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Kerri Rickard's avatar

There’s a serial show, in its 3rd season now, on Netflix called, “The Movies That Made Us” with an episode about “Aliens” that is pretty helpful to offer up some production, behind the scene info. The narrator is awful, but mildly entertaining. If you watch the beginning on through of Season 3, there’s some pretty good industry info about how movies in the 70’s were being made through some rag tag efforts of people that love to make movies and went on to make ALOT more classics in syfy/horror. Much of the success rested in the hands of the people getting the movies to the movie houses—- super hard hustling right there and lots of favors being called in! The rise of John Carpenter on the series was informative, along with Wes Craven. This was why I got into SFX make-up for 28 years now. I love it. Have make-up kit— will travel & learn!

The best part about where I live is I’m between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Tom Saving’s school for SFX make up is it Pittsburgh along with the areas where many now famous and cult classic films were made. My area and surrounding is full of still working Drive-in’s which, during the pandemic, were the only active places showing films where people could safely gather and feel some sense of normality. My area also has the highest rate of serial killers, haunted houses, and paranormal research. Wee!

I’m glad you came back to talk about this more! “Alien” was a movie that stuck with me throughout life due to the SFX, a strong woman lead, mother’s protecting their race to survive. “Prometheus” left a similar feeling after watching— and hard to go back to. All of these movies lead me to Pittsburgh Filmmakers where I wanted to go into cinematography and film editing. We started out with Super 8— I could edit film the rest of my life!! I loved adjusting frames and messing with the timing of how long a person could pay attention or catch something with just a few amount of frames. When “Fight Club” came out, the industry discussion about cigarette burns and sneaking pieces of adult films into child one’s— I laughed out loud in the theater because I knew about this! I thought, “who’s been talking from school?”

It’s amazing how fast shots change now in film making. If you count— it’s mere seconds. There’s no time to waste or you will miss a lot of the story builders. The film, “Halloween” is a favorite because it builds tension so well and if you notice, there’s very little blood. That film is one I go back to because I admire the editing and how they blew most of the money on the camera they used for it. “Alien” is by far a favorite as well—- along with James Bond films featuring Sean Connery. I love how those are shot and edited!

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TiffanyPDX's avatar

For a time, my boss was the guy who wrote the tagline "In Space No One Can Hear You Scream."

Clearly I'm moving up in the world. ;)

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