How do you bring the terror and claustrophobia of the 1979 blockbuster Alien into 2017? With GoPros — and lots of them. The latest installment in the Alien series, set to premiere on May 19, uses point-of-view footage to capitalize on the terror and isolation of forming a new colony on the other side of the galaxy.
Alien: Covenant continues the series, and to build on the sense of dread and confinement that propelled the initial film to iconic status, director Ridley Scott opted to use GoPros. The action cameras, Scott says, creates both intimate and intense cuts using the first-person point of view. The camera’s small, modern style also fit in with the costumes and overall atheistic.
“GoPro cameras enabled the filmmaker to capture not only the intensity and suspense of these moments but also the intimacy of the characters,” the action camera company said in a blog post.
Mounting the cameras on the backpacks of the crew members as well as locations throughout the colony ship, the GoPros create perspectives never seen before in earlier Alien installments. The cameras were also used to create videos of each crew member sending one last farewell message back to Earth. The video messages, created by GoPro, 20th Century Fox, and 3AM, mix the crew’s goodbye messages with foreshadowed clips from the backpack cameras, doubling as a trailer for the upcoming movie.
The integration of the action cameras continues an earlier relationship after GoPros were also used in the 2015 film The Martian, also directed by Scott.
While GoPro was initially launched to record action shots of surfers and other athletes, the small cameras have become popular for mounting in a first-person perspective. In fact, point-of-view shots are named among the list of 2017 video trends.
Alien: Covenant is set to premiere on May 19, starring Katherine Waterson, Michael Fassbender, and James Franco.
