Alex Gunn, Special Effects Supervisor: 3 Movies That Changed Your Life: Metropolis, Aliens & Zulu

In this episode of 3 Movies That Changed Your Life screenwriter Stuart Wright talks with Special Effects Supervisor Alex Gunn about: Metropolis, Aliens, and Zulu. Discover how these films shaped his screenwriting journey, personal growth, and understanding of cinema’s power. Plus, Alex Gunn shares three tales from the set: how he created one of the loudest explosions on film for Rambo (2008); how he convinced Tom Cruise to let him blow up a table for Valkyrie (2008); and how they pulled together that crazy farmhouse shoot out for Gangs Of London s1, ep5 (2020)

Movies That Changed Your Life  

Find out about what a Special Effects Supervisor does and how they safely make your films positively explosive and the lasting impact of cinema on Alex Gunn’s life.  

Three explosive stories from Alex Gunn’s 40+ year career:

[1:20] how he created one of the loudest explosions on film for Rambo (2008)

[9:30] how he convinced Tom Cruise to let him blow up a table for Valkyrie (2008) 

[17:30] how they pulled together that crazy farmhouse shoot out for Gangs Of London s1, ep5 (2020)

3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life

Metropolis (1992): Uses every type of SFX

[27:40] Alex Gunn says Metropolis employs every type of special effects there is and every type of optical gag, miniatures, mechanical rigs, huge engineering processes for the flooding sequence and the robot transformation. Even today SFX experts are still not sure how they did it.

Aliens (1992): No CGI

[32:40] Alex Gunn says Aliens is a CGI free zone, Made 40 years ago, never bettered and at no point, was someone at a laptop needed to improve it.