Slayercon 2004 - Oakland, CA - August 26-29
Welcome to our Slayercon writeup. Your hosts are Michele and Erik. This
was mostly typed up by Michele, so she is usually the "I" in the
writeup. This is split into three parts: con organization, people we
met, and panels we went to. There is nothing about the main Q&As
here since those can be downloaded, and transcriptions are in the
works. However a little bit about the Camden Toy panel is here, and a
very brief overview of Lee Stringer's FX presentations. If you don't
have enough time/patience to read through the whole thing, important
points that may not have been covered elsewhere on the net have been
put in bold. We had a fantastic time at the convention, especially
Saturday.
We are looking for videos of the following:
The good, the bad, and the beautiful
Tony Head singing at the banquet
Slayercruise presentation with George and James
If you have video footage please e-mail us. shelleproductions (@t) gmail (dot) com
Convention organization
Registration: We got there at
5:40 and there was a huge line. We went to dinner at the Pacific Coast
Brewery, root beer, lemonade and a pepperoni pizza, yum. We went back,
no line! Suckers.
Merch: The photos at the Vulkon
Emporium changed as the days went on. It was worth it to visit it more
than once. Especially on the last day when they had a very nice pic of
Juliet and James with Juliet's signature. Fortunately for us, we were
getting our James auto that day. They also had pre-signed pics of lots
of the other stars who had dropped out of the con, like Mercedes and
Andy, as well as Mark Lutz, Emma Caufield, and Christian Kane.
The dealer's room was very disappointing, they only had like 5 or 6
vendors there and the merch wasn't so good. My husband says it's
probably because they had ridiculous vendor rules for this con.
Photo ops: The photo op lines,
for Saturday I think you were only really screwed if you were getting
one with Clare and one with Alexis, since Alexis was afterward and you
had to get in line again, which had already formed. I know people were
complaining about not getting photo op tix at registration and having
to wait in separate lines, but the thing is if they did it the other
way, people would lose their tix. So they couldn't win either way.
For Friday we were next door watching Lee Stringer present the Firefly
gag reel, and could hear people screaming when James went in. On
Saturday, when Tony came in, he went past the photo backdrop, then
peered around it to smile at us. He stuck around when he finished
taking pictures, and gave Nick a huge hug when he came in. If you cross your eyes and look sideways, the third pic is of them hugging. They chatted
for a few minutes before Nick started and Tony left.
At this point this
woman comes in and says to us, who are sitting in rows of chairs, good
morning class. Today we will be learning (something) and I'm like who
the hell is this chick? Turns out it's none other than Julie Caitlin
Brown, the manager of many of the stars, and who had parted ways with
Robia for whatever conflict. Hmm! She told us this was going to be the
biggest Vulkon convention turnout today, and wished us well. Meantime,
Clare came in way too early since Nick had come in late, and basically
sat in a corner talking to the staff. When Nick was done, he hugged her
and had a couple words with her before leaving.
No time to talk much to the actors during photo ops, from reading what
people had said the time for that was during autographs. So we kept it
simple, but in just a couple short sentences Tony Head came across as
very warm and uh...awake. We were there at 7:30am ya know! The photo print quality is great, but the disadvantage to it being printed the same day was no airbrushing/editing/correction type stuff. A bunch of people had shadows on their faces. Since the photos are done with a printer, you can see the lines from the paper rollout on it when looking closely.
Autographs: The autograph
method for Saturday was confusing, but it was one of those things where
it didn't make much sense when it was being explained, but it was fine
when it was actually being done. The problem is they divided the lines
by section instead of every other row, so the first row of silver
tickets got stuff done hours before the last line of gold tickets, and
that was truly unfair, especially for Alexis since we got to say
whatever to him, and the end people didn't have enough time.
The next day, because Julie didn't understand how the previous day's
line had gone, she wasted about 15 minutes wondering why James's line
was so short, calling the gold people rows, asking if they needed him
when they had already gotten him the day before. When she finally got
to silver it was fine, and they even finished the autographs on time.
There was nothing going on while autographs were being signed, we just
all had to wait in this big room to be called. Music was played over
the PA for Saturday but it all sucked ;) Eventually when the lines got
out of control, Julie told them to turn it off. At that point, and also
the next day, she went to the front, sat on the stage and started
taking questions. Also rattling off her life story. At least it was
something to focus on while waiting, but damn it was like hello, you're
basically doing the same thing the actors are getting paid to do for
this con, and you haven't been asked to! But then, she didn't realize
that she was having her own panel, until Sunday. The sucky part was
when she was getting asked about guests, she said Sarah didn't do cons,
David was rare, and Aly didn't want to and then she teasingly sang but
she was heeere, and she was probably going to tell us about it, but
then Paul came up told her it was time to call another row.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (Except for that, Paul was a cool guy and
introduced Lee Stringer for his Sat and Sun panels.) Erik did talk to
one person who ran into Alexis and Aly in the elevator, he said please
don't tell anyone, and had Aly sign something for her.
Camden Toy
Camden talked a lot about stuff that is in the Horror Web interview. He
commented on the sound issues in both his panel and the group panel,
I'm sure he could have fixed the sound if the staff had let him. He did
his Taz impression mentioned in the Horror Web interview, and briefly
again at the end, because people who came in late repeated a couple
questions. He was asked about SMG,
and since he'd had to work with her a lot he had a lot to say. He said
she was concerned with treating him as a person. She wouldn't
spit blood in his face for that scene, they had to get someone else to
do it. He hadn't eaten because of the costume, and she said hey you
should get some chicken, and he's like no I'll get it later, and she
says I know those guys, it'll be all gone! So she dragged him there and
made him eat. She also started wondering what he looked like because
she'd never seen him out of the makeup. And finally, when using the
barbed wire at the end to kill him, she was uncomfortable with that
too. He said not to worry because it was just cloth or string or
something, but she didn't like it. He said she wasn't being difficult,
she was just uncomfortable with doing some of those things.
Lee Stringer
Talked about The Train Job
Someone brought back pics of Sedona for the background, they liked
those famous rocks so much that they reused them for the background in
different shots
Talked about lighting tricks to make the scene look as real as possible
Said the telegraph poles were for a sense of speed as they go by, and
since they use horses and shotguns the poles, it should have been ok
Everything in the shot is individual elements, three separate parts of
the train, the sky, the rocks, the brush, the dust the train kicks up,
the rocks, and Serenity
He made a couple of big elaborate detailed boxes that Jayne picks up,
and then in the final shot, the boxes and Jayne are just this teeny
tiny blob being lifted onto the ship
He talked about how they work with the built set to incorporate it into
their own art, measuring it to get it right, layering the textures to
add weathering and such
He brought the full version of the Firefly gag reel with him.
If you want to see this kind of stuff
discussed on DVDs, write to Fox Home Video
I asked if someday we will have Firefly on HD DVDs, he said Buffy and
Angel were not shot on HD, but Firefly was shot on "mid Hi Def" (since
FOX has not gone to HD yet til this year, I believe) and then put to
HD, so yes someday it could come out as HD. Of course that would depend
on how the movie(s) do.
He was very tight lipped about
Serenity effects, out of all three days he only gave one detail. This
is not a plot spoiler and should be safe enough for spoiler free
people, but that's the warning anyway and could cause some
speculation...
There is a
crash sequence at the end
using a miniature, and it's related to Buffy.
He tried hard every day to get the
Serenity convention teaser, but Universal said no. No animated series
preview either, he asked Mutant Enemy and they don't have enough
finished yet.
He discussed the making of the head Illyria explodes at the end of
Angel.
He brought some footage shot by Almost Human to show how they made one
of the demons in Angel, the one with 6 legs.
More about Lee at the end of this under Panels.
James Leary
James Leary filmed a Toyota Commercial
(should air nationally)
James tried to buy the molds and
makeup for Clem for the convention but said that it costs between $6000
and $7000
Had a greeting card with a cat on it
Was selling a pic of Clem with Spike, pre-signed by James, so we got
that one. Perfect!
I ambushed the guy who had just talked to him, who had his Sunnydale
Yearbook, he'd gotten lots of stuff signed at Posting Board Parties.
Then Erik finally yanks me away, and says, hey, picture. And I'm like
HEY it's Clem, you're one of my favorites, and he said, I am too!
Sunday - Said goodbye to CoRo and went across the room to James,
semi-reluctantly did the invade space of previous person to get them to
finish up and out of the way thing, since autographs were going to
start, and he says, what's up guys? And we say we were just wondering
if he was OK from yesterday, during the improv when he got a poking in
his rear end from a sharp object. He said yeah, and I pull out my badge
and flip it over for us to look at and he's like was that it? Oh no
that's yours, and I'm like yeah this thing is sharp, but there was no
blood? and he said there was no blood and he was ok. We said we enjoyed
the improv panel and he said to make sure to tell Fernando. And I said
we'll see you do that again later tonight right? And he said no, we're
getting on a plane later. So we said goodbye.
Jonathan Woodward
We ran into Jonathan a couple times, once he was on his way to the
bathroom after his panel, singing a rap/R&B song that I don't
remember
Once we saw him go down the escalator while we went up
When we met him, Erik says, I KNEW we should have brought Firefly DVDs
We said hi, told him saw him in all three shows
Agonized over which pic to buy, picked the one that said Angel on it
He ended up giving us two pics anyway, because he messed up Erik's name
Then he spelled my name wrong anyway, sang Michelle while signing it
I asked if it was a problem for him to be called in last minute, he
said no
He asked about my Tony Head CD, which I still had out, and he was like,
who?
Kelly Donovan
He had a headshot to sign, so we were like oh good, we don't have to
get another Xander pic, because him signing a pic of his brother would
have been weird. I didn't want to just get an autograph and go, so I
asked him questions that have probably been asked a zillion times,
which twin did he play in the episode he was in, the confident one or
the silly one, and he said they both did both. I asked if they got to
improv with each other in that ep and he said nope, that Joss guy, he
does one liners real well.
Danny Strong
I didn't think they'd all three sign, but was told they would for $60.
So then I had to pick out a picture. I agonized over which Trio pic to
buy for like 10 minutes! There was a geek pic of them in front of Star
Trek store merch, a geek pic of them fighting over a big gun, a color
promo Buffy pic, and a black and white Buffy pic. I didn't like how Tom
looked in either of the geek pics, so the color promo photo won out.
So finally I hand it over, and tell Danny he's my favorite of the
three, and not to tell anyone, he says ok. Danny immediately turns, HEY
TOM, she says I'm her favorite, and Tom says, that's fine. Danny turns
back to me, I'm sorry it just slipped out. I just laugh. He had done
the same thing during his panel yesterday and it didn't occur to me
he'd do the same thing, I didn't say that to get him to do it ;) I
asked for a picture, he and the other two had received Mickey Mouse
ears hats with their names on them, and next to Danny's was a fake
nose/glasses piece. I asked if I could have the pic with the glasses,
he said that's not going to happen. I pouted and stuck out my lower
lip, but he said no. I tried!
He was onstage in the other room with the Mickey Mouse ears for the
auction, the props department had made trading cards of him for
Superstar, and two of the three were up for bids. One was of him with
his shirt off and nipples showing, said something about a g-string, and
the other was of him as a football player. I don't think Fernando had
wanted to auction both right then, since they didn't actually go for a
whole lot.
Adam Busch and Common Rotation
I didn't have much to say to Adam, but it's a lot easier for me to
separate the guy from asshole Warren with that beard ::D I told him my
friend tapes them all the time, and he says really, and my husband
observed that they had more CDs in the Live from the Hotel Cafe series.
He then gives us a sticker and invites
us to a secret last minute show in a hotel suite. Awesome.
I went to the gig while my husband filmed the OMWF production. I get in
the elevator with people and notice I'm the only one going to the 18th
floor...hesitated but none of them asked why. Good. I get up there and
Danny is knocking on the door. He looks at me like "eep" and I'm like I
got invited! The door opens, he goes in and it quickly shuts. Drat. I
rap on the door, the woman (Cate) lets me in and tells me to be quiet.
She asks for my invite and I show her. The suite was packed to the brim
(74 people, supposedly) and it was really hot in there, with a lovely
view of the city and the Bay Bridge, but by the end the windows were
steamed up. The people next to Danny offered him better spots, but he
kept saying no. There was a bar, and people in the back were sitting on
a couple of coolers filled with beer and soda. The three people in CoRo
performed with no amplification, with their documentarian filming. They
seemed to improv quite a bit, including a Velvet Chain mention as they
were currently playing for the con, and the room was full of fans
singing along a bit. They played for about 50 minutes, then the people
who had the suite kicked everyone out so they wouldn't get in trouble.
I left to go see if I could catch OMWF, but it was at the end where
Xander fesses up.
The next day, I was waiting to tell Adam thanks for the CoRo invite,
but he had people coming up to him. I noticed the guitarist hanging out
next to him and I'm like hi, I wanted to bring you guys the recording
of the show last night and they were just like ???? ...last night?
Yeah. He says again, this is the show from last night. Yeah. Adam looks
over and I thank him for the invite, then I say to the guitarist my
friend Justin tapes you guys all the time and this long haired dude
with them says yeah we know Justin and the guitarist nods, and I say
yep cool. So then I have Adam's attention by then and I tell him I
wrote a Clear Channel rant on there, and he says oh cool. I tell him I
just wanted to say, the lady from the panel yesterday who said that
living room concerts were uncommon, well I've been following this
artist (points to Vienna Teng shirt) around for a couple years now, and
Adam says yeah we know her, she plays around in LA near us, and I'm
like yeah we've seen her at - and he says Genghis Cohen and I say Hotel
Cafe. And I thought that house concerts were uncommon too, but now I
know it's really quite normal and I just wanted to say that. He thanked
us and asked us if we got a sticker, and I say yeah more stickers, and
told them that there was now a sticker stuck to the middle of the floor
in the panel room and they're like oh yeah and I'm like you guys are
probably gonna get in trouble for it, and they said well it'll get the
word out and I'm like you're in regular rotation now.
Tom Lenk
Well I'd read about how Tom's attitude at cons, and it sure did seem to
come out during the panel when asked if they were really nerds and he
said no, and even said sorry I just got all pissed off all of a sudden
after his rant. (It wasn't a big rant, just impassioned, and people who
didn't know any better probably thought he was trying to be
overdramatically funny about it.) Anyway, sure enough he was hiding
under a baseball cap for the panel as well as autographs. I told him
the picture agonizing had been between him and Danny (though it was
actually him and Adam, but my brain had fallen asleep) and he said
well, I'm not your favorite anyway, so...and I said but I want it to
look good, it does matter. Couldn't save it, my brain isn't sharp
enough, eh well. I thanked him and he said you're welcome. So he wasn't
rude, but definitely detached. Strangely enough though he had some
nerdy shirts for sale, one of them was a white shirt with a picture of
a pocket with pens, etc. that said Nerds Rule.
Larry the Sound Guy
They were using an XBox as a DVD player at one point in Event Hall West
Erik asked Larry The Sound Guy about it, it was playing MP3s
The MP3s on it sucked! heh (Evanescence, Crazy Town, Tatu, and the Tru
Calling theme)
During the George and James L improv, Larry let us use a power plug so
we could charge our camera, which George had been goofing around with.
Thanks Larry!
Tony Head
Morning photo shoot - Erik - "Good morning" Tony - "Good morning" Shell
- "Hi..." Tony - "Hello there" We step up to look at the camera, then
are told to step to the line. Tony says in a cowboy voice, "C'mon
down!" Then when it's over, Shell - "Thank you" Tony: "No, Thank YOU"
And then Shell dies because he's looking straight at her.
Autograph - Shell talks about her journey through VR.5, Buffy,
Whedonverse, etc. She explains how she was hoping for a VR.5 DVD
release, but it got canceled. Tony said he didn't think that the
show was successful enough that there were going to be DVDs, and then
she explained that they were going to make DVDs, and they were canceled.
Tony immediately says, "Those bastards!" Michele has him sign her Music
for Elevators cd, he asks where she got it, she said "online, a long
time ago," and he says that it was nice meeting us and continually
thanks Michele, until Erik drags her out of the line.
Banquet - Tony leaves the banquet, we're standing outside "Can you tell
me, where is the loo?" Erik gestured to the right of the banquet hall.
He said "Thanks, rather convenient how they put it there." Nick Brendon
came out as well and they took the journey to the restroom together
continuing their own conversation. Iyari Limon also said Hi to
Tony at some point in that.
We asked if we could come in for Tony
singing, were told no. We went to wait for the OMWF live
production, but they were delaying it so they could rehearse more and
also so the banquet people could attend. They were fussing that nobody
would show up, but the delay caused a nice line to get in. Michele left to hang out in front of the
banquet doors to try to hear the performance. When she got there, some
girls were there with Julie. She told them if you guys are quiet, you
can go in to listen. Thank you Julie. After that, anyone could
go in, but there wasn't a mob since most people were waiting for OMWF.
Tony sang songs from his Music For Elevators CD, some to a backing
track, some with just his acoustic guitar. At the end he sang Sweet
Transvestite and had to fish around for someone who could do a part
with him. The guy Brad did his best and Tony invited him on stage for
the next day to perform it again. I was standing behind Camden Toy and
he was enjoying it, and to my right Jonathan and Danny were jabbering
away.
Clare Kramer
I told Clare I loved Glory and she thanked me, she was really
enthusiastic all weekend and I don't know how she did it. It really
showed in the pictures, she had this giant grin in all of them and it
made my face hurt! Plus cool shoes, heels all day??!! Which she
explained Sunday, and she was also dressed down a lot more that day.
Nick Brendon
Nick was very nice at signing, I told him the show meant a lot to me
and it was good to see him
I mentioned there weren't any goofy pics of him that were available to
buy, and he was like yeah because I'm a goofy guy
I also noted the gifts that he had, a big bar of chocolate and a box of
macadamia nuts. he said yeah I love
chocolate, I make sculptures out of them and then we were done.
Alexis Denisof
Alexis was really sweet, I told him how I enjoyed watching his
character arc and how I was saying to my husband that our pics of him
were like going from light to dark. I kind of just gestured in Erik's
direction, he looks over and says is that your husband and I'm like yup.
James Marsters
The chick who sat next to me was in line for James in front of us, she
was having a conversation with him which I wanted to respect but it was
like uh hi I'm next now, go away. The seated assistant told me to walk
right up, I was like uh no it's ok and she's like walk up. The standing
assistant was trying to tell her the card she got signed would take 5
minutes to dry. She said ok and tried to keep talking but as I moved
closer the assistant told her she had to go now. Sorry, but GO AWAY! I
told James that I enjoyed his panel and that I would be watching my
DVDs a bit differently, in a good way. He
said he doesn't like to explain too much because it takes the mystery
out of it, but I said that it was good. He thanked me and shook
my hand again. He had a small amount of presents, a birthday with, a
cool green on black painting of him, and a bag of blow pops. Erik ->
When I spoke with James, I said that I knew the Buffy animated series
was going to be set during the first season of the show, which didn't
leave room for his character. He said "That's right". I
then gave him my suggestion that maybe if the show is successful they
should have a 10 to 15 minute segment of the show based on Spike and
Dru's adventures before they went to Sunnydale. He said "Yeah,
you should pitch that, I'd do it."
Stephanie Romanov
I told Stephanie that I was one of the weird people who liked Lilah and
does that make me bad? She said I don't know, does it? She said that
Lilah is strong and that makes her cool. Before us she'd just been
handed the pic of Tony as Frank-N-Furter and was laughing about it
since she hadn't seen it.
Panels
The Film Room - All they were
showing was the UK Season 7 DVD. Boring...I would have liked to have
seen Chance, ads for actor's current projects, previous cons, stuff
like that. Sadly I don't think Chance or previous cons are doable, but
I was disappointed. I sat in there and snarked about the eps, but
everyone else was actually watching quietly so I left.
Charades was fun! Thanks Mindy.
Mindy was cool, she was honest with us when the charades got boring,
she kept us from destroying the power when we were looking for
somewhere to plug in our camera, and when Alexis kept getting such
heavy questions she broke it up with a light one.
OMWF - We watched some tryouts,
very interesting. The production people kept singing along, it was fun
watching them teach the choreography. I was not at the final showing
but my husband said it was excellent. Here I have pics of the tryout sheet, the room description, the line waiting for the production, very bad pics of the real outfits Aly and Nick wore during the episode, and Jonathan Woodward leaving after the show.
We missed out on the Slayercruise
presentations because it was late, we were tired, and we wanted
to go home.
Auction - I missed a bit of
this getting food, apparently was mostly just signed pictures. Clare
tried valiantly to auction the tables but she needed to be more
chatty/rambly about it. It was fun to see Danny hyped up about his
cards, he said he'd never been to an auction. Having recently had the
same experience of going to an auction for the first time we have a
good idea of what he must have felt. The puppets in the pics were just for show, they weren't auctioned off.
The next day when Danny and Iyari auctioned off a season 1 Buffy DVD
for the AIDS marathon they both are a part of, Iyari was a little toooo
enthusiastic and going off the general idea of an auction, she did the
going once thing when it wasn't even the end of the bidding yet. Calm
her down a bit, get her not interfering with Danny and it would have
been fine.
The forgotten book panel - it
was probably OK this got left off all the schedules, they ended up
giving away nearly all their stuff anyway. We thought they'd be
discussing books but although there were enough people there, I guess
there wasn't much to work with. Mostly the panel leader was heading up
the Positive Spike campaign and the idea behind it was to have some
books with souled Spike come out. Something along that line. She said
some book writers hang out at the slayerlit Yahoo! Group, but other
than that when I asked about online resources/a FAQ she only told me
she had the list of companies I could write to for stuff. Oh well. At
some point I got them talking about the Save Angel campaign and they
told some good stories about the rally. I said they should have just
done a panel on that and they said they suggested it but Vulkon didn't
go for it. The giveaways were some books and Willow figures, of regular
Willow, and Dopplegangland good Willow pretending to be Vamp Willow. Also posters that broke down the types of books available, to try to help bookstores place them more concisely in their store sections.
Lee Stringer - his first time
presenting, was very proud of it by the third day, like hey I've done
this three times! he did a great job, it's a shame more people didn't
go. I would have liked to have had more people asking him technical
questions, but there were no huge graphic geeks at our con I guess,
just some people wanting to know how they could get started. He had
brought great material to show off. On Sunday people were asking where
we could stalk him, I kept suggesting putting him with Jonathan to sign
Firefly DVDs, but he ended up just hanging out in the hallway near
registration. We didn't really want our Firefly DVDs signed, I asked if
he would draw/sketch something for me but he said he wasn't very good,
so Erik got an Angel trading card promo sheet from the dealers room. We had him draw visual effects on it! He
vamped Angel, gave Spike glasses, put a full goatee on Wesley, and put
a fro on Gunn! If we'd had a blue pen he could've made Fred into
Illyria, but the pen was black so he didn't. He said it was the first
time anyone had asked him to draw something and he should cross out his
signature because it was so awful.
Improv and fun with James and George
- Seems like an odd pairing but actually George is very good with the
slapstick and deadpan comedy. Again it's a shame more people didn't go.
They went through different kinds of comedy, some which worked (give a
situation, act it out as it applies to a relationship; Hush depicted in
5 minutes, which strangely half the time seemed a lot more like
Restless than Hush, will have to watch both eps back to back sometime)
and some that didn't (one reacts normally to one acting weird and
reading from a Buffy script book, trying to make it work). Such is the
nature of improv comedy.
Costume contest - everyone
looked so good. I wanted a big fight between the good and bad guys but
it wasn't happening. Eh well. That was the last event we went to. The third judge in the pics is a contributing writer to the Buffy magazine.
