Neville Page, recently confirmed creature designer for Ridley Scott's Prometheus has given up some more details on the development process, working with Scott and the design process for the highly anticipated Sci-fi behemoth. We got some snippets earlier from MTV, today via the good folks over at Reject Radio we get a lot more. While not giving the farm away, Page doesn't hold back, giving some really great insights on what has been going on behind the scenes. Hit the jump to check it out.
On Ridley Scott:
"I've been very fortunate to meet with a lot of big names, so I've been conditioned. But it was really interesting with Ridley. Sitting down with him and just seeing his face. You know, you see a celebrity and he is a celebrity to me [...] I'm not starstruck, I'm 'artiststruck'. Here's the guy that really set the tone for what I see as a benchmark. And he's done it many times over. And I'm looking at him, and words are coming out of his mouth and I don't know what he's saying because it's just like this 'hum'. It's like 'Oh! Ridley Scott! Oh my god!'. And then I had to shake myself out of it every now and again. I mean you've been hired to do a job, now pay attention.But it was great. He would go on these parallels describing things and he would riff and talk for like 15-20 minutes about a scene in Black Hawk Down, Legend or Blade Runner, and there's a moment where you're thinking he's namedropping. Then you realise he's the guy who did all this stuff. He's such a sweet man. His talent is obvious, but when you meet him in person it's like 'wow!'. He's so unasuming. All that power and this kind and gentle, and he listens and collaborates.You've heard the expression about being affraid to meet your heroes because they turn out not to be who you had built them up to be. Ridley turned out not to be what I had built him up to be because he was way better than that. I'm very happy about that."
The level of expectation on the project in reference to its relationship to Alien:
"Yes it is horrifying... sort of... On paper you look at it and none of the films I have done helped me as far as keeping the confidence, because every project is different, every project is new, and here's the one where I got over the excitement of just being Ridley and I in a room.Then you mature and ask what are the tasks at hand, and he said: 'You've got a tall order here because you have to do something that's better than Giger'Now you're scaring me, because I just don't know if that can be done.I drew my heart out and created the best I could and Ridley liked it. If Ridley is good with it, then you've done your job"
On Ridley Scott's creativity:
"I'd heard that he does his own storyboards. He'd sit next to me scribbling with a Sharpie (pen), and it's the least forgiving thing. It's almost like drawing with a machine gun because what you put down it goes into the paper.And I'm watching him explain visually and with words what he wants me to work on, and he's cross-hatching and using dots with this kind of pointillist drawing technique. Then all of a sudden I'm looking at a gorgeous sketch, that I swear to you I could not do in front of an audience whilst describing. He'd always have a sketch down in front of him, so that when he starts to talk the ideas through you see these beautiful little drawings pop up."
You can listen to Reject Radio's entire Podcast here.
