This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
What a day. What a day. It began about 10-ish when the delegates assembled at the Maison Des Girrafes to work on the fine details of the script for Cromer: Darwin’s Lost Weekend we’d sketched yesterday. The weather, however, seemed to be against us, and some of the stars needed cossetting.
Heidi, negotiating for her own trailer and dressing room.
As an added attraction and a desperate attempt to up the science content I took some of the party to visit the beach at West Runton, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a few miles west of Cromer. Here, at the base of the present-day cliffs, a thick layer of dark silty mudstone is what’s left of a river that meandered across the East Anglian landscape some 700,000 years ago, in the Middle Pleistocene. This is the ‘upper freshwater bed’ of the famous Cromer Forest-bed Formation, and the type section of the Cromerian Stage of the British Pleistocene. This, the type Cromerian at West Runton, has yielded fossils for more than 200 years, including abundant fossil wood and shellfish, some of which are indicated here by Your Host:
Sir, there are Fossils in my fresh water bed
as well as abundant vertebrates. The small mammals, especially voles, are preserved largely as teeth which are, surprising as it may seem, vital in establishing the relative antiquity of Pleistocene Strata. Bones of larger animals are found on occasion, most famously the entire skeleton of an elephant which turned up in 1990 and was one of the whoppingest specimens of Mammuthus trogontherii ever discovered. M. trogontherii made the (much later) woolly mammoth look somewhat undersized.
You can see a few bits and pieces of the mammoth at Cromer Museum and Norwich Castle Museum, but the vast bulk of the creature (I have seen it and can attest to its bulky vastness) is in storage, away from the view of the public and especially tourists. One of the most impressive fossil skeletons found anywhere in the world, second only in magnificence to one of the larger dinosaurs, had the misfortune to have turned up in Norfolk – in other hands it might have been the centerpiece for a new museum of climate change, on what is appropriately the fastest-eroding coastline of Europe, and a worldwide centre for study of the massive climate changes that have characterized the past couple of million years, especially in this part of the world. It could be Norfolk’s answer to the Eden Project. However, until someone turns up with the vision, the money and the confidence to face down parochial nimbyism, you’ll see very little of this magnificent beast. There is nothing at all, now, at West Runton, but for this notice attached to the beach cafe (closed for the winter).
Time erased the river that created the upper freshwater bed – the sea invaded, and the river deposits were overlain by marine gravels. And then, a cataclysm. Above the gravels is a vast wodge of generalized stuff , dread sign of the Anglian Glaciation, the most severe glaciation to have hit Britain. Here is the CISB party standing in front of the whole section:
Lord John of Gilbey points accusingly at the Anglian gravels and sands
During the Anglian, an ice sheet of apocalyptic power scrubbed Britain of its native landscape, shoving the Thames out of its ancient course through what is now St Albans and displacing it into its present location. Britain became a polar desert for tens of thousands of years.
But enough of such flummery, it was time for lunch. The West Runton Party returned to the Maison des Girrafes to find this groaning spread – couscous, pasta salads, green salads, fresh bread and hardboiled eggs laid by the Gee chickens (The Gee chickens lay hard-boiled eggs? They are clever – Ed.) — a feast created in about thirteen nanoseconds by Mrs Gee, who had pointedly reminded me of my poor planning (and rightly so) for not thinking up adequate (or indeed any) Sunday lunch arrangements.
A Groaning Spread, Yesterday (yes, Bora, I thought you’d like that one)
By that time Trevor and Steve, our film-makers had arrived, and read the script even before taking a bite -
Steve and Trevor read the script. Only the prospect of Mrs Gee’s lunch keeps them from getting in their van and going home straight away.
There followed a detailed script conference in which Trevor pointed out all the gaping continuity errors we’d left littered around the script like newlyweds’ underwear over the bridal suite floor.
Script conference. Underwear not appearing in this film.
Given that daylength is not all that great at these far northern latitudes at this time of year. we thought it best to get down to the pier to do the Cromer location shots as quickly as we could, especially as film-making involves a lot of boring hanging around in which the cast and crew have to make their own entertainment.
But here is some action like what she is taking place, in which Mr Darwin, played by the Gilbey of Gilbey hams it up gazes in an actorly manner at the sea.
When we came back from the beach we were greeted by the delightful smell of baking. Not content with having loaded us up with lunch, Mrs Gee’s Location Catering Services™ had created oatmeal cookies, flapjacks and a Victoria sponge.
I am bound not to tell you anything else about the film, apart from revealing these teaser shots -
What do all these objects have in common?
The Evolvo Goes Forth
Variation Under Domestication
And … er … well, you’ll just have to wait and see
An hour in the early evening was spent doing some indoor shots in Trevor’s room at the Cliftonville. We snuck upstairs with all manner of lighting equipment, cameras, tripods and so on: the woman in the room adjacent must have thought we were shooting something entirely unsuitable for a family website.
A couple more bits and pieces and it was a wrap.
Last updated: Monday, 02 Mar 2009 - 01:42 UTC
© 2009 Nature Publishing Group
You are right, I liked that!
So sad I couldn’t join in! So glad that CISB09 was a hit. I am glad the resulting movie will also be a success. Very much looking forward to seeing it, and the reason behind your fancy suit. You look quite dashing in it!
You will probably conclude, Dear Reader, that the foregoing exposition represents a wildly surreal – nay, unique – episode in the history of blogging, flash-mobbing and indeed the interwebby version 2.0 thingy itself…
I am pleased to assure you that your analysis – although it must, by its very nature, be based so far on only partial and incomplete data – is entirely correct….
Excuse me, Madam but does this bus go to the … Um … wossname?
Now That’s What I Call a Weekend (72)
Sounds like you all had a great time – though Erika and Frank do look rather chilled in the West Runton photo. Looking forward to the video with eager anticipation…!
Mrs Gee’s Location Catering Services™ rocks !! whilst I could relate this comment directly to Mrs Gee who’s sitting only a few feet away, she’s busy at work through in the Maison Des Girrafe 2.0 conservatory. Dr Gee is beavering away at work in the Maison Des Girrafe pod aka The Office. I’m tapping away on the couch famously slept on by Dr Bora Zivkovic of North Carolina.
Trevor and Steve loaded all their kit back into the LostHorse Films™ film mobile about an hour ago, and are on their way back home to Kent. They most enjoyed being invited by Mr G S of Glasgow to direct and film this project and then getting down to business.
No promises at this stage as to the eventual length of the film and how long it will take to complete it.
What can be said for certain is that I’ll be sent (by email) a low res. copy of the edited post production version. My job is to complete the film-score! Since I’ve got a few tracks lined up already, and one if the cast is going to record an appropriate piece for the closing sequence, this shouldn’t take to long to complete.
The film-score then gets emailed to the producers who’ll complete the job in high res. and ready for release on teh interwebs.
Since all of the music is Creative Commons licenced, no copyright issues to deal with. The producers have also kindly agreed to release the film under a Creative Commons licence.
Since YouTube have recently pulled HD as an option whilst uploading, we’ll most probably upload a low res version there, and the high res HD version to somewhere like Vimeo.
Heavens to Betsy!
“ooer, Missus”, I thought, “this sounds a bit racy!”. Titter ye not. My suspicions were backed up by the final paragraph…
and I could only assume you were aiming for a BBFC certificate that would render the project unviewable for all Gees of minutiael standing.
I, on the other hand, can’t wait to view the unviewable! Especially after Mr G S of Glasgow recently assaulted my senses with the worst piece of comedic videocrapy since my pants were being swung on early 90’s saturday mornings.
@Stephen – yes, it was rather chilly on that beach. Henry was doing a lot of jumping up and down and waving his arms as he gave us a paleontology lecture, so I think he got warmed up.
As for the continuity errors, I still maintain that they were all carefully crafted to add a dizzying element of surrealism to the film.
Henry was doing a lot of jumping up and down and waving his arms as he gave us a paleontology lecture
I’d’ve taken questions from the floor …
Thanks for the wonderful report! Can’t wait to see the finished movie. And I’m really sorry to have missed CISB09.
I don’t know about chilly, I think I am incorrectly portrayed as downright miserable in the first picture! Miserable I wasn’t, but it was drizzling. And Henry didn’t say “say cheese”.
I’m not much good at acting anyway, which is why I play something resembling myself. (Just wait and see.) Or at least I thought I did. Who knows what my performance will look like post-editing…
Many thanks again to one and all for a great weekend. I’m back home safely now, recovering. Once the post-conference fatigue has passed it will be time to plan the next one…
Nice Fez! nice history lesson too :)
Thanks all – I’m pleased that people went away with something positive. Thanks in particular to Martin, who took me aside at ScienceOnline09 and suggested that rather than simply getting together for a chat, a very small group of people might be better occupied by collaborating on a specific task, and indeed could do something of that nature far more effectively than a larger group. And what with it being Darwin Year, the idea of a podcast or movie or something similar was born. The result was that we worked very hard on what management droids called ‘team building’, and should soon have something to show for our efforts.
In movie parlance, we’ve completed principal photography on Cromer: Darwin’s Lost Weekend. Trevor and Steve are going to do a short scene by themselves, and then do an edit. Then Graham will do some music as he’d discussed above, and by that time we’ll have something to show everyone. Oh yes, and I’m supposed to play some generic sea-shanty-type music on my accordion over the end credits.
A major advantage is that a team made of NN people is likely to do well, considering that we’re
accessiblewhimsicalwarm and fluffysuch nice people as well as being highly intelligent, motivated and, of course, modest. The result was that not only did we brainstorm, script, location-scout, act in, voice-overed and shoot a short film, we learned a lot about how to crochet invertebrates (Kristi — Gees Minor and Minima love you) and managed to squeeze in a field excursion.More thanks to Graham and Karen (epecially as she couldn’t be there) for setting up the technical tweak that allowed us to send custom tweets to our own FriendFeed room, and for Graham (with noises off from Cameron) for working out how to do a live webcast from my ageing Dell laptop. And without Graham we’d never have had Trevor and Steve, our film-makers.
Karen, despite being offstage, organized our merchandizing – and Li-Kim, also offstage, donated lots of Nature Network goodies. Thank you! Frank and Erika pulled off an improv acting scene all by themselves despite being convinced that they couldn’t – and John, the Gilbey of Gilbey Grange, Professor Trellis of North Wales himself, played the part he was born to play, and did so beautifully, luvvie.
I learned a great deal about the logistics of conferences, especially the need to plan catering — without Mrs Gee’s Location Catering Services™ it would all have gone horribly wrong. And now I’m knackered! Mrs Gee is knackered. Gee Minor and especially Gee Minima are knackered, and also a bit tearful, and long skeins of multi-coloured wool now festoon the house. Even Heidi looks a bit lost and confused now that all her new friends have gone away. The chickens, though, are relieved now that Steve and his camera are no longer chasing them round and round the garden.
I wonder how organizers of conferences with more than six delegates feel?
I’m sure the town of Cromer should offer its thanks as I expect we singlehandedly kept its ailing economy from total collapse for another couple of weeks by increasing its expected last-weekend-in-February income by about 600%,
Thank you Graham and Henry for your kind comments re the grub at Gee Towers. It was a super weekend – thank you to everyone for travelling up to the wilds of north Norfolk to join us for CISB. Erica glad you’re home safely (thank you for your kind donation to my run) and Graham, hoping you’ll be safely back home in Glasgow this evening. John – hoping you are now back in Wales, Frank and Jerry in London, Steve and Trevor safely back in Kent and Kristi en route home via Gatwick tonight. Karen – hoping you are feeling better. Bora (who was at CISB in spirit) we miss you, please visit the UK again soon! Bye for now, more cooking to be done…
Hi All. I am now back on the Atlantic coast after four trains and a taxi… Many, Many thanks to everyone for such a tremendous weekend – which, who knows, may lead to other enterprises (and trips to film festivals, obviously!)
We just got back home, after spending a few hours in Norwich visiting a small percentage of the apparently endless number of churches in that city.
It was a truly, er, memorable weekend and I can safely say that I have never had an experience like it! I think there is a thespian somewhere inside me and it was good to have a chance to try it out. But next time I must remember to bring powder to calm down my fiercely shining head.
I’d like to add my thanks to Gee & Gee for the tum-filling catering and highly efficient taxi-ing services.
I wonder whether a video-shoot will become de rigueur at all the best conferences from now on?
Mr G S of Glasgow, is now safely back in Glasgow. Too knackered to say/do much but glad that he has another day off before returning to work.
I’ll be uploading some CISB09 stuff tomorrow, but, here’s one that y’all might find, err, interesting !!
G’night.
Looks like I’m wearing a very strange prosthetic. And a chicken.
The
Beagleeagle has landed in Texas, narrowly missing major delays due to snowfall in Atlanta (srsly!). Turned out to be a good idea to spend an extra afternoon in London, snooping around bookstores.Many thanks to all the conference participants and organizers, and most especially the Gees. I knew next to nothing about scripting and shooting a film before CISB09, and now I feel that I’ve learned at least a little bit.
Glad to learn that the
beagleeagle has landed.A flying beagle, yesterday.
Snow in Atlanta? Well, the day after everyone left Cromer, winter returned, the wind got up, accompanied by driving rain. So we were very lucky with the weather!
As Mrs Gee and I shared the sofa yesterday, with nothing between us but a large yellow furry animal, we reflected on how large and empty our house felt. We really rather enjoy the stimulation of having a houseful of interesting people. It turns our ’umble ’ome into a salon. We thought we should do it again sometime.
Winter returned to Aberystwyth this morning as well, with snow settling for a while… Confused the cat no end…
We thought we should do it again sometime.
You can count me in :-)
This post, Graham’s live-feed, the friendly FriendFeed feed, the phone call and all the well-wishes almost made me feel like I actually attended CISB and didn’t sit at home sneezing approximately once per minute.
I can’t wait to see the outcome. If it’s even 10% as funny as Graham’s Beelzebun Demon Bunny of DOOM YouTube video then it will be considered, by me at least, a raging success.
Oh yes, and I’m supposed to play some generic sea-shanty-type music on my accordion over the end credits.
You needs the shanties? I gots the shanties.
So, now it’s all over – a week already – and we have to be patient for the filmmakers’ work to proceed on the cutting-room floor, or whatever the modern equivalent is.
And of course our thoughts turn to “what about next year?”.
Well, in the Indie yesterday I read Brian Viner’s column . He noted that his Tales of the Country columns had been gathered together into a book, and were now to be transformed into a stage play. He speculated whether there might be scope to develop them into a reality-TV show too.
This set me to wondering … a collection of writings gathered into a book, then made into a dramatic form. Of course! CISB Films Inc.’s next production should be Open Lab 2008 – The Movie.
Of course! CISB Films Inc.’s next production should be Open Lab 2008 – The Movie.
I nominate Jenny and Richard as script editors
(ducks)
Here’s a teaser for you….
“Cromer: Darwin’s Lost Weekend” – The Making Of from Graham Steel on Vimeo.
My excitement is increased by the fact that I couldn’t get this to work. I’ll do some accordion music tomorrow, I hope.
It’s ok with a PP and firefox, but not on a mac and safari
Works on my Macbook Pro with Safari…
Totally confused.com, Buy above.
Could be my Mac doesn’t have the oomph. It’s an aged iMac running OS X.9.3
As matters stand, the hope is that this weekend, Mr G.S. of Glasgow will be
doing bugger all as usualhard at work on the film score for this almighty fragment of cinematic photography.Not that one requires any additional inspiration, one might be somewhat tempted to wear this rather alluring garment during the process:-
Mr G.S. of Glasgow in the 1st captured shot of anyone
allegedlyactually wearing a CISB09 shirt.Excellent, Graham!
That reminds me that I need to order my own CISB 09 T-shirt ….
Me too. Anyway, news has reached Galapagos Villas that Mr T H-P of Bromley (which is quite near Down House) has all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.