How the ‘Alien: Romulus’ VFX Team United Old and New Technology to Bring Ian Holm’s Android to Life

variety.com:

Todd Gilchrist Released just a few months after the 45th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” “Alien: Romulus” brings the franchise roaring back to life after a seven-year hiatus.

Director and co-writer Fede Álvarez leveraged its complex mythology by staging his installment between the events of the original film and its 1986 follow-up “Aliens.” But just as important was Álvarez’ combining filmmaking techniques used on those earlier chapters with the most up-to-date technology available to deliver its many thrills — and in the process, to cement the series’ reputation as one of the great cinematic showcases for artisanal creativity.

In addition to a $350 million (and counting) worldwide box office haul to mark the success of the movie, Álvarez’ collaborators Eric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser, Daniel Macarin and Shane Mahan received a collective Academy Award nomination for best visual effects.

It’s an honor shared by four previous “Alien” films, and one that’s especially welcome given that the two films that “Alien: Romulus” is set between both won the same category. “Knowing that this movie sat between ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’ — those two icons of science fiction and action and horror — meant we had a lot to live up to,” says visual effects supervisor Barba, who previously won an Oscar for his work on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” “The biggest challenge was, ‘How do we make it look like it we’re going back to the analog future?’” To begin the process of synergizing decades of institutional knowledge about the franchise, fellow visual effects supervisor Macarin says he merely had to visit a colleague’s office to find someone with firsthand experience creating alien xenomorphs. “My friend Gino [Acevedo], who’s.