Well, I thought it would be great to show you the one of the final days of our trip to Geneva, and take it outside.

Monica lived in an apartment a little ways on the French side of CERN, and we took her out to get a little of her running(She is a triathlon-er).

So, how do you film someone running? For starters, clear out the back of your car, and firmly place the DP in a secure position, tying him down with as many seatbelts, gaff tape, rope, or leather-bondage-gear-you-just-happen-to-have-in-your-car-that-you-are-holding-onto-for-a-dear-friend-with-some-issues-and-should-in-no-be-considered-yours. Safety first.

 

Start car. Start running. 

Voila. Instant movie magic.

So, we did that for a good amount of time. Then, a Vineyard…

That’s right, kiddies. Daddy had some French wine grapes, straight off the vine…

… which was the exact point that Martin decided to let me know that what I was doing could not be considered, well… legal.

*Ahem*

SO… we did a little rolling on the CERN tower, as viewed from the vineyard.

Now, I must admit, I was a little busy (apparently I was not hired for my dashing good looks or quick wit), so I handed the camera over to Joachim.

If you ask nicely, you might be able to pay Joachim a great deal of money to get action shots of you, too.

So, that’s that, kids! I’d love to end this the (Michael) Bay Way, with interdimensional portals opening hundreds of feet below the Earth, Lovecraftian Demi-Gods slopping out to rule this pit of a planet, and EXPLOSIONS! EXPLOSIONS! EXPLOSIONS!… but I got nothing. Just a transformational and rewarding experience, a chance to talk with some of the most intelligent people in the world, the space I occupied at the foot of the greatest science event of our time (which, don’t kid yourself, is yet to come), and enough paté to kill a goat.

CERN is going to close down for the winter (which it does annually, don’t believe the hype), so with any luck, we’ll be going back in the Spring for some particle collisions! In the meantime, I have some pretty interesting stuff coming up, and I’ll be posting as I go. Rock on, brothers and sisters. Let’s chat soon…

-J.

Kind of a bad-news-good-news scenario. My site shut down because of exceeded bandwidth, and that was for the crapper. On the other hand, it’s because so many were looking at the pics, so that’s pretty cool! I’ll be finishing up on the CERN blog on Monday, with a little re-cap. Then… well, just wait and see.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. As you’ve surmised from the continual existence of life on Earth, the Beam was both successful AND created no black holes. Ridiculous as the media coverage was from the beginning, one has to learn that maybe, just maybe, the most brilliant minds on our planet might know what they are doing. What can I say about it? Simply this. This is a machine which has been under construction for the past two decades, making it the modern-day equivalent of the Great Wall of China. Imagine thousands of people, finally coming to test this monolith for the first time, with that much history behind it as well as the knowledge that some in the room have dedicated their lives to it. One would expect there to be champagne and toasts, hugs and handshakes, tears and moments alone for such an occasion as this. There was that, to be sure. But what was unexpected was how short this lasted. No all-day parties, no vacations, but rather the immediate desire to to test it. People pointing out to diagrams on walls with projected data, exited physicists running around crowded control rooms, exclaiming like a kid at Christmas “Look at this Map! Look at it! WE HAVE DATA!”

The surprising thing was that this wasn’t an end to two decades of work. This was only the beginning. 

I do have some pictures, but since the team has returned from Geneva they have been going at full speed in preparation for the IFP this week, and for myself, I’m still trying to figure out what time it really is. I’ll have some additional posts up this week, wrapping up the two-and-a-half week shoot for Particle Fever. 

Oh, and currently, my computer clock says it is 5:10 in the morning. I’ve been up for two hours. Any jet-lag advice you may have, PLEASE post soon. I am going to go crazy…

So, here I am in Geneva. Now, I have traveled a bit, for work and otherwise. Admittedly, this has mostly been in the U.S. So a certain cultural misunderstanding of one’s environs is to be expected. You usually expect:

1.)        Wireless Internet in the rooms

2.)        A Gym

3.)        a coffee maker

4.)        An alarm clock

These are simple necessaties in the States. So, when I got none of these in Geneva, it was a quick slap to the forehead and improvisation that saved the day.

What my room DID come with was a kitchen, with some utensils. Still, the prospect of making one of my world-renowned cup’o’joe’s was slightly outside of the abilities that the tools presented me with. That, and the corner store didn’t have any filters.

So. How to Make Tea.

STEP ONE:

Fill a pot (or other appropriate culinary receptacle) with water. Preferably hot, to sepped up the boiling process.

 

STEP TWO:

 Place pot on burner, set to high.

 

STEP THREE:

Gaze at passer-by’s, wondering about intimate details and events in their lives, and if you could ever be friends.

 

STEP FOUR:

Pick a tea suitable to your tastes. Earl Grey is a personal favorite of mine. Since the corner store didn’t have it, I settled for his wife.

 

STEP FIVE:

Take water off heat, and submerge tea bag in pot.

Cover and wait.

 

STEP SIX

Eat a banana (optional).

 

STEP SEVEN:

Remove Tea Bag, discard.

STEP EIGHT:

Pour tea into cup. Add milk or sugar, to your preference.

 STEP NINE:

Pour over the first draft of your feature script, and come to the horrible realization of how much more work you have yet to do.

 (Optional)

Now, on my first post concerning the doc shoot, Particle Fever, I posted some pics of our director, Mark Levinson, and our DP, Wolfgang Held. I was also able to squeeze in our gaffer friend, Joachim. But there is one man, no, MYTH that I have not introduced you to. Ladies and gentlemen, Martin de Buck…

Name: Martin de Buck

Occupation: Being a Rock Star.

Seriously, Martin and Joachim have busted ass every day so far, and showing no signs of letting up.

Now that I have appeased the Gods of production with the customary Rite of Introduction, let me show off a few of the people we have been talking to.

Name: Sotiris Vlachos

Quote: “I became a scuba instructor because I was tired of the blank stares people would give me when I told them I was a nuclear physicist.”

Name: Martin Aleska

Quote: “The amount of data that will have to be recorded is equivalent to every person in the world talking on the phone at once. Times ten.”

Name: Albert de Roeck

Claim to Fame: If a life devoted to science isn’t enough for you savages, how about this: He was the advisor to the production team of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine.

(P.S. Beautiful movie, if you haven’t seen it)

(P.P.S. … you savages)

Which finally leads us to this. I know that all of you have been missing me dreadfully, and have been contemplating suicide as a result thereof. To stay off your imminent self-executions, here’s a pic of me.

Satisfied? I’m the sour-looking guy in the corner, swearing at various noise-makers and instruction-ignorers throughout the warehouse.

Tomorrow: Making Tea in Geneva.

If, for nothing else, the sheer beauty of it. It was a bright, beautiful Sunday morning, and I felt the need to take a look at this place. I started with the Lake.

  

Crowded with boats and skiers, fishermen and sun-bathers, Lake Genevé is the center around which a lot of the social life in Geneva happens.

 

Despite it’s urban development, you find yourself seeing things that you either miss, or just plain aren’t around in American cities. I saw a woman go swimming with her dog…

 …Water that I could actually see through…

 

 …And a woman teaching a child how to walk…

 

 

All in all, a wonderful day, traveling around. While at night, the place is just as bright as anything I’ve seen in New York.

 

…on the other hand, there were a few things I couldn’t quite grasp.

 

 And, seemingly, Daniel Radcliffe’s contribution to classical sculpture…

 

Despite the quirky sculptures (which are probably more an understatement of my ignorant American sensibilities), Geneva’s a lovely place. But tomorrow, back to work. I’ll be posting a few stills from the set, and on Wednesday: “How To Make Tea Without A Kettle Or Any Idea What You’re Doing”. And on that note, my new favorite beer…

 

Feldschlösschen. You mis-said it right…

As many of you know, I am currently doing sound/camera assist on a documentary concerning the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, entitled Particle Fever. I landed on the ground here at Geneva two days ago. The flight was a tad… rough. We spent two hours on the tarmac, first waiting on the queue for other planes that had been mysteriously diverted from a closing terminal. Then, a valve of some sort blew on our plane. Great start.

I was traveling with the DP, Wolfgang Held. He’s a great guy, and if you’ve checked out the indie circuit-breaker Teeth, then you’ve seen his work.

We touched down at 9:15 am Thursday morning, to meet our Swiss Production Manager Martin de Buck, and our gaffer, Joachim Chardonnens. Both great guys, they helped us pick up our gear, and get it through the rather daunting prospect of customs.

Neither Wolf nor I had any real sleep on the plane, and personally speaking, I was really looking forward to my first jet-lagged nap at the hotel. However, Martin brought up the idea that director Mark Levinson and producer David Kaplan were already at CERN, and that we should meet up with them for lunch, and maybe a little location scout. Off to CERN we went.

CERN itself is a huge collective. There’s no real “walking around”, because the property of it, as well as its flagship project the Large Hadron Collider (LHI), spans the borders of Switzerland and into France. To be frank, it’s amazing. We did a location scout of the warehouse where we’ll be doing interviews on Monday and Tuesday, and off to sleep I went.

Geneva itself is a mystery. For one, Switzerland’s currency is not the Euro, but rather the Swiss Franc. I took out two hundred from an ATM, and it turns out to be only one hundred and eighty eight. The prospect that there’s a nation with running water out there that favors the American Dollar was incredible. Then, of course, we went to dinner around eight. A little Indian place about two blocks from the hotel, and I’m paying thirty-five dollars for a cereal bowl of Lamb Madras with rice. Lesson one.

Yesterday, we went to the heights of Mont Blanc, which is about twenty minutes inside the border of France from Switzerland. Now, people make it a recreation to walk to the summit, and make a day of it. Maybe I’m just out of shape (and a smoker), but the idea of that seems frankly insane. We took a trolley up, and by the first summit, you could feel the effects of the pressure and oxygen deficiency. By the second summit (which was hands-down the most amazing (and frightening) trolley ride of my life), smoking a cigarette produced a slight dizziness, and an even slighter nausea.

While rolling sound at the summit, I did notice that we were getting frequent interference from the wireless microphones. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to switch the frequencies, as there were three talent, one of whom had to be back down the mountain in under an hour. So, boom mic it was, which was a tad daunting in and of itself. If I lost my grip, a $1500 microphone would have plummeted to its rocky death about a mile down. Great…

But, other than that, the day was great. Martin was spinning last night at about three am, coming on right after Mixmaster Mike (Beastie Boys, you know it). I didn’t have the chance to go, but I’m looking forward to hearing about it from him later today.

We have a day off now, but I’m going to be doing some exploring of Geneva, and see if I can get a better perspective of this crazy town. More later…

 

DP Wolfgang Held

 

Mark Levinson discussing the schedule with Wolfgang.

Location scout with Mark, Wolfgang, and Joachim.

 

Mont Blanc, from the first ascension.

 

Hikers coming upon the second summit. These people are dangerously insane…

 

I am not sure what this mountain’s name is, but it certainly gives credibility to the phrase “Hostile Environment”…

“Well I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’, Mr. Frodo, sir… but that there mountain is the last place I want to go”

That’s right. I’m heading off to Geneva for two and a half weeks at the end of August to help out with the documentary, “Particle Fever”. It will document the the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Needless to say, I’m more excited than a four-year old opening a Christmas Transformer (Grimlock, to be specific). If you don’t know anything about CERN or the LHC, check out THIS.

I’ll obviously be posting photos, links, and if I get the chance, maybe a video from Geneva (if they let me loose with the camera and a day off… we’ll see).

Also, “The Van” website goes live on Monday. I’ll be bugging you all again…