10 Secrets From The Set Of Ridley Scott's Alien

10. Ridley Scott Shot A Lot Of The Movie Himself

A great director will have an understanding of just about every job on their set, and perhaps may even be skilled enough to perform some of those roles. This is something the great Ridley Scott demonstrated during the filming of his 1979 space-set horror, with the man steering the ship actually spending a ton of time operating the camera on set.

That's according to art director Roger Christian, who'd explain that Scott wound up shooting about 80% of Alien on his own shoulder, remarkably doing all the movie's handheld camera work himself. 

Not being able to do something similar on Blade Runner seriously frustrated Scott later down the road. He'd been a camera operator on 2,500 commercials and chose to do a bit of that during both The Duellist and Alien (via Den of Geek). Due to the way film sets were ran in Hollywood, though, Scott wasn't allowed to be quite as hands-on as he'd been during the Alien shoot, where his fantastic work behind the camera helped make Alien the intense and stunning ride it ultimately was.