FEARS Reports from the Site of the ALIEN TRESPASS with Director R.W. Goodwin

Written by Joseph B. Mauceri

Wednesday, 01 April 2009

ALIEN TRESPASS chronicles a fiery object from space that crashes into a mountaintop in the California desert, bringing the threat of disaster to Earth. Out of the flying saucer escapes a murderous creature — the Ghota, which is bent on destroying all life forms on the planet. A benevolent alien from the spaceship, Urp, inhabits the body of Ted Lewis (McCormack) — a local astronomer — and with the help of Tammy, (Jenni Baird) a waitress from the local diner, they set out to save mankind. ALIEN TRESPASS is directed by R.W. Goodwin, based on a story by James Swift and Steven Fisher with a Screenplay by Steven Fisher, and produced by James Swift and R.W. Goodwin. The film stars Eric McCormack, Jenni Baird, Dan Lauria and Robert Patrick. R.W. Goodwin, the Producer/Director of ALIEN TRESPASS, was part of the creative team behind “The X-Files,” and he worked on more than a hundred episodes of the show. Goodwin’s first writing credit was on “The Manhunter” series in 1974 and has worked most recently as a producer on the Fox TV series “Tru Calling,” Goodwin career includes producer, director and/or writer for television. He once again turns to the cosmos to give audiences a truly delightful, greasy popcorn movie that is fun for the ages. FEARS: Having experience the epic science fiction adventure ALIEN TRESPASS, as fan of the genre you can’t help but notice all these different elements that the film is loaded with. What was the core passion that grew into ALIEN TRESPASS? R.W. Goodwin: The core passion started decades ago inside of my buddy, screenwriter Jim Swift. Jim ultimately became my partner in producing the movie. It was his idea and he had this itch to make this film. As a young boy he watched all these sci-fi movies in the 50’s. He loved them and felt that there just weren’t enough of them, and he wanted to make one more. He approached me a few years ago about it. As a young boy I had seen many of these films and had my own primal memories of them. I was intrigued by the idea but also thought it was kind of peculiar to make a contemporary 50’s sci-fi movie. I got a bunch of the DVDs so I could revisit them. On of the things that were so wonderful about those films is that they are so funny. I found myself laughing because 50 years had gone by, styles had changed, and they were really out of fashion. When they made them the filmmakers were dead serious about making good sci-fi movies. We’re in the 21st Century and when you look at these films they’re inadvertently funny. So I thought that would be fun, to make a movie that was truly a true 50’s movie, not a spoof or a parody. If we did it right it would be funny. At the same time, it was kind of a wonderful period. There was still a refreshing innocence. It was before the game show scandals of the 50’s and before the 60’s came along with all this terrible really dark stuff with riots and assassinations. It was the end of a really gentler, kinder, time. I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to go revisit that and at the same time do something that could be a lot of fun. FEARS: Looking over your film and television credits, you being to appreciate your role as a storyteller. That’s even truer in the background story you created for this film. R.W. Goodwin: We call in the “mythology!” We had the “X-Files” mythology and this is the ALIEN TRESPASS mythology. It’s a lot goofier. FEARS: At what part of the filmmaking process did that take root and when did you realize it was something you want to create as a prolog to the film? R.W. Goodwin: It was kind of built into the original concept of the film. When I went to Jim after watching all those old films I said to him I think I’d like to do this, but I think we should stick to our guns and make it a true period piece. Like we were really living in 1957 when we made this. He was completely on board with the idea. That was our approach and everyone that came on board they came on because they knew what we were trying to do. Anyhow, Eric Chauvin, our visual effects supervisor, who does “Lost” and “Pushing Daisies,” a very contemporary young man, said that the only way that this film would work would be to make believe that it had been sitting on a shelf for 50 years. So that was always the concept. As we were making the film, and everyone was having such a good time, we all kind of looked at each other and felt that, they may think we’re crazy, but what do we tell them? Someone suggested that we tell folks the film was found at a construction site. That started the whole process and how we developed the background mythology to the film. Eventually I though of this guy, Louie Q Goldstone, the owner of Goldstone International Pictures in the 50’s. He was a big movie producer, and his big actor was M. Eric McCormack, and all these wonderful things that we put altogether. People can go to www.alientrespass.com and when they click on the video button they can watch this eight-minute featurette about the history of the film, which is of course complete bullshit that so much fun! FEARS: You hear stories about how the great Hitchcock drew from his work in television to make some of his masterpiece, like “Psycho.” Given the shooting schedule on ALIEN TRESPASS, do you feel your television experiences prepared you the most to take on this project? R.W. Goodwin: Absolutely! Even more importantly, and as you can see from my credits I go back to before World War II in television, the key for me on ALIEN TRESPASS was the training I gave myself working on “The X-Files.” From the very beginning on “The X-Files,” it was my job to create the look and directorial style for the show. In the first season I did a lot of that by, if I wasn’t directing myself, directing the directors and I was creating that look based on a lot of conversations with Chris (Carter). We ended doing, what people acknowledged, looked like a feature film every week, but it was done on a television schedule. That was very brutal, but good training, especially when you consider we shot ALIEN TRESPASS in 15 days. It’s impossible, and I’m not sure we actually did it. Somehow we did, and it could only be done because of what I learned on “X-Files.” The key things I learned on that show was that you have to get the right people, you have to get the best possible people in every single department, cast and crew. We did, and everyone who worked that show was a genius and was amazingly talent as far as I’m concerned. There were people, for the most part, who had worked in features, and who also worked in television that knew how to get that quality we needed in the time frame allotted. The second most important thing was a really detailed and complete preparation so that I knew every single moment in the movie I knew what I wanted to get and communicated that. You may need a certain prop or may need a specific costume, or something in the set design, etc., and all of that needed to be communicated ahead of time so that when we arrived on set everything was there. Otherwise we would have been dead. If we took 20 minutes to talk about something you would have been in trouble. I needed those 20 minutes; there wasn’t a second that I could afford to loose on that shoot. Now that’s not to say that when I got to set with all these ideas in place that I wasn’t open for ideas from anybody that had them. I reserved the prerogative of being the director so I could ultimately say yes or no. When I start a project I have a good idea of what I think it will be when I’m done. I’ve been lucky most of my life as I’ve been for the most part able to achieve that. I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted on ALIEN TRESPASS, and thanks to the contributions to some amazing actors, staff, and crew, it turned out better then I thought it would ever be. FEARS: There are a lot of iconic monsters from the sci-fi movies of the 50’s and 60’s. What were some of your thoughts in creating the Ghota for ALIEN TRESPASS? R.W. Goodwin: Clearly this was a horrific creature that was capable of destroying all life on our planet. That’s pretty bad stuff. I don’t think it’s any big secret, but we kind of took our inspiration from the creature in “It Came From Outer Space.” That was a one-eyed creature, but their creature was a little to frou-frou for me. It had too many curly-queues, asparagus, and stuff all over it. The idea of a one-eyed creature was always in the script. Once we began to move forward with the movie we had a series of intense conversations with production designer Ian Thomas, and everyone in the crew, as we spoke with Joel Echallier who was the creature maker. We did a lot of drawings and finally Joel was ready for us to come and take a look at his life size model. So we went out to his studio and it looked just like a great big penis with an eye in the middle of it. I told what I thought and he said, “I was afraid you were going to say that!” So we kind of change the shape a bit, but obviously not enough. It was kind of to late to go too far with that so I had him put tentacles things on the forehead. Still, Dan Lauria, who plays Chief Dawson, kept telling everyone it was a French tickler. I guess because Joel is French that works. FEARS: You have a great cast, excellent production designs, an iconic creature, and one of the other key elements of these classic sci-fi films was the score. You have an amazing score that has all these key movements, from Henry Mancini, Miklós Rózsa. How closely did you work with composer Louis Febre and how important was it to have the Theremin as part of the score? R.W. Goodwin: Here’s the lucky thing. A friend of his, Mark Snow who of course did all the music for “The X-Files,” introduced me to Louis. Mark and I started in the business together as kids. When I got ALIEN TRESPASS I asked Mark if he would be interested. He said I had to meet this young composer Louis Febre because he was studying music and specializing in 1950’s sci-fi music scores. She is still to this day one of the leading experts in that filed. He’s a brilliant composer who works on a lot of contemporary shows, and you would never guess what his field is. He knew Bernard Herman and Max Steiner, who were the two premier composers of the day backwards and forwards. They used to employed a 95 piece orchestra to create these truly big sounds. Louis is just a genius at that. He wrote a score that was evocative. He was thrilled to do the score for us because he never thought that anyone in a million years that someone would be crazy enough to make another 50’s style sci-fi movie. You’re right about the Theremin, it was so emblematic of all those 50’s films. Again, I called Mark Snow because he is at Julliard and has all those connections. Hald joking, I told him he had to find me the greatest Theremin player. It turns out there are a number of them, and the world’s greatest is a guy named Rob Schwimmer. He lives here in New York and plays with the NY Philharmonic, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, and a bunch of other folks. Rob plays other instruments because he has to make a living, but he is acknowledged to be the greatest Theremin player. We flew him out to LA and did a whole session with him. Rob knew exactly what to do and this score is just so wonderful because of his work. Every time you here it you know the creature is lurking. FEARS: ALIEN TRESPASS is a unique film that is at right film, at the right time. When you have something special like this do you even consider thinking about returning to the material and trying to recapture that lightening in the bottle? R.W. Goodwin: You know, all my life I’ve tried to find something unique to do, and I try not to repeat myself. “The X-Files” is a great example because there was nothing like when we came along. And truthfully, I don’t there have been anything like it since. There have been some attempts; we see it all the time. Once you’ve done it, I think it’s time, for me at least, to move on to something complete different – “And now it’s time for something completely different!” But I have to tell you, Jim Swift, the devil that he is, has already just sent me an email, two days ago, with a story idea for a sequel to AIEN TRESPASS. He moves it five years later, so you’re now in the early 60’s and so it becomes a different genre in a way. I have to say it is very intriguing what he wants to do. He wants to use the same characters, but in a slightly different world where life has become a bit darker. There are biker gangs and things. So if this does well maybe we can come up with something that can be just as much fun. FEARS: And are there any new projects upcoming fans can be on the look out for from R.W. Goodwin? R.W. Goodwin: I’m finishing up a pilot I did on spec. I found these two incredibly funny guys, Mike Mathieu and Andrew Connor and they call themselves The Cody Rivers Show. It’s a fictional character they made up. Basically, they do sketch comedy, which is completely out there, as you never know what you are going to see from one moment to the next. It could be song and dance routine or puppets, and anything in between. We’ve been working together for about three to four years actually and I came up with this concept I really like. It’s designed to be a half-hour cable comedy show. I describe it as Monty Python meets Moulin Rogue in the 21st Century. LINK THIS ARTICLE

 

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