:: gia’s blog ::

There’s an article about Brian in today’s Sunday Times. We read it about an hour ago when we woke up here in San Francisco, I said, “It makes it sound like all you do is eat, drink wine and talk about physics.” There was a pause where he just looked at me and I realised how silly I sounded, “Oh yea… that is all you do.”

He’s currently in the bedroom on the phone with a journalist from Wired magazine. They’ve been talking for 45 minutes or so about CERN… though I did hear Brian say, ‘Yea, it was a bit Spinal Tap’ which must have been when he was talking about how his first band Dare broke up having a fist fight in a hotel bar in Germany. :)

Today, we are going to take it easy in order to get over the last of our jetlag and the cold we’ve both had this week (thank Christ we were in business class on the flight) then this evening we are going to meet up with a bunch of people including Mike and Jess who are over from London, as well as some Seesmic people, Jasmine, Maryam and Robert, hopefully a physicist from Berkley and several other people! If you’re in SF and want to pop in, we’ll be at Medjool from 8.30 for drinks and whatnot. Come say hi!

**EDIT** The Wired article is here.

Well, we’re having an odd day. I needed to call my bank twice to get my bank card working… but it’s working now so that’s all good. Macy’s department store was having a big sale and with the dollar so weak and the visitors’ card which gives 11% off, I got quite a lot of clothing today. Which was desperately needed cos, well, I didn’t really bring any clothes with me (couldn’t get the whole packing thing together). I’ve now got at least *something* halfway decent to wear at TED next week. Now, photos…

On the monorail from the airport to the car rental place.

On the corner of Haight-Ashbury.

An iPod vending machine in Macy’s department store.

I’m in bed in San Francisco, awake, 5am, crazy jetlag, Brian’s asleep next to me. I’m on my Nokia n810 so I don’t disturb him. I can’t type very quickly which is slightly crap.

My bank froze my card, clearly they thought a purchase in the UK, followed by one in Germany, followed by an attempt at one in the US was suspect.

Later: call my bank. :-/

First off, thanks to everyone at Walking With Robots for such a brilliant 3 days. You guys rule! Also, thanks to all of you blog friends for visiting the Walking with Robots blog and saying ‘hi’. We all really appreciated it. A super, special thanks to Jonathan Sanderson for asking me along. Nice to finally work with you after all these years!

Now, I am mental busy.

I’m heading off to San Francisco first thing tomorrow. Brian has been invited to speak at TED which is the initial reason for our trip. We are also going to meet up with friends and people from Seesmic (who are friends, too, but I wanted to give them a special link :).

Apart from the whole, boring ‘cleaning stuff from Bristol, cleaning stuff for SF, getting 12 days’ of stuff ready for my son who’s here while we’re away’ domestic rubbish, I also have a lot to do for Water Lilies (yes, that’s an invitation to check out the site!:). I suspect I might be ripping DVDs and putting clips up online from Business Class on the Munich to SF flight tomorrow… cos I don’t think I’ll have time today.

Broadband on planes is a life-saver.

First off, thanks to everyone at Walking With Robots for such a brilliant 3 days. You guys rule! Also, thanks to all of you blog friends for visiting the Walking with Robots blog and saying ‘hi’. We all really appreciated it. A super, special thanks to Jonathan Sanderson for asking me along. Nice to finally work with you after all these years!

Now, I am mental busy.

I’m heading off to San Francisco first thing tomorrow. Brian has been invited to speak at TED which is the initial reason for our trip. We are also going to meet up with friends and people from Seesmic (who are friends, too, but I wanted to give them a special link :).

Apart from the whole, boring ‘cleaning stuff from Bristol, cleaning stuff for SF, getting 12 days’ of stuff ready for my son who’s here while we’re away’ domestic rubbish, I also have a lot to do for Water Lilies (yes, that’s an invitation to check out the site!:). I suspect I might be ripping DVDs and putting clips up online from Business Class on the Munich to SF flight tomorrow… cos I don’t think I’ll have time today.

Broadband on planes is a life-saver.

On first thought, I’d say that 2007 was fairly uneventful. My past few months have consisted of me being ill and feeling like I’ve done very little other than try and get healthy again… Then, when I properly think about it, I realise that the whole year has been MENTAL!

January

Me and Charlie Brooker

I was doing lots of stuff for Sunshine and Channel4.com, saw Ben Folds in concert, the Sunshine trailer was leaked by resourceful fans and I was interviewed for Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe.

February

/Cat blog

MASSIVE Sunshine stuff, loads of Channel 4 stuff, went to LIFT where Brian spoke and my Screepwipe interview was broadcast.

Watch Video

March

Danny Boyle on the Sunshine set

I know the photo above wasn’t taken in March, but the month was so freakin’ mental I didn’t take any photos. I was doing 7 days a week, 18 hour days mainly for Sunshine- press and bloggers’ screenings, press interviews, cast and crew screening, Manchester screening, messageboards, emails, IMDB, generally mentalness. There was also Channel 4 stuff, a discussion I took part in at the ICA, went to Cambridge with Brian who spoke at their Science Festival… and I’ve also got ‘Milton Keynes’ in my diary on the 16th. I’ve got no memory of what that was about at all.

April

Danny Boyle, Cillian Murphy, Brian

Another insane month. Sunshine was released, screening and Q&A with Danny at the Ritzy cinema, trip to Russia for the premiere, the 28 Weeks Later premiere… and I bought some ‘Sunshine’ props and costumes. :)

May

Tiger in my face

My Sunshine props and costumes were delivered. :) Was starting to get properly frustrated with the Channel 4 stuff, was weaning off Sunshine, I went to the Arthur C. Clarke Awards nominations, did a Social Media Club photo walk with Lloyd, went to Anna and Julian’s wedding and started looking at secondary schools for my son.

June

Brian at the Star Wars exhibition

Trying to get back into life and recover generally from Sunshine insanity. Sunshine was at the IMAX, spoke at Music Tank, Daywatch screening, more secondary school stuff (including an entrance exam… yikes!)

July

Me at the Gormley exhibition

Secondary school interview (yikes!), started on the Sunshine DVD release, bit of Daywatch work, David Hoyle started Magazine again… my son was offered a place at a secondary school (yay!)

August

Brian, Mo, Benny Wong, Cliff Curtis

Sunshine DVD release, 28 Weeks Later DVD release, Daywatch, more David Hoyle at Magazine… QR Codes.

September

QR Codes

QR Codes for 28 Weeks Later, interviewed about QR on various tv and radio programmes, my son started at his new school, I was invited to talk to the Nuclear Industry Association, recorded the Nature podcast sponsor stings, went to more David Hoyle shows, saw Prince’s final aftershow gig, got properly ill.

October

CERN

Still ill. Started working on a project looking at the Ageing Population, went to CERN twice - the first time with Kevin Eldon and Simon Munnery, the second time with Quentin Wilson- took part in a Nuclear Industry Association roundtable discussion, met Arvind from Slingshot Studios.

November

David Hoyle

Lots of meetings, dinners and lunches. Ageing Project roundtable meeting and dinner… And, of course, the wonderful David Hoyle.

December

My father came to visit, I attended the Juno bloggers’/Twitterers’ screening, fell in LOVE with ‘Juno’ (you’ll be hearing more about this), started Twittering (finally), went to see the King Tut exhibition, attended the Nuclear Industry Association annual dinner, my son had his birthday, recorded a Digital Planet with Gareth Mitchell and Bill Thompson, more talks with Slingshot Studios, David Soul…then…

…today.

After all that, I really need to rest over the next few weeks. I feel like I’ve still not recovered from my illness properly and still need to catch up on all of the sleep I lost last spring with Sunshine… My next 10 days will consist of POWER RESTING. I won’t do any work (except for watching the pile of screeners I’ve got), I won’t worry about whether or not I’ll have any work in the new year… I will just relax in the most hardcore way…

Well, today Sunshine was released on DVD. I thought I’d take this chance to just share some of my Sunshine memories (well the ones which come with photographs which I can more or less make public) from the past two years…

During filming at 3 Mills Studios, I carried my ‘office’ with me to and from work every single day. I looked like a techy bag lady.

One of my very favourite things was wandering around the sets which weren’t being filmed on. Here’s me sitting in the social area of the Icarus II, where Capa sits when he’s told he’s got to make *the* decision.

My Sunshine husbands were/are Damien…

…and Phil

They did the videos, I did the website. We sat next to each other, ate lunch with each other, made each other copious amounts of coffee, hung out together, stalked Danny together… the whole thing.

My actual husband was on-set regularly, too.

In between the moment Danny shouted ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a wrap’ in December 2005 and the start of the post-production phase, there was the wrap party at which Benny Wong DJed.

The post-production phase went on and on and I didn’t see a single frame of the film until September 2006 - it started with a completely different character doing the voice over and was, in my memory, fairly different from the final film. Danny finished post in December 2006 and a couple days later was the first time the trailer was shown. This is Andrew Macdonald, on his Crackberry, in the screening room waiting to watch the trailer shown on a cinema screen for the first time.

Andrew is just the loveliest person in the world. I love him lots and lots and lots. And lots. He very kindly invited me to Moscow to the ‘Sunshine’ premiere. Here’s the two of us in Red Sq.

The Moscow Sunshine Boys…

Andrew, me, Brian and Danny all tarted up for the premiere.

Brian, Danny and Cillian (well, his back) ready to walk on stage.

And on stage…

I, of course, made a point of making sure my son met as many ‘Sunshine’ people as he could. He got Alex’s autograph though Andrew said he’d only sign a cheque… He also had a great time on set with Troy Garity (who was absolutely lovely with him)…

He got to meet Chris Evans…

…Cliff Curtis…

…Benedict Wong…

…and was a honorary Sunshine Boy for a day.

So now I’m finished with Sunshine… there’s not really anything left to do (whether or not LA will hire me for *their* DVD release remains to be seen…), so for the next wee bit I’m working on ‘28 Weeks Later’… so you might want to get used to these.