G2003 Con Report - part 4
Jul. 10th, 2003 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandolinOkay, here's the end. Not as long and detailed as the rest, but, well, the con was winding down at this point.
Saturday, June 28
Almost forgot: Dreamie presented Thom with a gift at the Masquerade - a belt with a padlock. (She then announced, "And now we're going to auction off the key." *snerk*)
Sunday, June 29
Made a lazy mistake Sunday morning - since Kathy was con staff, I assumed her phone alarm would get us up on time. First time I woke up, I saw her still in bed and figured it was still early.
Her phone alarm did not go off. We woke up at 1:15.
Jumped out of bed, dressed, and raced to Vic and Greg W's Team Atlantis Q&A panel. Got there late, but not too late, and they were discussing why the series was so stupidly chucked. They were talking about budget problems and the fact that overhead took so much of it when I got in - lately, only half of the budget goes to the cartoon itself. Yeesh.
Disney saves higher budgets for properties with the Disney banner (ABCFamily doesn't count). There's apparently a difference between shows with the Disney label and shows that are "carrying the flag for Disney." "Team Atlantis" fell into the latter category. When TA was in development, there was no ABCFamily, and a certain exec hated the idea from the start and got to say "I told you so" when the film flopped. Huge S&P arguments over the series didn't help either.
So they'd actually developed 6 episodes of the series, and gotten the voice work done for the 7th (the Demona ep) - that's about $1 million invested in the show already - when there was a message for Greg at 11 am about a "10 AM full crew meeting." He didn't think anything of it, and called their story editor on a separate issue. The story editor wouldn't tell him what was up, saying, "You have to call Tad yourself." Vic had been called in at 9 and was told privately what was going on - they were axing the show completely. Forget the $1 mil already in the project, forget all those episodes, the film was a flop, the execs wanted to kill it, Disney is run by idiots. (NOTE: That last sentiment is purely mine. Greg and Vic didn't say it, but I'm sure many at the con agree with it.) At the time, such a thing was unimaginable; wasting all that money and time on something that was half-done and then chucking it all.
Now, however, it's become a verb: last year, Greg mentioned that if something else like that happened at Disney, the project was "Atlantised." He recently heard that used by someone at Sony, and now it's become an industry term.
They showed us some clips from the straight-to-tape "movie," which was actually 3 episodes thrown together. From the bit I saw, it looked like a fun series (better than the original film), so it's really a shame that this happened.
After that, I realized what time it was and bolted for the art room - I'd forgotten to bid on the two pieces I'd wanted! Luck, it seemed, was with me; while a large part of the face cards were gone, no one had bid on the Owen or the Puck. I snagged them both and picked up a Lex print for Thom to sign, then headed to closing ceremonies.
Not much to say about closing ceremonies, really, just some quotes. Greg Weisman, on having the podium turned over to him by the con staff: "And heaven forbid I should shut up." Thom held up a sculpture of Lex's head he got from the art show, saying, "Look, I got a little head." Aaron was kind enough to inform all us camera Nazis that "Thom is keeping his pants in the upright and locked position." Got to say hello and goodbye to JEB, said goodbye to a lot of folks who were heading out, signed up for G2004, and got Thom to sign my print.
Hung out in the con suite for a little while. The video room was pretty much over with, and Greg B tried to set something up so I could watch some Cowboy Bebop (the only episode I've seen in full is "Toys in the Attic") By the time he got it in, though, it was too noisy to hear the dialogue, and it was almost 4 so I had to join the Coney Island crew to hit the subway.
(NOTE: Greg Weisman is the only Greg mentioned from here on in, unless I specify otherwise. ;) )
We took the subway, all 27 of us (as Greg's constant head-counts reminded me). On the way to Coney Island, we stopped at the World Trade Center memorial. Wow. Thankfully, the memorial stuff was not tacky in the least. I didn't cry, but the sight of it just made me stare and think. It made what happened almost 2 years ago seem a lot more real. I took some pictures, and Sara the Great and I ended up following Greg around to the upper deck (we couldn't see anyone else from our group). Once we got everyone together, we went all the way down to Coney Island.
Coney Island was... pretty much what I expected. Overpriced (hey, it's New York), kind of grungy, not as big as some people think, but it was still fun. Ended up in a group with Sara the Great, Dylan, Mooncat, Princess Alexandria, Leo, The Bizz, Diamond Debbie, BrooklynX, and if I forgot anyone, please tell me. We went on the Cyclone first thing - I wanted to go on it, but wasn't going to go on a full stomach. I only went on it once because it was a rough ride; I've been on worse, but it's an older rollercoaster, my brain felt like it had been rattling in my skull, and it was all left turns so I kept squishing Dylan. After I waited with a couple others for the rest of the looney tunes to finish their second ride on it, we went on a few more rides, including the Wonder Wheel ("So which one of these did Demona and Thailog have their fight on?"), the haunted house, and I went on the go-carts while some others went on the Zipper. (Me: "So you gauge the quality of a ride by the amount of head trauma you sustain?" Sara: "Yep!") Played some Skee Ball, got everyone to sign the free smiley faces we got. We did NOT stay til midnight, much to my relief; I think we left around 10.
Took the subway back up to 34th(?) Street, after many headcounts (Someone: "We have confirmed that, indeed, Greg can count.") and a bit of confusion when they were working on the tracks, but the night didn't end there: Greg announced that he wanted to find pancakes. (Me: "Easier said than done. This isn't Williamsburg.") That switched to a general search for something with sugar at 11 pm, and we ran around before finally finding an open ice cream place in Penn Station. I needed to find a pharmacy, but we didn't pass one that was still open. While everyone was hanging out in the con suite, watching Cowboy Bebop, Greg was kind enough to walk me to a 24-hour pharmacy. (Of course, I had to ask him after he'd changed out of his walking shoes. Thanks again, Greg. I appreciate it.)
I crashed at a relatively decent hour afterwards.
Monday, June 30
Woke up at 8:45, although at first I thought it was 9:45 and called Kathy in a panic before I realized I had time to shower and dress. We checked out, and I stored my luggage in the luggage check room. We didn't take A Fan's touring trip, and I went with Kathy to Chinatown instead. It was incredibly hot, and we ducked into shops as much to browse as we did to just get out of the heat. Kathy did find the book she was looking for, and I bought a jade elephant for Plague's mother (for the next time I visit OC and she spoils us rotten). We were going to eat in Chinatown, but when we stopped at a fairly crowded restaurant, we were the only non-Asians there. This wouldn't have bothered us if we hadn't realized that everyone else had to take a lottery number and they were going to clear the next table for us first. So we ended up going to Little Italy instead.
Kathy had a flight to catch, so we got back to the hotel around 2. This gave me two and a half hours to kill, so I went in the gift shop, and suddenly remembered - to my chagrin - that I'd left the birthday present I'd bought for Innocence on the top shelf of the closet. After a few phone calls and a bit of panic, someone from security kindly went and got me the teddy bear from the room. So now I had an hour and a half to kill, and no one familiar in sight. I did see Revel and Spacebabie coming back from the Empire State Building, but after what transpired they weren't really going anywhere. (Congratulations, guys. :) )
I went across the street to Penn Station and picked up an on-sale copy of the 5th Harry Potter book (between the discount and the coupon I had, I saved about $16 off the cover price), came back and sat down with the book. I'd made it through a good chunk - hey, I'm a speed reader - when I ran into Greg, who was headed to McDonald's and asked if I wanted to come along. So we picked up lunch in the tiny McDonald's, and took it back to his room to eat.
Greg was surprised to find that this was my fifth, not my second con - he didn't remember me prior to 2002. (Being one of the few people in Williamsburg with a car last year, I drove down to the Yorktown tour and boat ride after the con.) That was because 2002 was the first time I could go to a convention with a real job that allowed me to save enough leave up to stick around after the convention - I had to fly out of Orlando before closing ceremonies in 2000. He didn't remember me as the person who they held radio play auditions an hour late for in G1998 because I got sick. (And I'm glad he didn't. I was in bad shape that Saturday. Damn you, Blimpie's! :) ) And, you know, I'd been too shy to introduce myself earlier. Helps when you room with someone who's on the convention staff.
It was 4:15 when I confirmed that my train was on time, said goodbye to Greg, got my bags and headed across to Penn Station. Got on the train with no problem, didn't forget ANYTHING for once (knock on wood), and got back to Aberdeen on time. Let me tell you, next time I head up that way, I'm definitely taking the train. I wouldn't take the train outside of the Boston-to-DC routes (I still can't believe BrooklynX took the train from Sacramento, and I nearly choked when I heard the train coming from Michigan was delayed 6 hours because it HIT SOMEONE), but it's a really smooth ride up and down that corridor.
Well, that's that, until I go to Montreal next August for G2004. Hey, Marie, do you live anywhere near Montreal, by any chance? :)
Photos should be up tomorrow night.
Saturday, June 28
Almost forgot: Dreamie presented Thom with a gift at the Masquerade - a belt with a padlock. (She then announced, "And now we're going to auction off the key." *snerk*)
Sunday, June 29
Made a lazy mistake Sunday morning - since Kathy was con staff, I assumed her phone alarm would get us up on time. First time I woke up, I saw her still in bed and figured it was still early.
Her phone alarm did not go off. We woke up at 1:15.
Jumped out of bed, dressed, and raced to Vic and Greg W's Team Atlantis Q&A panel. Got there late, but not too late, and they were discussing why the series was so stupidly chucked. They were talking about budget problems and the fact that overhead took so much of it when I got in - lately, only half of the budget goes to the cartoon itself. Yeesh.
Disney saves higher budgets for properties with the Disney banner (ABCFamily doesn't count). There's apparently a difference between shows with the Disney label and shows that are "carrying the flag for Disney." "Team Atlantis" fell into the latter category. When TA was in development, there was no ABCFamily, and a certain exec hated the idea from the start and got to say "I told you so" when the film flopped. Huge S&P arguments over the series didn't help either.
So they'd actually developed 6 episodes of the series, and gotten the voice work done for the 7th (the Demona ep) - that's about $1 million invested in the show already - when there was a message for Greg at 11 am about a "10 AM full crew meeting." He didn't think anything of it, and called their story editor on a separate issue. The story editor wouldn't tell him what was up, saying, "You have to call Tad yourself." Vic had been called in at 9 and was told privately what was going on - they were axing the show completely. Forget the $1 mil already in the project, forget all those episodes, the film was a flop, the execs wanted to kill it, Disney is run by idiots. (NOTE: That last sentiment is purely mine. Greg and Vic didn't say it, but I'm sure many at the con agree with it.) At the time, such a thing was unimaginable; wasting all that money and time on something that was half-done and then chucking it all.
Now, however, it's become a verb: last year, Greg mentioned that if something else like that happened at Disney, the project was "Atlantised." He recently heard that used by someone at Sony, and now it's become an industry term.
They showed us some clips from the straight-to-tape "movie," which was actually 3 episodes thrown together. From the bit I saw, it looked like a fun series (better than the original film), so it's really a shame that this happened.
After that, I realized what time it was and bolted for the art room - I'd forgotten to bid on the two pieces I'd wanted! Luck, it seemed, was with me; while a large part of the face cards were gone, no one had bid on the Owen or the Puck. I snagged them both and picked up a Lex print for Thom to sign, then headed to closing ceremonies.
Not much to say about closing ceremonies, really, just some quotes. Greg Weisman, on having the podium turned over to him by the con staff: "And heaven forbid I should shut up." Thom held up a sculpture of Lex's head he got from the art show, saying, "Look, I got a little head." Aaron was kind enough to inform all us camera Nazis that "Thom is keeping his pants in the upright and locked position." Got to say hello and goodbye to JEB, said goodbye to a lot of folks who were heading out, signed up for G2004, and got Thom to sign my print.
Hung out in the con suite for a little while. The video room was pretty much over with, and Greg B tried to set something up so I could watch some Cowboy Bebop (the only episode I've seen in full is "Toys in the Attic") By the time he got it in, though, it was too noisy to hear the dialogue, and it was almost 4 so I had to join the Coney Island crew to hit the subway.
(NOTE: Greg Weisman is the only Greg mentioned from here on in, unless I specify otherwise. ;) )
We took the subway, all 27 of us (as Greg's constant head-counts reminded me). On the way to Coney Island, we stopped at the World Trade Center memorial. Wow. Thankfully, the memorial stuff was not tacky in the least. I didn't cry, but the sight of it just made me stare and think. It made what happened almost 2 years ago seem a lot more real. I took some pictures, and Sara the Great and I ended up following Greg around to the upper deck (we couldn't see anyone else from our group). Once we got everyone together, we went all the way down to Coney Island.
Coney Island was... pretty much what I expected. Overpriced (hey, it's New York), kind of grungy, not as big as some people think, but it was still fun. Ended up in a group with Sara the Great, Dylan, Mooncat, Princess Alexandria, Leo, The Bizz, Diamond Debbie, BrooklynX, and if I forgot anyone, please tell me. We went on the Cyclone first thing - I wanted to go on it, but wasn't going to go on a full stomach. I only went on it once because it was a rough ride; I've been on worse, but it's an older rollercoaster, my brain felt like it had been rattling in my skull, and it was all left turns so I kept squishing Dylan. After I waited with a couple others for the rest of the looney tunes to finish their second ride on it, we went on a few more rides, including the Wonder Wheel ("So which one of these did Demona and Thailog have their fight on?"), the haunted house, and I went on the go-carts while some others went on the Zipper. (Me: "So you gauge the quality of a ride by the amount of head trauma you sustain?" Sara: "Yep!") Played some Skee Ball, got everyone to sign the free smiley faces we got. We did NOT stay til midnight, much to my relief; I think we left around 10.
Took the subway back up to 34th(?) Street, after many headcounts (Someone: "We have confirmed that, indeed, Greg can count.") and a bit of confusion when they were working on the tracks, but the night didn't end there: Greg announced that he wanted to find pancakes. (Me: "Easier said than done. This isn't Williamsburg.") That switched to a general search for something with sugar at 11 pm, and we ran around before finally finding an open ice cream place in Penn Station. I needed to find a pharmacy, but we didn't pass one that was still open. While everyone was hanging out in the con suite, watching Cowboy Bebop, Greg was kind enough to walk me to a 24-hour pharmacy. (Of course, I had to ask him after he'd changed out of his walking shoes. Thanks again, Greg. I appreciate it.)
I crashed at a relatively decent hour afterwards.
Monday, June 30
Woke up at 8:45, although at first I thought it was 9:45 and called Kathy in a panic before I realized I had time to shower and dress. We checked out, and I stored my luggage in the luggage check room. We didn't take A Fan's touring trip, and I went with Kathy to Chinatown instead. It was incredibly hot, and we ducked into shops as much to browse as we did to just get out of the heat. Kathy did find the book she was looking for, and I bought a jade elephant for Plague's mother (for the next time I visit OC and she spoils us rotten). We were going to eat in Chinatown, but when we stopped at a fairly crowded restaurant, we were the only non-Asians there. This wouldn't have bothered us if we hadn't realized that everyone else had to take a lottery number and they were going to clear the next table for us first. So we ended up going to Little Italy instead.
Kathy had a flight to catch, so we got back to the hotel around 2. This gave me two and a half hours to kill, so I went in the gift shop, and suddenly remembered - to my chagrin - that I'd left the birthday present I'd bought for Innocence on the top shelf of the closet. After a few phone calls and a bit of panic, someone from security kindly went and got me the teddy bear from the room. So now I had an hour and a half to kill, and no one familiar in sight. I did see Revel and Spacebabie coming back from the Empire State Building, but after what transpired they weren't really going anywhere. (Congratulations, guys. :) )
I went across the street to Penn Station and picked up an on-sale copy of the 5th Harry Potter book (between the discount and the coupon I had, I saved about $16 off the cover price), came back and sat down with the book. I'd made it through a good chunk - hey, I'm a speed reader - when I ran into Greg, who was headed to McDonald's and asked if I wanted to come along. So we picked up lunch in the tiny McDonald's, and took it back to his room to eat.
Greg was surprised to find that this was my fifth, not my second con - he didn't remember me prior to 2002. (Being one of the few people in Williamsburg with a car last year, I drove down to the Yorktown tour and boat ride after the con.) That was because 2002 was the first time I could go to a convention with a real job that allowed me to save enough leave up to stick around after the convention - I had to fly out of Orlando before closing ceremonies in 2000. He didn't remember me as the person who they held radio play auditions an hour late for in G1998 because I got sick. (And I'm glad he didn't. I was in bad shape that Saturday. Damn you, Blimpie's! :) ) And, you know, I'd been too shy to introduce myself earlier. Helps when you room with someone who's on the convention staff.
It was 4:15 when I confirmed that my train was on time, said goodbye to Greg, got my bags and headed across to Penn Station. Got on the train with no problem, didn't forget ANYTHING for once (knock on wood), and got back to Aberdeen on time. Let me tell you, next time I head up that way, I'm definitely taking the train. I wouldn't take the train outside of the Boston-to-DC routes (I still can't believe BrooklynX took the train from Sacramento, and I nearly choked when I heard the train coming from Michigan was delayed 6 hours because it HIT SOMEONE), but it's a really smooth ride up and down that corridor.
Well, that's that, until I go to Montreal next August for G2004. Hey, Marie, do you live anywhere near Montreal, by any chance? :)
Photos should be up tomorrow night.
Welcome Back!
Date: 2003-07-11 11:22 am (UTC)Hey Mandi. Glad you are back cause everybody missed you back at the games board. Plus, I'm having a ball living vicariously through the stories you tell of your trip from last Thursday onward.
Sounds like you had a ball, certainly an action packed time. Rats that I don't live in Montreal as I'd really love to meet you. I'm in Victoria, British Columbia - the West Coast of Canada. Plus it is on Vancouver Island to boot!
Sure looking forward to seeing your pictures when they are up ;-).