Alien

Alien

In the opening sequence, after the title was shown, there was an establishing shot of the exterior of the Nostromo in motion. For several other shots like this, the director ordered miniatures of the Nostromo, its refinery, the shuttle, the alien planet and the derelict alien spacecraft as building life-size representations would be too costly and practically impossible. After the establishing shot of the Nostromo, several shots of its interior, including the narrow corridors and decks, were used to establish a sense of claustrophobia. There were several details that were added to emphasize realism. For example, the highly detailed interior of the Nostromo, the sirens that went off during landing and during the self-destruct sequence, and the organic appearance of the various forms of the alien made the film more realistic.

At the beginning of the film, there was a scene where two monitors began flashing sets of numbers and were seen reflected off two seemingly robotic heads. Apart from the clicking sound that was used to represent the numbers on the monitors, there was also a special set of sounds which seemed to represent the communication between the robotic heads where lights within the heads flashed whenever the sounds are projected.

The crew was later awoken and tasked to investigate an alien planet. When the team entered the alien spacecraft, there was dead silence and only their voices and breathing could be heard. This was done by the director to bring the audience closer to their environment.

When Kane was brought back with the alien stuck on his head, Ash tries to remove it by cutting its knuckle with a piece of equipment. At that moment, the design of the equipment along with the high-pitched sound was used to suggest that it was something like a laser knife. The use of such props, including the rotating chair in the room where the crew communicates with Mother, the diagrams on the monitor which showed the Nostromo’s path for landing...