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Director Greg McLean on 'Alien' (Subscriber Exclusive)
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Director Greg McLean on 'Alien' (Subscriber Exclusive)

The 'Wolf Creek' filmmaker breaks down a seminal piece of art from his life - the 1979 horror classic that continues to influence his work today

🎧📖 Listen to the audio above or read it as text at the transcript tab. Don’t forget to check out the feature conversation with Greg McLean here, too.


Australian director, screenwriter, and producer GREG McLEAN returns to discuss a seminal piece of art from his life — the 1979 film ALIEN, a film that first terrified him before he’d ever had a chance to see it, as you’ll hear. Today, the writer-director of Wolf Creek, Rogue, and more considers it the greatest film ever made.

I’m going to let Greg tell you about it, but you should know it was directed by Ridley Scott and it was written by Dan O’Bannon from a story by O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett. That said, I should point out that the script was famous re-written by David Giler and my friend Walter Hill. Walt’s work on it is iconic at this point, which I broke down a couple of years ago in a couple of articles at 5AM StoryTalk here and here. The poetry he employed on the page will be discussed today, hence why I wanted to provide a bit more context about it.

Like the first part of my conversation with Greg, this is another must-read/listen, I think, for anyone who wants to better understand storytelling and directing for screen. It’s an opportunity to hear a great director deconstruct, in considerable detail, the work of one of the greatest directors to ever live – including how that work influenced his own films.

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Become a paid supporter of 5AM StoryTalk to listen to this bonus podcast episode!

And don’t forget to listen to the first part of my conversation with Greg!

Director Greg McLean | Finding Fresh Terror in Familiar Horror

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Jul 21
Director Greg McLean | Finding Fresh Terror in Familiar Horror

🎧📖▶️ Listen to the audio above, read it as text at the transcript tab, or click here to jump straight to the YouTube video.


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