
encounter with the alien queen

in the egg chamber,
which stylistically

is an interesting
scene, because I

wanted to capture that feeling.

Know what it is
that you're feeling,

that you want the
audience to feel, and then

start talking to people
and figuring it out

and experimenting
around and figuring out

how to convey that
feeling to your audience.

All right so we're jumping
way forward in the film now.

There at the atmosphere
processing station.

Everything's blowing up.

So it's very loud.

I

Mean, we're literally
spinning the needle

in the sound design in the mix.

We're in the red.

Explosions are happening,
and she's running.

We're mixing very subjective
handheld moving shots

with fire, with explosions.

Were blowing cork
chunks from air mortars,

and we're blasting
her with shots

from CO2 fire extinguishers.

And we've got fire
gel burning, and we're

shaking the camera
to suggest that it's

a kinetic, very frenzied
kind of sequence.

We're on a fairly
long lens here.

It's hand-held,
fairly long lens.

I can't tell you right now.

I don't remember.

It might be a 50 or 60 mil.

We're handholding it, and we're
walking backwards with her.

So it's very shaky.

We feel that sense of the
energy of the whole place coming

apart.

Sound design has been
very loud and concussive

and lots of camera shake.

And it all fades away, and
the only thing that's left

is this kind of droning
sound and the breath.

Now the whole place is still
shaking and blowing up,

but we've just gone into an
altered state of awareness.

And the speed ramp--

we used to call it a speed trap.

Now you do it as a digital post
effect to change the speed.

So we've gone from 24
to 48 frames a second.

So we're in slow motion.

We're in an extreme
close-up on Sigourney

that she's walked
into, and she's looking

around seeing something.

She's seeing it before.

We're seeing it.

So it's the same thing in
the audience's interest.

They're leaning forward.

What is it that she's seeing.

What has stopped her?

She's been running
as fast as you can.

If you're running with the
little girl to get out,

we know that seconds count.

We know the whole place
is going to blow up.

What she's doing doesn't
seem to make any sense.

So there's a strange
nightmarish quality to it.

It's that same
nightmarish quality as

in the nightclub in terminator.

The slow motion is
telling you something,

and it puts you into an
altered state of awareness.

And the sound design is
doing the same thing.

All the explosions
have gone away.

All the steam blasts and fire
effects and deep subwoofer

shape, it's all
gone away, and it's

gone very clear and very thin.

And the only thing you
hear is your breathing.

So something is going on.

What has she seen?

Shit balls.

100 alien eggs and
she's standing right

in the middle of them.

So it's a nightmarish--

it's a nightmarish image.

It's, kind of, her
worst nightmare.

So now so we have the
wide shot, the wide reveal

shot with all the eggs.

And this is like all the eggs
we could afford to build.

If we could do it now
digitally same scene,

it would go on there.

There'd be more eggs.

We'd do a digital extension.

We'd build 10 eggs,
and we'd digitally

extend it with another
couple of hundred

to really hammer the point.

But it plays, and I think
that's a good lesson.

If you can't afford to do a
digital extension of 100 eggs,

make as many as you can,
and it'll still work.

The concept will still work.

So now we just hear
this very echoey kind

of drone and her breathing as
her eyes slowly track around,

and again we're
still in slow motion.

I want you to feel the
anticipatory whatever it is.

It's a joyful experience to
feel strange, anxious emotions

in a movie.

That's what you paid for.

That's what you came here for.

So if you're giving the
audience what they came for,

you extend it.

You stay in that state.

So she doesn't see it yet.

She still hasn't seen it.

Now we're really milking it.

She's turning.

We're still in slow motion.

What are we hearing?

The little pilot light
of her flamethrower,

and that strange machine like
droning that tells you she's

deep in the heart
of the station,

but it sort of
reminds us that we're

deep in the heart
of this insect hive.

She still hasn't seen it, but
she knows it's behind her.

And it's that feeling in a
dream in a nightmare where

you don't want to turn
and you don't want to turn

and you don't want to turn, but
you know you're going to turn.

And the audience plays
the game, and they

know the language of this.

They know it's there.

They know it's there behind her.

So we're even milking
the turn farther.

Now I've punched in, and the
moment where I see her eye

see it is going
to be the payoff,

but we've built to it with,
I think, six shots already.

So I'm focused on her far eye.

When you're on a
lens this long, you

have to pick which
eye's in focus.

And sometimes it's a question
of some debate with the camera

operator.

You got to pick an eye.

Well, we picked that eye,
because we could see it better.

This one's hidden in darkness.

We're not interested
in Newt here.

We're following Sigourney.

So Newt even though she's
right there in the shot,

she's out of focus.

We're following Ripley.

Ripley is about to
meet her nightmare.

So the shot ends when
she has seen something.

We're going to cut to it.

Now we may expect to cut to
something that we recognize,

an alien, but that's not
what we're giving you.

What we're giving you
is something mysterious.

It's the thing that's laying the
eggs, so now that's progress.

Now we're seeing where
the eggs come from.

Her eyes go up,
follow it around.

We see the eggs inside it.

We see it glistening.

We see it moving.

It's a biological thing.

It's not like anything
we've seen before.

We're curious.

We're afraid.

It's still got a
nightmarish quality,

but we're getting there.

We're coming toward
the answer, and we're

several shots into the
sequence of this reveal now.

We're about to reveal
the thing itself.

She keeps looking.

It's mysterious.

It's alien.

It's enigmatic, and it's big.

What this shot tells you,
because we jump back over

her is it's big.

Whatever it is it's big,
and it's mysterious.

I can't even tell
what I'm looking at.

Maybe it's bones.

Maybe it's an insect.

Probably alive, and
yes it's moving.

So now it's going to reveal
itself not only to her

but obviously to us.

And the teeth extend, and
yes it's definitely an alien,

but it's not like anything
we've seen before.

And we immediately go from
that reveal to the reveal

that there's not just one, but
there's a whole army of them.

Ripley immediately knows
that for Newt to survive,

she has to survive.

She has to get out
of here somehow.

And she's surrounded
by alien warriors,

and they're faster than she is.

And they're far more
powerful than she is.

So she's not going to
fight the warriors.

She's going to negotiate
with the alien queen,

and that's exactly
what she does.

So she sees the threat.

She's surrounded by the type
of alien we've seen before.

The setting down of Newt is the
gunslinger pushing their cloak

open to reveal their sixth gun.

She's going to fight.

Or is she?

Now we're in the
queen's perspective.

Now we're seeing the little
human in the egg chamber

from the Queen's
perspective, and she

does something we don't expect.

She opens fire on the eggs,
and the queen's response

is instantaneous.

And the audience
understands what it means.

Ripley's going to burn the eggs.

She hasn't done it
yet, but she can.

She's found the
queen's weakness,

and she points the
gun at the eggs.

There's not a line of
dialogue in the whole scene,

and you see by the gesture
that the puppeteers were

able to create-- now remember,
this is all practical effects.

This is not CG.

You could do it
with CG, and there's

no reason not to or you can
do it with practical effects

like we did here.

And there's a place for--

place for both.

The way the alien queen
lowers its head tells you

that it's intelligent enough to
understand, and she's resolute.

The way Sigourney played
it was that's right.

That's right.

I mean business.

Do we have a deal?

An the alien queen
looks one way,

and Ripley follows and
that warrior backs off.

She looks the other
way and hisses.

She tells the other
warrior to back off.

It's all in gesture.

And Ripley says, OK, I'm
going to take this equipoise,

and I'm going to use it.

And I'm going to get
the hell out of here.

And again, we milk it.

We fetishize the moment.

We make it palpable by doing
an insert of the feet walking

through the slimy roots of
the egg, so that we feel it.

We feel what she's feeling.

We're with her.

We hear what she hears.

We see what she sees.

We feel what she feels,
so we're there with her.

Our hearts are pounding, and
she knows that this truth

isn't going to last.

And then an egg opens.

Now does the queen control
the eggs and when they hatch.

Is to queen is about to
unleash 100 face huggers?

She doesn't trust that the
truce is going to last,

so she says fuck it.

And then it's on.

So from this moment,
because in the queen's mind

Ripley broke the truce it
becomes a revenge story.

It's revenge for her burning--

for Ripley burning her babies.

And what's the
principle at work here?

It's not to two men going at
it to see who is most macho.

It's two women
protecting their children

with the fury of the
protective mother,

and so the conceit here was
it's a different motivation.

It's a different motivation
for a heroic action character

and in this case
Sigourney's character.

It's a different
motivation for a monster

than you've seen before, because
I don't believe in villains.

I believe everybody's got a
reason for doing what they do.

So what was the alien queen's
reason for relentlessly

hunting her down?

This was-- this became a
personal story at this point,

and I think a lot of the
power of it came from that.

So you have to
understand it's not

like I knew going in
exactly every beat of how

this came out.

It was an exploration.

I did a lot of coverage on this.

I tried some things.

I didn't know it was going to
work, trying to speed ramp,

trying this slow motion thing.

I wanted to do something.

I had a goal,
which was to create

that subjective kind of out
of body dreamlike nightmarish

experience.

I didn't exactly know
how to go about it.

I experimented,
talked to the DP.

We figured some stuff
out, and it evolved.

And where it really kicked
up to the next level

was in the sound
design in the mix,

and I remember
right now it was one

of the most satisfying
experiences I've ever

had on a mixing stage
was mixing this scene.

And when we finished it, we
all looked at each other,

and we knew it we'd
done something,

because we had fulfilled the
promise of that nightmare.

[CREEPY MUSIC]