G2004 Con Report, part two
Aug. 25th, 2004 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandolinNo wonder this post took me two days straight to write. For all the gaps in my memory, I sure had a lot to say about Friday...
Friday, August 6
(Man, you know I'm in trouble when I'm checking OTHER PEOPLE'S con diaries to make sure I'm remembering everything in order. Eep. And my quote list is missing, so I'm pulling what I can remember straight out of my head here.)
Like I said, I don't recall much about Thursday night, which is probably why I intentionally slept in late for once. As late as possible. Once I finally hauled myself out of bed around 9 or 10 (I don't remember when, I was taking it easy), and showered, I set about finding breakfast and a caffeine source. Kathy was already long gone, and I think I rolled around in bed while Vanessa and Jade got ready - I was bound and determined to stay in bed as long as possible because I felt like it.
This year, the hotel was excellent - and the breakfast buffet looked tempting. However, on a tip from Hudson (I think Hudson was the one with the graphic "rip your innards and your wallet out" description), I passed on the buffet and went down to the adjacent mall connected to the Delta to find a coffee shop, and snagged a muffin and a decent cup of chai. Which was really all I needed. Also found an ATM to get Canadian dollars from, since I didn't want to overload my credit card (oh, how prophetic that sentiment would be).
The hour or two between my caffeine hit and lunch is kind of hazy, to be honest; I did go down to pick up my registration stuff and spotted several people I recognized and apologized to those I didn't recognize in my half-conscious state the prior night (I swear, my brain was doing its darndest to crash and burn then). Made the mistake of NOT going into the Artists' Alley, thinking I'd have time to go fill out a ballot later. Ha.
Anyway, I somehow ended up with a group of about 20 people heading out in search of lunch prior to the voice acting panel - Aaron, Mara, Greg B, Hudson, Arno, Robert, Ethan, Lynati, and several others who I knew were in the group. It was a nice day, fairly cool, and just cool enough for me to get away with wearing my purple velvet blouse with the billowing sleeves. (I've wanted to wear it to a Gathering for a while now, but it's always been far too hot.) We trooped a few blocks and finally came across a nice diner that was already packed to the gills with the lunch rush. We stopped to do a head count and figure things out, and the staff there was very nice and urged us to stay, even setting up tables outside for the lot of us. They got everyone seated, although Hudson generally patrolled the tables. I got a salad, partly because I wasn't starving quite yet and partly because I wanted to make sure I got some vegetables in with the junk food I was sure to consume en masse during the vacation.
While we were waiting, Arno got himself in my quote book by saying to Robert, "I notice that you're standing with a group of ladies talking about a burning sensation." (I don't recall the conversation that led up to that, but it prompted a lot of laughter.)
Got back to the hotel in time to make the Voice Acting Panel - Greg and Keith were supposed to be handling it, but Keith was delayed and Greg had to do it by himself. "Keith David WAS the only interesting thing about this panel," Greg said. Of course, we all shot that assertion down. Jen first read for Demona, but Greg said that she was "too good" and gave it to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
seri_wavelength instead.
Cue the DVD film crew, who came in while Seri was reading. So, with the cameras on her, Seri tried to wrap it up, but Greg kept her on the spot - "You're not done yet." I think he was trying to make her squirm; I wouldn't have handled it as well as she did. The crew stuck around, and the next four volunteers came up to read a scene from MIA - I volunteered to read Una. I was pretty bad, especially compared to Michael, who did a fabulous Griff. The next group that read did a scene from "Awakening part 1" and had Anthony Zucconi reading Demona (prompting the comment "Demona's a man! A jingly man!"), and the DVD crew wandered off in the midst of that.
Greg also told a story about Carol Channing that I heard last year but didn't relate before: When she came in to do a voice for "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers," she was wearing this chiffon blouse that made a great deal of noise when she moved. Since she had a tendency to talk with her hands when recording, the rustle of the shirt kept getting picked up by the microphone. When the crew pointed this out to her, she came up with a solution - she took the blouse off and did the rest of the recording in her bra. She was called back to reprise the character later... and showed up wearing the EXACT SAME BLOUSE.
Also, got an awesome quote while waiting for the panel to start (and this may be off since the quote book's missing). Seth and Gorebash were talking about Gore growing his hair out again, and then the possibility of Seth growing his hair long, which led to this quote (note, this is HAIR we're talking about):
"You grow yours out too, and we'll have a contest to see who grows it faster."
Michael cracked up. "That is the most awesome comment I've heard today."
Afterwards, I tried out for the radio play, albeit half-heartedly. Let's face it, I am not a voice actress, I can't do an accent to save my life (the closest to a British accent I could muster in "Jane Eyre" sounded Bostonian, okay?), but I tried out and I did not do so while sick this year. (And at least Keith wasn't there to hear my bad attempt.)
I stuck my head in to the costuming panel for a bit, then I wandered into the dealers' room and Artists' Alley. Despite my resolve not to blow as much money as I did at Otakon, I did splurge for Christine's "Archmage of the Universe" (which I've been forgetting to pick up for too long) and the Phoenix Gate anthology. I got a chance to say hi to Tim, who was manning the table while Christine handled the RPG panel. I couldn't churn out anything worth submitting to the Anthology, and I'm glad; nothing I scribbled held a candle to the stories collected in it. There was some great work, and I had to smack myself to keep from sitting down and reading it right there.
There was a little time to kill before Opening Ceremonies, and I decided to find dinner and wound up retreating to the mall with Jade, Vanessa, and I'm blanking on the fourth person in our group. (I want to say it was Flanker, but I could be wrong.) We ended up getting Chinese food, which was okay but not entirely satisfying. Vanessa's order was messed up, and I didn't finish off my teriyaki because it just didn't taste right.
Opening Ceremonies was, as usual, a great deal of fun. I sat with Kathy and Christine in the back, and watched the usual introductions and thank-yous. I have to give Karine a lot of credit - I'm always amazed how con staff gets things together with all the work that's involved, and she was five(?) months pregnant when the con rolled around. I hope they didn't get the wrong idea when Karine asked "What does the fandom want?" and someone shouted "We want Thom!" Most people understood that Thom Adcox couldn't be there this year, really, it was just an opening to be silly.
(Of course, I followed it up with "Pants optional!" Thom is never going to get through a Gathering without having to reenact the Great Pants Drop of 2001, I swear... not that it's ever bothered him...)
Of course, the usual intros were broken up by Maui and Abram, who started up the first wild game of Clan Olympics right there in the ballroom, complete with stampeding people trying to cram plastic balls down teammates' shirts. The DVD crew, of course, got it all on tape. One of our more mature and sedate moments, right, Christine? ;)
Not everything was the "usual" at Opening Ceremonies. Chris Rogers' pitch for G2005 made me really tempted to go to the Vegas con next year, although I still don't know if I can pull it off.
Greg, of course, told the stories a lot of con regulars know and love: the initial press release ("It's better than Barney!"), how Jonathan Frakes was hired, fired, and re-hired (a fact that Greg says he's still smug about), the origin of "Jalapena," and showed the tape of the original show pitch plus the trailer shown to the press, as well as the "Bad Guys" leica reel (which can only be shown at cons, folks), and the voice recording for the never-finished Team Atlantis episode "The Last," which would have incorporated Demona.
He also played an audio tape of well-wishes from several people associated with the show, including Frank Paur, Vic Cook, Greg Guler, and Ed Asner. I've been told we have Carol to thank for that, so Carol, THANK YOU! You are awesome!
The big news came out then, of course: Gargoyles Season 1 was coming out on DVD on December 7th.
Greg pulled the "Ladies and gentlemen, Keith David!" prank on us yet again, and yet again, we fell for it. Keith's arrival was still delayed, since the rain was delaying shooting on his movie.
I snuck out of the ballroom during the presentation of the original pitch, since I'd seen it before and needed to find a restroom. I think that's when I wound up sitting and talking with a couple people, including Allaine - when I mentioned I was helping Jade transcribe MGT3K, he offered to lend her his tape recorder to help.
When Opening Ceremonies broke up, I stuck around for Mystery Gargoyles Theater 3000 - basically, a group of fans watching and MiSTing episodes. While Jade did have the tape recorder, I tried to transcribe as much of it as I could. Most of the stuff I wrote down came from Robert, Greg, Mara and Jade. We went through several episodes - "Heritage," "Sanctuary," "Kingdom," and "Walkabout." There was a National Weather Service alert that popped up in the middle of an episode, but we milked that completely.
It was after 8:30 when we cleared out of there to make way for the next Clan Olympics game, and there was time to kill before the "Blue" Mug-A-Guest in the con suite at 11. Also, since I hadn't eaten much of my dinner, I was getting hungry again. So Erik (emambu) and I decided to leave the hotel in search of food.
I should take a moment here to note that the initial direction one takes from the Delta Centre-ville is critical in determining whether or not you find food quickly. The most expedient route is to head uphill up University or the next block behind the hotel - a block or two and there's plenty of food to be found. If you go downhill, you have many blocks to walk before you hit Old Montreal, which isn't much of a good place to find quick food late at night. If you cross University and then go up another block away from the hotel... you're kind of screwed.
Guess which direction we took. ;)
Yep, we crossed the street and went a block away. No food in sight, so we headed uphill - but since we were a block removed from University, there was nothing. Everything was closed after 6 or 7 in Montreal, so we wandered past many a darkened shop window, chatting about fanfic, weird double majors (I am not the only insane one!) and other things as we searched in vain for food. We finally came across a place that looked like Montreal's version of Panera, and managed to get a couple orders of bread with tomatoes and cheese (focaccia? I can't remember, but it was good) and Erik got a cup of "pisto" soup.
We turned at the next block and immediately came across the Tim Horton's at the train station. Another block, and we realized that all we had to do in the first place was just go right uphill on University rather than go around in a circle for an hour. Hey, at least now we knew where to go.
As it turned out, we got into the con suite right at 11 pm - and it was jam-packed with people. There was barely any space on the floor, but we made room for ourselves and our food. Jen immediately began making fun of Erik's soup, teasing him and complained that he shouldn't bring "stinky soup" into the con suite. But hey, after the hike we took to find food, he'd more than earned it.
The Mug-A-Guest wasn't anywhere near as "blue" as last year for two main reasons: 1) Thom wasn't there to inspire quotes like "Listen to this. My dick! My dick!" and 2) everyone's minds were locked on the DVD release and what it would mean for the future of the series. Among the things we found out:
- Greg went a bit more in-depth about the Goliath Chronicles and why that season was so off-kilter - the production staff brought in to do the third season really had no clue about the series, no history with it, and had NO time to research. Aside from Greg's script for "The Journey," all they had to work with was some general episode premises. But despite fan complaints, "Angels in the Night" could have been very bad. (Goliath and Elisa bailing from NYC and going to Chicago? Huh?)
- Originally, the DVD was going to have commentary for "Awakening, part 1" and "Deadly Force." Greg pushed to have commentary tracks for all 5 parts of "Awakening" - so now all 5 parts will have commentary by Greg, Keith, and Frank Paur. He tried to get them to add commentary for "Deadly Force" as well, but they wouldn't do it. Hey, I'm not complaining.
The M-A-G lasted til around 2:30 AM - Karine apparently kicked everyone out around then so she could get some sleep. I bailed around 1 AM, wanting to get out of bed at a decent hour.
Wow. Next one won't be half as rambling. I hope. :)
Friday, August 6
(Man, you know I'm in trouble when I'm checking OTHER PEOPLE'S con diaries to make sure I'm remembering everything in order. Eep. And my quote list is missing, so I'm pulling what I can remember straight out of my head here.)
Like I said, I don't recall much about Thursday night, which is probably why I intentionally slept in late for once. As late as possible. Once I finally hauled myself out of bed around 9 or 10 (I don't remember when, I was taking it easy), and showered, I set about finding breakfast and a caffeine source. Kathy was already long gone, and I think I rolled around in bed while Vanessa and Jade got ready - I was bound and determined to stay in bed as long as possible because I felt like it.
This year, the hotel was excellent - and the breakfast buffet looked tempting. However, on a tip from Hudson (I think Hudson was the one with the graphic "rip your innards and your wallet out" description), I passed on the buffet and went down to the adjacent mall connected to the Delta to find a coffee shop, and snagged a muffin and a decent cup of chai. Which was really all I needed. Also found an ATM to get Canadian dollars from, since I didn't want to overload my credit card (oh, how prophetic that sentiment would be).
The hour or two between my caffeine hit and lunch is kind of hazy, to be honest; I did go down to pick up my registration stuff and spotted several people I recognized and apologized to those I didn't recognize in my half-conscious state the prior night (I swear, my brain was doing its darndest to crash and burn then). Made the mistake of NOT going into the Artists' Alley, thinking I'd have time to go fill out a ballot later. Ha.
Anyway, I somehow ended up with a group of about 20 people heading out in search of lunch prior to the voice acting panel - Aaron, Mara, Greg B, Hudson, Arno, Robert, Ethan, Lynati, and several others who I knew were in the group. It was a nice day, fairly cool, and just cool enough for me to get away with wearing my purple velvet blouse with the billowing sleeves. (I've wanted to wear it to a Gathering for a while now, but it's always been far too hot.) We trooped a few blocks and finally came across a nice diner that was already packed to the gills with the lunch rush. We stopped to do a head count and figure things out, and the staff there was very nice and urged us to stay, even setting up tables outside for the lot of us. They got everyone seated, although Hudson generally patrolled the tables. I got a salad, partly because I wasn't starving quite yet and partly because I wanted to make sure I got some vegetables in with the junk food I was sure to consume en masse during the vacation.
While we were waiting, Arno got himself in my quote book by saying to Robert, "I notice that you're standing with a group of ladies talking about a burning sensation." (I don't recall the conversation that led up to that, but it prompted a lot of laughter.)
Got back to the hotel in time to make the Voice Acting Panel - Greg and Keith were supposed to be handling it, but Keith was delayed and Greg had to do it by himself. "Keith David WAS the only interesting thing about this panel," Greg said. Of course, we all shot that assertion down. Jen first read for Demona, but Greg said that she was "too good" and gave it to
seri_wavelength instead. Cue the DVD film crew, who came in while Seri was reading. So, with the cameras on her, Seri tried to wrap it up, but Greg kept her on the spot - "You're not done yet." I think he was trying to make her squirm; I wouldn't have handled it as well as she did. The crew stuck around, and the next four volunteers came up to read a scene from MIA - I volunteered to read Una. I was pretty bad, especially compared to Michael, who did a fabulous Griff. The next group that read did a scene from "Awakening part 1" and had Anthony Zucconi reading Demona (prompting the comment "Demona's a man! A jingly man!"), and the DVD crew wandered off in the midst of that.
Greg also told a story about Carol Channing that I heard last year but didn't relate before: When she came in to do a voice for "Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers," she was wearing this chiffon blouse that made a great deal of noise when she moved. Since she had a tendency to talk with her hands when recording, the rustle of the shirt kept getting picked up by the microphone. When the crew pointed this out to her, she came up with a solution - she took the blouse off and did the rest of the recording in her bra. She was called back to reprise the character later... and showed up wearing the EXACT SAME BLOUSE.
Also, got an awesome quote while waiting for the panel to start (and this may be off since the quote book's missing). Seth and Gorebash were talking about Gore growing his hair out again, and then the possibility of Seth growing his hair long, which led to this quote (note, this is HAIR we're talking about):
"You grow yours out too, and we'll have a contest to see who grows it faster."
Michael cracked up. "That is the most awesome comment I've heard today."
Afterwards, I tried out for the radio play, albeit half-heartedly. Let's face it, I am not a voice actress, I can't do an accent to save my life (the closest to a British accent I could muster in "Jane Eyre" sounded Bostonian, okay?), but I tried out and I did not do so while sick this year. (And at least Keith wasn't there to hear my bad attempt.)
I stuck my head in to the costuming panel for a bit, then I wandered into the dealers' room and Artists' Alley. Despite my resolve not to blow as much money as I did at Otakon, I did splurge for Christine's "Archmage of the Universe" (which I've been forgetting to pick up for too long) and the Phoenix Gate anthology. I got a chance to say hi to Tim, who was manning the table while Christine handled the RPG panel. I couldn't churn out anything worth submitting to the Anthology, and I'm glad; nothing I scribbled held a candle to the stories collected in it. There was some great work, and I had to smack myself to keep from sitting down and reading it right there.
There was a little time to kill before Opening Ceremonies, and I decided to find dinner and wound up retreating to the mall with Jade, Vanessa, and I'm blanking on the fourth person in our group. (I want to say it was Flanker, but I could be wrong.) We ended up getting Chinese food, which was okay but not entirely satisfying. Vanessa's order was messed up, and I didn't finish off my teriyaki because it just didn't taste right.
Opening Ceremonies was, as usual, a great deal of fun. I sat with Kathy and Christine in the back, and watched the usual introductions and thank-yous. I have to give Karine a lot of credit - I'm always amazed how con staff gets things together with all the work that's involved, and she was five(?) months pregnant when the con rolled around. I hope they didn't get the wrong idea when Karine asked "What does the fandom want?" and someone shouted "We want Thom!" Most people understood that Thom Adcox couldn't be there this year, really, it was just an opening to be silly.
(Of course, I followed it up with "Pants optional!" Thom is never going to get through a Gathering without having to reenact the Great Pants Drop of 2001, I swear... not that it's ever bothered him...)
Of course, the usual intros were broken up by Maui and Abram, who started up the first wild game of Clan Olympics right there in the ballroom, complete with stampeding people trying to cram plastic balls down teammates' shirts. The DVD crew, of course, got it all on tape. One of our more mature and sedate moments, right, Christine? ;)
Not everything was the "usual" at Opening Ceremonies. Chris Rogers' pitch for G2005 made me really tempted to go to the Vegas con next year, although I still don't know if I can pull it off.
Greg, of course, told the stories a lot of con regulars know and love: the initial press release ("It's better than Barney!"), how Jonathan Frakes was hired, fired, and re-hired (a fact that Greg says he's still smug about), the origin of "Jalapena," and showed the tape of the original show pitch plus the trailer shown to the press, as well as the "Bad Guys" leica reel (which can only be shown at cons, folks), and the voice recording for the never-finished Team Atlantis episode "The Last," which would have incorporated Demona.
He also played an audio tape of well-wishes from several people associated with the show, including Frank Paur, Vic Cook, Greg Guler, and Ed Asner. I've been told we have Carol to thank for that, so Carol, THANK YOU! You are awesome!
The big news came out then, of course: Gargoyles Season 1 was coming out on DVD on December 7th.
Greg pulled the "Ladies and gentlemen, Keith David!" prank on us yet again, and yet again, we fell for it. Keith's arrival was still delayed, since the rain was delaying shooting on his movie.
I snuck out of the ballroom during the presentation of the original pitch, since I'd seen it before and needed to find a restroom. I think that's when I wound up sitting and talking with a couple people, including Allaine - when I mentioned I was helping Jade transcribe MGT3K, he offered to lend her his tape recorder to help.
When Opening Ceremonies broke up, I stuck around for Mystery Gargoyles Theater 3000 - basically, a group of fans watching and MiSTing episodes. While Jade did have the tape recorder, I tried to transcribe as much of it as I could. Most of the stuff I wrote down came from Robert, Greg, Mara and Jade. We went through several episodes - "Heritage," "Sanctuary," "Kingdom," and "Walkabout." There was a National Weather Service alert that popped up in the middle of an episode, but we milked that completely.
It was after 8:30 when we cleared out of there to make way for the next Clan Olympics game, and there was time to kill before the "Blue" Mug-A-Guest in the con suite at 11. Also, since I hadn't eaten much of my dinner, I was getting hungry again. So Erik (
emambu) and I decided to leave the hotel in search of food.I should take a moment here to note that the initial direction one takes from the Delta Centre-ville is critical in determining whether or not you find food quickly. The most expedient route is to head uphill up University or the next block behind the hotel - a block or two and there's plenty of food to be found. If you go downhill, you have many blocks to walk before you hit Old Montreal, which isn't much of a good place to find quick food late at night. If you cross University and then go up another block away from the hotel... you're kind of screwed.
Guess which direction we took. ;)
Yep, we crossed the street and went a block away. No food in sight, so we headed uphill - but since we were a block removed from University, there was nothing. Everything was closed after 6 or 7 in Montreal, so we wandered past many a darkened shop window, chatting about fanfic, weird double majors (I am not the only insane one!) and other things as we searched in vain for food. We finally came across a place that looked like Montreal's version of Panera, and managed to get a couple orders of bread with tomatoes and cheese (focaccia? I can't remember, but it was good) and Erik got a cup of "pisto" soup.
We turned at the next block and immediately came across the Tim Horton's at the train station. Another block, and we realized that all we had to do in the first place was just go right uphill on University rather than go around in a circle for an hour. Hey, at least now we knew where to go.
As it turned out, we got into the con suite right at 11 pm - and it was jam-packed with people. There was barely any space on the floor, but we made room for ourselves and our food. Jen immediately began making fun of Erik's soup, teasing him and complained that he shouldn't bring "stinky soup" into the con suite. But hey, after the hike we took to find food, he'd more than earned it.
The Mug-A-Guest wasn't anywhere near as "blue" as last year for two main reasons: 1) Thom wasn't there to inspire quotes like "Listen to this. My dick! My dick!" and 2) everyone's minds were locked on the DVD release and what it would mean for the future of the series. Among the things we found out:
- Greg went a bit more in-depth about the Goliath Chronicles and why that season was so off-kilter - the production staff brought in to do the third season really had no clue about the series, no history with it, and had NO time to research. Aside from Greg's script for "The Journey," all they had to work with was some general episode premises. But despite fan complaints, "Angels in the Night" could have been very bad. (Goliath and Elisa bailing from NYC and going to Chicago? Huh?)
- Originally, the DVD was going to have commentary for "Awakening, part 1" and "Deadly Force." Greg pushed to have commentary tracks for all 5 parts of "Awakening" - so now all 5 parts will have commentary by Greg, Keith, and Frank Paur. He tried to get them to add commentary for "Deadly Force" as well, but they wouldn't do it. Hey, I'm not complaining.
The M-A-G lasted til around 2:30 AM - Karine apparently kicked everyone out around then so she could get some sleep. I bailed around 1 AM, wanting to get out of bed at a decent hour.
Wow. Next one won't be half as rambling. I hope. :)
