Behind The Scenes, Blog, Images

Seriously Cool

Several weeks ago I arrived at the DNA production offices for a meeting with Andrew Macdonald. I was told he was running late, but I was welcome to go into his office to wait. I walked in and there was a guy sitting at a computer.

He said, ‘Hi, I’m Alex.’
‘Oh, hi!’ He looked like he might be an Assistant Script-Typer or something.
‘Are you Brian’s wife?’
‘Yep.’
‘I met him the other week.’ My husband, Dr. Brian Cox, is one of the Science Advisors on the film. He met everyone here way before I did.
‘Oh yea?’
‘Yea, we went out for dinner and had a great time.’
Brian went out for dinner with Andrew Macdonald, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland… wait, this is Alex Garland?

He was not at all what I imagined. I was expecting a pale, skinny, guy, perhaps a bit of a hippy (the whole ‘The Beach’ thing), definitely a bit nerdy. In fact, he’s rather attractive, if I can be girly for a moment here *ahem*.

I’ve had several conversations with him over the past few weeks and really like him a lot. He’s intellectually confrontational in a way that I’ve only ever seen in my husband and other high-energy particle physicists I know. He is extremely intelligent and seems like the kind of person who will never stop pushing himself to know more about the world, the universe and his place in it.

Apparently, though, he hates having his photo taken and hates being filmed even more. He basically values his privacy. Any time I’ve had a video or stills camera around him, he’s run off, but I grabbed this shot of him and when he sees it here he’ll probably come in and demand that it be taken down… but until then, here is the seriously cool Alex Garland.

Edited 16/09/05 11:23am:
Ha! He just emailed me and asked me to take the photo down… Don’t worry, I’ll try and sneak another one up when he’s not looking.

Behind The Scenes, Blog, Images

Good Day

Things have certainly turned around here. I arrived and everyone was milling around, chatting. I got to the bottom of the steps which lead to the set and saw Danny at the top on his way down.

‘Hi, Gia! How are you today?’
‘Fine, Danny. How are you doing?’
‘Good. Good.’

It’s going to be a good day.

Behind The Scenes, Blog, Video

Tension

Last Friday the decision was made to re-shoot all of the Zero G stuff that had already been shot. Danny wasn’t happy with how it looked. So the shoot is now behind schedule by a few days and that’s how it will stay. They won’t ‘catch up’.

On Monday I definitely sensed ‘tension’ on set. Several people I spoke to were stressed out. They were in a relatively small studio, it was hot, there were loads of people crammed in there and they were having to re-shoot what they’d already shot. No one was smiling very much.

I’m learning how to judge how things are going. If Danny says, ‘Hi, Gia! How are you today?’ I know things are going well. He hasn’t said ‘hi’ for a couple days now.

Update from 2014- The photo and video were not in the original post.

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The Set

There is absolutely nothing cooler here than wandering around on the spaceship.

They’ve been filming some of the Zero G scenes so the big main set is empty. It’s huge and cramped and beautiful and industrial and certainly much better lit than a real spaceship.

corridor1

Once you’re inside you are completely immersed in the world. It’s entirely enclosed. There are no windows. Everything there looks like it has a function except, of course, for the little human touches. A pair of socks on the floor. A photograph of a family. A tiny basketball hoop on the wall. A hairband on on the shelf next to the bed.

There’s a kind of sad feeling to the empty set. It feels like it’s been abandoned.

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…

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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