All posts by SunshineDNA

Behind The Scenes, Blog, Images

Studio 8

0209_dannySince Wednesday they’ve been filming ‘zero G’ stuff with the stunt doubles in space suits connected to wires. I went down to the studio just before lunchtime to have a look at what they were filming. Right as I arrived Danny Boyle ran off to another set for a few minutes.

When I first met Danny a couple months ago I recognised him the first second I saw him. While we were talking with Andrew Macdonald, I couldn’t stop trying to think of all the directors I know by sight. They were asking me serious questions about the web and I had ‘Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas, Hitchcock, Houston, Cronenberg, Lee, Herzog, Tarantino, Allen, Boyle…’ running through my head.

Oh. Apparently, they’ve just now decided to re-shoot everything they’ve shot with the space suits over the past couple days. They’ve said they want to make it look better.

No one here is going to make do with ‘good enough’, everything has got to be amazing.

Behind The Scenes, Blog

Cillian’s Playlist

Earlier today I was adding some songs to my ‘Sunshine Playlist’. I’ve decided to only listen to music that is about the Sun while I’m working.

I noticed a new thing in my iTunes window. It said ‘Cillian’s Playlist’. Cillian Murphy had started broadcasting from his laptop. I couldn’t resist, I had to have a look.

We had lots of the same music- Air, Beach Boys, Beatles, Aretha Franklin are a few I remember. He also had some MP3s of two of my favourite comedians, Bill Hicks and Chris Morris. He also had some Captain Beefheart, who as a Frank Zappa fan I should have, but don’t.

I decided to click on one of the tracks and a window popped-up asking for a password. Fine. I couldn’t listen to his music… but then I noticed that the window had his email address on it.

We are based at a studio where several other things are being filmed besides this. I didn’t think he’d want to be broadcasting his email address to just anyone.

I jumped up immediately and started to search for Cillian.

I found Carlos Fidel the 2nd AD, told him what was happening. As we were walking towards Cillian’s dressing room, Cliff Curtis walked past us on his way to make-up and I heard some wild whoops coming from one of the rooms. ‘Table tennis,’ said Carlos just before he knocked on Cillian’s door.

Cillian was asleep on the sofa, listening to music. As he rubbed his eyes and sat up, I introduced myself and told him what happened. He said he didn’t mind broadcasting his music, but agreed that perhaps his email address being available wasn’t exactly ideal. I went into his iTunes and de-selected ‘Share My Music’.

Now, how am I going to get those Captain Beefheart songs he had?

Behind The Scenes, Blog, Video

Airlock

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They’re filming on the Airlock set today. I really love this set a lot. Even though it’s the most basic, industrial-looking set, it gives one the feeling of being on a real spaceship more so than any of the other sets. There’s nothing there other than big doors with big handles and harsh, bright lights, but one feels like the vastness of space is only mere metres away.

We wanted to take our video cameras onto the set while they were filming, but because it’s such a small, cramped space, we were politely asked not to film.

We were determined to film that set…

Blog, Video

Beyond Imagination

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The visual effects department are already putting together various scenes (I showed you a little taster yesterday) and will continue working for many months after filming has finished. I’ve seen several different sequences, most of them are still pretty rough, all of them are seriously cool. I’m hoping that Tom will sneak me some more to show you soon.

I think one of the more tricky bits of animation will be when we get close to the Sun. The spaceship’s shield has a diameter of 1.449 kilometres (I just asked the visual effects guys to measure it exactly for me), but let’s say 1.5 kilometres. That’s massive by Earth standards, but quite frankly puny when out in space. How, exactly, do you represent the size of the Sun, which has a diameter over 100 times that of the Earth’s, when the spaceship gets near it?

Get out your tape measure.

OK, 1 metre represents the Sun’s diameter. 1 centimetre represents the Earth’s diameter… The Earth’s actual diameter is 12,756.3 kilometres. The spaceship’s, as I said, is 1.5 kilometres… try and imagine 1/8500th of a centimetre ( 1 x 12756 ÷ 1.5= 8504)… Actually, go look at this. I’ve made a blue image 8,504 pixels wide and right in the middle I put a little one pixel square dot of yellow. Try and find it. That’s how big the spaceship’s diameter is compared to the Earth’s.

Now in this one, the yellow bit is the sun, the blue bit is the Earth. Everyone you know and everyone you don’t know, all the people falling in love, all the babies being born, all the people dying, all the music, every painting, book and film fits onto that dot.

earth_suncomp_big

The Sun is awesome beyond imagination… and the animators are going to have to imagine it.

I’ve got hold of some of the videos they are using as reference…

Mercury transit 2003

Venus transit 2004
Close-ups of the Sun
All movies are from Swedish Institute for Solar Physics

Blog

Sunshine

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From producer Andrew Macdonald:

“Sunshine is a science fiction film set 50 years in the future. The entire story takes place on a spaceship traveling to the Sun.

As a British film producer sci-fi is the perfect genre. We are making the entire film indoors at a studio in East London. No worries about the weather.

The SPFX supervisor pointed out to me that many good sci-fi films have been made in the UK including ‘2001′, 3 out of 4 ‘Alien’ films, 4 out of 6 ‘Star Wars’ films. Maybe it’s because it rains a lot.

On the first day of filming it rained continuously, I hope this is a good omen.”

Blog

Filming Has Started

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“Fifty years from now, the sun is dying, and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device which will breathe new life into the star. But deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew are fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.”

Here we go…

Blog, Video

Graphics

Video

I’ve just been told that some of the graphics that have been made for the on-board computers have been changed from green to blue. I’ve got some copies of the old graphics for you to look at. You won’t be seeing these in the film. Apparently ‘green’ was too much like ‘The Matrix’.

Blog, Video

Supernova School

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Today, Dr. Brian Cox came in to talk to the actors about the Universe. He started out with the Carl Sagan-esque question ‘What are we made of?’, went on to speak about the elements and explained how Iron, atomic number 26, is the heaviest element which can be made in the heart of stars. Everything in you- the oxygen, the carbon, the iron which makes your blood red- was made in the heart of a star.

Any element that is heavier than Iron and lighter than Uranium- silver and gold, for example- can only be made in Supernovae, the violently explosive death of a star. He told them how a supernova shines as brightly as all the stars in the galaxy for several months then slowly fades, cools, and becomes a nebula which in turn gives birth to a new star…

Several supernova explosions have been seen over the years. One of the earliest on record is the Crab Nebula.


The ancient Chinese, Japanese and the Anasazi (the Ancient Puebloans) of America left records documenting their sighting of the star that died in a supernova explosion and created the Crab Nebula.

CrabNebula

Though it was 6000 light years away from Earth, when it exploded it shone in our sky as brightly as the crescent Moon.

Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion is about to die. It is a red supergiant which many astronomers believe will go supernova within the next 1,000 years. It could go tomorrow. Though Betelgeuse is only 15 times more massive than our Sun, it is as much as 40 million times greater in volume; that means if our Sun was a soccer ball, Betelgeuse would be Wembley Stadium in London. Betelgeuse is only 500 light years away from Earth. As a supernova shines as brightly as all the stars in the galaxy for several months after it explodes, when Betelgeuse goes, we will have two suns for a few months.

I think the actors’ minds were blown… let’s just hope there’s enough left for them to remember their lines.