Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out now on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia.
IGN AU: Indy 4 has gone through so many stop-start stages of development through the last eight years or so. How many years ago did you begin work on Indy 4?
Christian Alzman: God, it was about a year ago. They were pretty much deep in production when they brought me on. A lot of times – like a lot of people in the industry – I finish up on one project and then move onto the next. There is an overlap; I was finishing up on the Spiderwick Chronicles while Indy was ramping up.
IGN AU: What did they actually brief you on when they wanted to get you involved? What was their outline for you?
Christian Alzman: Well, the biggest challenge still a bit undecided was the big ending, with the aliens. There was just a lot of design and artwork needed for that. So I hopped straight into design work for that; the interior of the spaceship and how the temple breaks away. It was a lot of work.
IGN AU: It's quite interesting that a lot of work had been completed at that point but the ending still wasn't concrete. Why was that?
Christian Alzman: You know, a little of this is speculation, but it's one of those epic projects that even someone who's as concise and forward thinking as Steven Spielberg wants to make sure that this is big enough of an ending – and that it's an 'Indiana Jones' vibe. But it's one of those things that, I think shooting the movie seems to be a little bit of – I don't know – complete chaos, I think. So I think a lot of that they had to get into production and a lot of that design was left undone, which we were of course super-happy to work on it over here.
IGN AU: So you pretty much designed the ending?
Christian Alzman: Well, there were lots of storyboards and there were animatics, but there was a lot of stuff left to the imagination with that end bit. And, you know, nuances changed at the end and we had to fill in those gaps as well. We basically didn't really have a look for the alien at the end, for instance.
IGN AU: That's interesting – I mean, the crystal skull was so critical to the story, and yet – there wasn't a firm design in place? How much did the design and function of the skull change during the process of production?
Christian Alzman: You know, with the skull and the skeleton already designed, it's true – we only had to put flesh on it. But it could've gone a lot of ways and a lot of people really wanted that '50s style 'classic alien' – the whole Area 51, B-movie alien. It was great. It was really that design aesthetic that I kept pulling from; looking at a lot of older B-movie designs – but trying to make that look more real and gritty to fit in with the Indy universe.
IGN AU: What were some of the 50s aliens films that you examined for reference designs?
Christian Alzman: You know, I'm a big child of the 80s [laughs], so definitely we had shown some artwork of the spaceship's interior [to Spielberg] and Steven's comment was 'it's too Close Encounters!' – and you know, that was about right – that was where I was pulling from! [laughs] On one part I was like, damn – I need to try something else. On another level, at least I was pulling from good movies.
IGN AU: You also had to work with George Lucas of course – and his other big franchise is of course Star Wars, which is all about the aliens and creatures. What was his feedback on your design work for Indy?
Christian Alzman: You know, George came over for a couple of meetings on things and it was really great. I think he and Steven are really close and I think he was helping out doing some of the editing, so he had some comments on designs too. Basically had a couple of ideas he asked me to do some artwork on to show Steven. Just single shots, mostly – but they ended up in the film.
IGN AU: Were they hard to please, the two of them? Were there any conflicts of ideas or directions that the film should take?
Christian Alzman: Um, with George, he really was playing the part of producer on the film, so 99 percent of the time we had to keep Steven happy. This'll be by fourth film with Steven so I'm pretty familiar with his aesthetic, but we're always really surprised by how many iconic images he comes up with daily. But I think we understand the style of the lighting and we're pretty good at honing in.
IGN AU: We have to ask – who's idea was the CG hedgehog?
Christian Alzman: Oh! That was a Steven thing – just to bring in a little levity. Just when things get too serious – as Indy movies go – they throw in a laugh to relieve some tension. Those prairie dogs were tough little buggers to do! You know, it's funny – at one point we had a stuffed one, but we watched reference films of them and we had tons of still imagery of them – but also lots of reference movies so that the animators could figure out how they twitch and wriggle back into their holes accurately. It had to be hand-animated too – they don't make motion-capture suits for those little guys unfortunately. [laughs].
IGN AU: I'm sure there is a market out there for that kind of thing.
Christian Alzman: You know, it would probably work if you could do it. [laughs]
IGN AU: Take me through the nuclear blast sequence at the start of the film – it's certainly one of the most riveting and visually impactful moments in film.
Christian Alzman: Lots of research. We dug up all of the old government films that we could find of the Nevada nuclear testing, and for a lot of that we really just tried to copy what was in those, because those were just so fricking amazing on their own. We were able to light it and be a little more dramatic with our camerawork, but some of that stuff was just... the stages of what happens when that bomb goes off – we got it down to four stages of what happens afterwards and you get that flash-burn effect, then the shockwave and you get the mushroom cloud that engulfs everything. We looked at all that reference [material] and analysed it to death and had to storyboard it out too to figure out the best way to show this so it's clear. Actually doing the sequence, it was a mixture of a lot of miniature work and some digital matte painting. The cloud itself was a digital cloud; it was something I was really impressed with. Sometimes you never know if you can pull something like that off, but I think it looked great. It definitely had that kind of eerie, spooky vibe – that tense vibe – that you find in some of the best Spielberg moments.
IGN AU: Do you think, with the increased resolution that Blu-ray offers, it's becoming harder to disguise CG moments from discerning viewers?
Christian Alzman: Definitely, we're aware of that. When we deliver our bits of film, we're looking at it on HD monitors and HD projectors projected 15 or 20 feet across. We're definitely trying to make all the people who like to pause and scrub through – we're trying to make them happy as well.
IGN AU: And you are those kinds of people, when it comes down to it.
Christian Alzman: [laughs] We totally are. We have this unwritten law that you're not supposed to pause during a shot when we're watching dailies just because it's unfair to the artist – but sometimes you just can't help it! it does end up making the work better for it though.
IGN AU: Did you have enough time with the project? Do you ever get enough time?
Christian Alzman: I don't think there's such a thing as ever having enough time – especially with a movie like Indy where we were so passionate about doing perfect work. I think we'd all be happy to be working on it still. But yeah, it was a pretty short schedule and there was a lot to do. I'm sure Pablo, our supervisor, would've loved an extra month too.
IGN AU: This is a strange question, but in light of DVD extras and so on, how much work went on after the film was in the can? Did you polish anything up? I ask because, well, look at George Lucas' legacy...
Christian Alzman: As far as I know, nothing. That was pretty much it; we just do interviews and the effects breakdowns where things magically come apart during the shot and you can see how they came together. We do lots of that. But as far as clean-up goes, we try and do that while we're working on the film. For Steven, one of his directions was, he wanted us to incorporate as many mistakes as possible into it, so that it looked like it was shot as roughly as possible – you know, when something dirty hits the lens, there's a weird camera shake and so on. We were tracking through the jungle in on scene and the camera operator bumped into the camera. That's stuff he was really interested in getting to make it look more dirty and gritty – and that was a very different approach to the stuff that George [Lucas] wants us to do.
IGN AU: What about Indy 5? Have you been briefed on where to go next, or what's happening there?
Christian Alzman: You know, if it happens, we'd all love to work on it – but I don't know long they can keep going. But if they make the story work... only if the story works. I would love to see it just to get a few more of those 'ten-year-old' moments watching it, as long as they keep working with an older Indy. Then I think it's totally possible. It'd be interesting to see what the threat would be.
IGN AU: Thanks so much for your time, Christian.
Christian Alzman: My pleasure.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is out now on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia.