Tag Archives: Michelle Yeoh

Blog, Video

Freefall

Video

Before filming on ‘Sunshine’ started over one year ago now, director Danny Boyle was keen to give the eight actors a taste of what it would be like to be a real team of astronauts.

As we join the film, these characters have been together for many years- both on their mission in space and previously in training on Earth- and Danny wanted to make sure that when filming started the actors operated as a team. He also wanted to school them in science and sci-fi as well as give them some real flight experience.

All eight actors lived together in one house. They spent 24 hours a day with one another in order to fast track their team bonding. They all learned to SCUBA dive and did some underwater training to give them an idea of what it feels like to float and be forced to move slowly in the way you would do in space. They each learned to fly a plane on a £15 million flight simulator. And they were each taken up, individually, in a plane to experience Zero Gravity. It worked. Within weeks they really were thinking like the crew of the Icarus II.

We’ve got a new video showing each of the actors’ reactions to being in Zero G.

Behind The Scenes, Blog, Images, Video

A New Word

I’ve invented a new adjective. And I’m using it.

suttirat (soo’-tir-at) adj
1. Passionately concerned with details. I’m getting all suttirat about my photos.
2. Methodical in one’s approach. I need to be more suttirat in order to do it.
3. Generally just cool. That’s just so suttirat.

Suttirat Anne Larlarb is the Costume Designer on ‘Sunshine’. She’s in charge of everything that the actors wear- clothes, shoes, spacesuits, accessories, comms units.

Suttirat’s office walls are completely full of reference images- photos of astronauts, space suits from various eras, samurai warriors, club wear and bizarre dresses that even Isabella Blow would think were outrageous. There are even two pictures of lizards. Not sure what they are there for. She has several books filled with sketches of uniform, spacesuit and comms unit ideas, though my very favourite thing in one of her books is the flow chart showing what each character is wearing in every single scene. I want a large colour copy of it to frame and put on my wall. The writing is tiny and neat, and from far away it looks almost like a circuit board design. It’s beautiful.

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The comms units are a cool and geeky bit of kit. Suttirat got her inspiration for them from her Mac laptop, iPods and Army dog tags, which is evident when looking at them- two separate, but virtually identical sections with a ‘breathing’ blue light and rounded corners. They aren’t, however, just bits of plastic on string- they are actual, working communications units. The actors speak to each other through them instead of just ‘pretending’ or having someone just standing off-camera reading lines. For example in one scene, Mace in the Flight Deck might ask a question of Corazon in the Oxygen Garden. When they are filming in the Flight Deck and Chris Evans is on-camera, he asks his question then Michelle Yeoh, who may be sitting off-camera, will reply and her voice will come out of Chris’ comms unit. Though Suttirat designed them, they were made to work by the sound department.

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Suttirat had the characters’ uniforms made in a factory rather than have them made in-house. She wanted them to have an industrial feel to give the impression that they are space-agency-issued rather than film-costume-designer-designed. She said that there are little flaws in the stitching that she would have never done had they been made in-house, but, to her, the flaws give the uniforms a much more realistic look.

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The costume department is filled with racks of costumes. Each character has their own section which is divided into different stages of the film. As films are shot out of sequence, one needs to be fiercely organised in order to make sure the whole thing runs smoothly. Wanna know how just organised the costume department are? They sew little bits of embroidery floss into the different characters’ socks in order to tell them apart. They are *that* organised.

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I love that.

Behind The Scenes, Blog, Images

Stand In

It can take literally hours to light a scene. In order to light it properly one needs to have someone actually standing there to light. Rather than have the actors waiting around, getting exhausted and bored, they use stand-ins.

Stand-ins are not doubles, they don’t necessarily look like the actor they are standing in for, but they tend to be roughly the same height and are issued with a copy of the costume the character is wearing in that scene. All of the stand-ins have been members of the crew- Runners, an AD, even someone from Craft Services have been stand-ins. It honestly isn’t the most exciting job- standing there for hours and hours while Alwin Kuchler works his magic.

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Anna, Floor Runner, “lying-in” for Rose Byrne.

On any given day you can tell immediately who is a stand-in. The costumes are so recognisable that you don’t even need to see someone close up to know that they are ‘in costume’ and you can often tell instantly who they are standing in for by what they are wearing. The outfit Sue, the 3rd Assistant Director, is wearing in this photo tells me instantly she’s standing in for Michelle Yeoh.

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Sue, 3rd AD, looking cool as Corazon.

Last week, I was walking along outside the main building when about 30 metres ahead of me I saw Dan, Cillian Murphy’s stand-in, walking towards me. Dan had to get extensions so that his hair resembles Cillian’s more. Dan isn’t particularly pleased with his hair and can usually be seen wearing a hat. As he was walking up to me, I realised that he didn’t have his hat on and wondered why that might be. Could he have lost his hat? Did he run off set so quickly he forgot it? Could someone have taken it? As he got closer to me I realised… it wasn’t Dan. It was Cillian.

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Dan, Floor Runner, with hat covering his Capa-like extensions.

Blog

Sneak Peek

Chris Gill cut together a bunch of shots to show the crew in the little cinema here at Three Mills. I went in during my lunch hour to have a look. Oh. My. Goodness. It was excellent! Everyone who saw it was very excited afterwards. It cheered up the mood enormously – everyone’s been ill or tired and the filming has been going very slowly- so seeing the amazing work everyone has been doing was exactly what was needed. It showed everyone that it was all worth it.

My husband, Brian Cox, was visiting the set. Just after lunch, we were chatting to Alex Garland and a couple other people when Michelle Yeoh walked up. She had 10 minutes before she was needed on set again and wanted to know if she could watch what Chris had cut together. We all went into the edit.

We sat down on the sofas and Michelle told Brian that she’d like him to write her a little explanation of the science behind ‘Sunshine’. She said she’d been asked to explain a few things about the film in an interview and she only had her memories of his lecture to go on. He promised her he’d write one that would be easy for her to explain.

Dan, one of the Floor Runners, got a call that Michelle was needed in a couple minutes, so Mark the Assistant Editor started playing the edit on the big wide screen telly. *BAM*! Everyone stopped talking and watched.

It finished. Silence.

“I want to see it again!” Michelle loved it… and everyone else said, “Yeah! Me, too!” So we watched it again. I’m sure Michelle would have watched it a third time, if she hadn’t had to go film.

Even though there’s no story to Chris’s edit, it was exciting, action-packed, energetic and full of menace. Amazingly though, the film hasn’t been graded, the wires are still in shot, Chris hadn’t included any of the brilliant acting scenes and there’s no CGI- so no ‘big space shots’. It’s definitely not the case that ‘all the best bits are in the trailer’ because that stuff hasn’t even been filmed yet.