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MT25.9 In space no one can hear you scream · The Downing Arts Podcast

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  Welcome to the downing arts podcast.
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  The nights are drawing in and there have been plenty of opportunities to get your
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  cultural fix this past week with chapel services, life drawing sessions and more.
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  This week I have with me in. The studio David Stroud. Welcome, David.
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  Hello there. Hi. Now, you work in the catering department,
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  am I correct? That's correct, yes. Great. So I'm sure
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  the entire Downing community is very grateful to have such an amazing catering department and
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  wonderful food. Would you be able to just explain. Briefly what your role
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  involves? Yeah, I'm the purchasing officer in the
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  catering department. So basically I get all the food in so the wonderful chef
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  team can put it together and make the lovely meals that they do at Downing.
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  Yeah, basically I buy. Buy all the food in and make
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  sure the stock levels are up and make sure everyone's got enough food there.
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  So. Brilliant. And how long have you been at Downing?
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  It's been my third year this year. I was previously
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  at St. John's in the city.
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  You've come to the better college, obviously. Oh, absolutely.
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  Fantastic. Great. So you're a fan of sci fi films,
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  I believe? Yes, that's correct. Yeah. From a very, very early age,
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  I sort of got into sci fi. Um, basically my.
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  My. My dad took me to see Star wars in 1977 when it came out.
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  Um, but I. I've always had an interest in sci fi
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  and things like that, but Star wars really started it off in earnest.
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  Wow. Um, now you've chosen to tell us about the 1979 film
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  Alien. Now, I'm sure many of our listeners won't have
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  seen the film. I haven't seen the film. So could you just
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  tell us why, why this film means so much to you and perhaps
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  a bit of the. Background of where you first saw it. Why it had such
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  an impression on you and also perhaps give us a bit of a quick lowdown
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  of what it's actually about. Sure. Alien is
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  directed by Ridley Scott, who I think most people know now it
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  was one of his earliest films, if not his first film. Ridley Scott
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  used to just direct adverts. His most famous advert
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  was the Hovis advert that people might remember. If you YouTube it,
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  you'll. You'll see as a young lad pushing a bike up a hill.
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  But it was sort of really famous in the early 70s.
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  But he. He went on to make Alien.
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  Alien is basically set around its towing
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  ship. It's coming back from a mission on a planet,
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  far away planet. Basically the crew are in hibernation
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  till they get back to Earth and they
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  are Awoken by the ship's computer mother. They have seven crew
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  members. They're awoken by the ship's computer mother who wakes
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  them up to tell them that there's a distress signal nearby,
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  which they decide to investigate.
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  It's on a nearby planet and when they get there they find an
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  abandoned spaceship and basically there's a dead
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  massive creature, I suppose, or a life form
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  which is known as the navigator. And there's an
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  unusual wound to this navigator and its chest region which
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  they can't explain. One of the crew members goes
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  down to investigate what's happened.
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  John Hurt's character, and he finds
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  a load of eggs. And as he's going
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  to look at the eggs, he slips, bangs against one of the eggs and there's
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  movement within the egg. And when he goes to investigate closer,
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  the egg opens and then a creature
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  comes out and lands on his helmet. And basically it's called,
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  it's known in sort of alien fan terms as
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  the face hugger. And it lands on his.
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  Lands on his helmet and basically it's
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  burns through the helmet onto his face.
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  So they go down, pick him up, take him back to the
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  spaceship, which is called the Nostromo,
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  and basically take him to the medical
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  bay where they do an X ray and they find that
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  the alien has wrapped itself around his neck and gone into
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  his throat and into his stomach and it's basically feeding off him.
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  Oh yes.
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  Some of the pictures I've seen of that are now beginning to make horrible sense
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  in my head. Yes, basically the
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  alien is feeding off him. So they decide they've got to get this alien off,
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  so they go to cut it off and when they do try and cut it
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  off, the, the blood is pure acid and it burns through the deck of
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  the. The ship of several decks, actually.
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  So they wait and then
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  eventually they go to see him and the
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  thing has fallen off his face and he seems to be okay.
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  So they find, bit like with a snake,
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  a snake skin type thing, you know, it's a dead shell.
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  So they think, oh, he's okay. So he wakes up, goes to.
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  They go and sit and have some food. And as they're having some
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  food, basically he starts to act like he's
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  going to vomit. But as it turns out the
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  alien itself is inside him and comes out of his chest,
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  which is the famous scene of Alien, the chest bursting scene.
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  But it's when they filmed it, they didn't actually tell
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  the cast it was going to happen. The only person who knew was John Hurt.
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  And so the reactions of the cast is actual reactions of
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  the cast. And they got chicken offal and all sorts
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  and sprayed it around the set and. Oh, lovely.
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  Yes, it's quite the first time you see it
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  is very, very, very shocking. But it's
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  an amazing scene. And basically from there the alien
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  grows rapidly and picks off the crew one by
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  one until there's literally just one crew member left
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  who's Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. And she
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  is the heroine of the piece. And I won't
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  spoil the ending if anyone wants to see it, but she's
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  the heroine of the movie. So along with Jones the cat, there's a cat
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  on board who seems to sense when the alien's
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  around. So if you ever see Jones the Cat, you know the alien's gonna be
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  there. So. Right, okay. Gosh, well, yes, that sounds
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  terrifying. I'm not sure I do want to see it now. Anyway,
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  I know you mentioned in our discussion earlier on before the
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  recording that you think that this sets the kind of sci fi special effects
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  standards or marks a turning point in the special effects. So is
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  this, is this to do with this horrendous scene of the scene?
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  I think, I mean, if people, especially people my age,
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  remember from around that time, science fiction movies
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  were basically green screen, shonky special
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  effects movies. So you had things like Superman, which were
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  okay at the time. I mean, that was 1978. It was only a year before
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  this. But if you look at it now, you'd sit there and go, wow,
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  how. How did people think that was good? So,
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  and I think, I think, to be quite honest,
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  Ridley Scott realized that and he wanted to make
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  a film that you wouldn't sit there and go, oh,
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  I know they did that, or whatever. You'd sit there and go, how did they
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  do that? So basically he got in as an
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  artist called H.R. giger. He's a Swiss artist.
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  And if you look him up, his amazing work.
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  And basically he designed the set and he
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  designed the alien. And in fact, he's actually
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  got a museum dedicated to him in Gruyere, the famous for
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  the cheese. And it's completely designed
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  around his designs of like Alien and his artwork.
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  Even the bar is designed around it. It's amazing.
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  And he designed the set, so he got him in, specifically designed this alien
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  to look like nothing you would ever see. And he also
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  used miniatures, which I don't think had really been
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  properly used. I mean, they used them in the 50s
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  films, but not to the extent that Ridley Scott did to
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  make it. The expanse of space and everything. But it's
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  actually a miniature and they filmed it and it's. It is incredible.
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  So I think going forward, he. He set the standard and
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  then he went on to make blade runner in 1982, which.
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  Which took it to another level as well.
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  So. Yeah, so I think. I think he. He set the standard. I think
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  from then on, science fiction movies were never the same and
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  people tried to copy Alien and never got to those heights,
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  really. But it's gone on from there and you're up to present
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  day with things like Dune, you know, which are amazing special effects.
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  Wow. So when you say Alien sort of sparked your interest in
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  sci fi genre, do you sort of look at the old films with a sort
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  of sense of nostalgia? Or do you think that things are definitely sort of in
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  inverted commas, better now with more impressive effects and so
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  on? I mean, things like Dune. I still marvel how have
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  done Dune. I don't know how he did the special effects on that because
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  it just looks seamless. But then I look back at Star
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  Wars. If you look back at Star wars, even they're all right. The creatures are
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  a bit sort of. You look at them and think, oh, that's a bloke inside
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  a costume. But then you've got things like the spaceships and that.
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  The special effects there are incredible as well. They follow their
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  time, they're amazing. But, yeah, I mean, everything progresses.
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  You know, we're now into a computer age where it's just easy just to
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  do it on computers, basically. And they
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  are very good and they're excellent. But for its time,
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  Alien was the flagship and the standard,
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  one might say the mothership. Yeah, the mothership, basically. That was terrible.
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  That's fine, yeah. So you also mentioned
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  that you saw it in quite unusual circumstances when you were 14. Is that right?
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  Want to just. Yeah, that's correct. Elaborate on that? Yeah, yeah, I know
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  it was an X film or an 18 nowadays. I first
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  learned about it probably in 1978. I used
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  to buy science fiction magazines. There was one called Starburst and that one called sfx.
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  And I must have seen it in there that they were making this incredible film.
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  And I thought to myself, I've got to see that film. So I
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  used to sort of buy magazines and I even bought,
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  like, it was a picture book of the film, had all the scenes,
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  basically done photos of this. So you had the film
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  in photo. I think I've still got it, actually.
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  And I sort of. So my mum and dad knew I was into
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  this film and my dad was always a Big film buff. So he
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  understood why I would be into it. He knew someone from the
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  pub who he worked at somewhere called the Welding Institute at Abington,
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  just outside Cambridge and they had their own
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  cinema. And he said to him one day, he said, your boy's interested
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  in Alien, isn't he? And he said, yeah, he said, well, they're showing it this
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  Thursday. This was in 1981, this was. So he said,
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  you know, I can get him in. So that evening,
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  it was a Thursday evening. I even know the date, 14th of May
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  1981. Well, I know it for a reason. It was
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  a FA cup final replay. So it's very
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  sad, I know, but my dad watched the football in the bar while I
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  was, I went in this light private cinema and watched this 18
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  certificate film in there. Yes.
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  Did it terrify you? I mean, as a 14 year old? I mean, not at
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  all. I, I was, I was it because it was something
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  I really wanted to see and I knew what was coming. It wasn't like
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  I'd gone in if. I think if I'd have gone in there not knowing what
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  to expect. I think probably as a 14, even the excitement,
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  you'd be terrified. And, and there were parts that,
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  you know, gripped me and sort of made me go, oh, like that. But I
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  sort of knew what was coming. But I was just, I sat
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  there enthralled by the film firstly and I was just chuffed
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  that there was this 14 year old who's just gone to see an ex certificate
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  film that he really wanted to see, you know. So, yeah, that was, that was
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  a special moment especially it was with my dad as well. So that was good.
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  Wow. So did you then have to wait until you were 18 to
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  be able to see it again? Yeah, I mean around that time you
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  didn't have, you know, I mean, videotapes were just coming out
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  when we didn't have a video player and so, yeah, it was a
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  good few years actually till I saw it again. I think I saw the sequel
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  Aliens before I saw Alien again, you know. Yeah,
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  so it was, yeah, around that time it wasn't like nowadays we
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  just put it on streaming or whatever. You had to just
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  basically wait till you could see it on video.
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  Yeah, well, thank you ever so much. It's been lovely.
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  Well, I say lovely, I'm not sure that's the right word to describe it,
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  but it's been really great talking to you about Alien and yeah,
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  thank you. For sharing your thoughts with us. That's great. Fine,
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  enjoy doing it. Thank you very much.
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  This week in college. Tonight, tomorrow and Saturday at
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  7:15pm the Dramatic Society present their Christmas Comedy night with sketches,
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  stand up improvisation and festive music. See the Show Notes for ticketing information.
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  On Friday 3 till 4pm in the East EC's music room there's
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  a juggling workshop with Guinness World Record holder James Cousins, who also happens
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  to be an absolutely fabulous jazz pianist. So do come along if you're around.
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  Tickets are on sale until lunchtime tomorrow. See the Show Notes for details
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  later tomorrow at 5pm also in music Room there'll be a piano
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  recital by student Tom Yang. All are very welcome. On Saturday at
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  9pm in the bar, the Jazz Band will be entertaining everyone with Christmas classics.
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  Come and get your Bridgemas fix. On Sunday at 5 there's a Q and
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  A with award winning poet and screenwriter James McDermott. It's happening
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  in the Heon Gallery. Tickets are free but booking is essential. See the Show Notes
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  for details. Then at 6pm on Sunday, one of the biggest chapel events of
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  the year takes place the Advent Carol Service with congregational carols
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  as well as music sung by the chapel choir. Queue early to avoid disappointment.
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  As well as all the creative arts. Events we have going on in college.
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  In the coming week, the Dramatic Society are on the hunt for a director and
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  producer for the 2026 freshers play which happens in February. If you're
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  a Downing fresher, please see the Show Notes for information on how to apply the
• 15:44
  exhibition in the gallery. A Gap in the clouds runs until 8 February next year.
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  Open hours are Wednesday to Saturday. The archive
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  exhibition Downing in the Second World War is still open in the library. Do pop
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  along during opening hours. Downing's own literary magazine, the Leaves
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  is open for submissions for its fourth volume. The deadline is 31 December.
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  Again, see the Show Notes for details. Lastly, the staff and Fellows
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  Carol Service is on Monday 15th December at 11:30 just before the
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  Christmas lunch. I'd love to hear from you if you'd like to be involved in
• 16:15
  the scratch choir or if you'd like to read a Bible passage or a poem
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  or prose extract. Everything is provided so you just have to turn up on
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  the day. Next week's episode is the Bridgemas Special with a feature
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  length interview with a special guest. I'm also recruiting interviewees for next term and
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  beyond, so do be in touch on artspodcast at Dow Cam
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  AC UK if you'd like to come on the show. Thanks for listening.