Vincent Ward calls Alien 3 “an abortion”

Last week at a function in Melbourne Australia, the MADC and Luscious International hosted an evening with director Vincent Ward. The highly acclaimed director shared stories of filming in extreme conditions (including sleeping next to an occupied coffin), particular stars’ predilections (our lips are sealed) and how he feels a constant need to reinvent himself.

Ward is best known for creating the beautiful animated illustrated scenes for the Academy Award-nominated movie What Dreams May Come. He’s also directed River Queen with Keifer Sutherland and the ethereal Maori story, Rain of the Children.

But he admits it is the movie he hasn’t yet made that haunts him themost. Ward was appointed to write and direct Alien 3, based on hisintricate concepts of a medieval world of the future – full of monks,religion and, of course, aliens.

Eight months down the track, events took a turn for the worse. In asituation that Ward likened to the scenes played out in agencies everyday, the studio making the movie was sold and the new owners wanted tochange everything.

The focus shifted from making a movie to making a release date. Ward and the studio parted company.

“It had changed into something I didn’t like and, quite frankly, what was released was an abortion,” he told the audience.

He showed some of his incredible ideas and illustrations for the movie and is now working on turning them into a graphic novel.

Vincent Ward grew up in rural New Zealand and his life has been heavilyinfluenced by his father, a gifted storyteller who was badly burnedduring World War 2.

“The way I work changes every year. Cross-fertilisation is the way forward,” he said.

Speaking about the making of What Dreams May Come, Ward said theoriginal script arrived, his dad had just died and he’d been wonderingabout the world he had gone to. That led to him accepting the scriptand wondering how to visualise the after-world in the movie.

“Hell is fantastic for painters – but paradise is tricky,” he joked.

Ward is also an international TVC director, having worked on campaignsfor Vogel’s bread, Abu Dhabi and Singapore Airlines, amongst others. Healso directed a series of six commercials for Universal Theme Parkswith Steven Spielberg as his Executive Producer.

“They threw so much money at the ads that by the end of the job we werestill half a million dollars under budget. Oh for those days again!”Ward said.

Ward has just released a book, called ‘The Past Awaits’ which “containsstories I probably shouldn’t have told,” he said. The book is filledwith his stunning imagery and highlights his intricate composite works,revealing his fine arts training.

He finished the night admitting there were a lot of similaritiesbetween making a movie in Hollywood and the creative process inagencies, admitting that nothing ever turns out the way you envisage itbecause so many hands end up interfering.

He was silent for a moment and then laughed as he admitted, “You’ll get fucked anyway. Creative people always get screwed.”