Grand Slam and FF Reception by Bleyddyn

BLEYDDYN'S BLOG

Bleyddyn

Grand Slam and FF Reception
Sunday, March 13, 2005

My wife, Firecrackr (from the Universal board) and I arrived at the convention center at 10:30, we got in by 11:00 and started wandering around the vendors. The last con we went to was last summer's Comic-con, so this was quite different. Only a handful of vendors and many seemed to specialize in photos, autographed an otherwise. We did spend quite a bit of time at Virginia Hey's booth talking to her and buying one of her scented candles.

We skipped all of the morning talks then met with FireFlyFlan3 and a few others (Redaly, not sure if the other two have board names). We (and by we, I mean mostly my wife and FireFlyFan3) talked about the recent fan table at Wondercon? and the upcoming one at Comic-Con. Firecrackr and I headed back into the con (the others only had tickets for the reception). I sat through several panels of varying entertainment, then we went for our photo-op with Adam. The line was pushed through very fast, but Mr. Baldwin did take the time to shake hands with everyone and say high. I was wearing the Jayne hat my wife had knit, but we won't be able to see the pictures until a week after the con, because we weren't there to pick them up on Sunday. While in line we met with a woman who had flown out from England with her brother just for the con and reception!

Right after that photo-op we headed over to Delmonico's where there was already a crowd of browncoats. FireFlyFan3 was handing out Serenity buttons, and there were also a few con-video DVD's being given out. Right on time, Alan and Adam showed and we were all lead into a back room where we were asked to takes seats. Firecrakr and I sat at a table with P. (don't want to mention names without permission), who works for the Sci-Fi channel's Sci-Fi Wire web site. Hopefully they'll have a write-up on it. Drinks were brought round for us as well as our heros (and continued flowing the entire time, along with various finger foods). As soon as everyone was settled Adam and Alan started making rounds. Alan made it to our table fairly quickly. As usual Firecrackr did most of the talking, asking Alan what he was up to. He mentioned he was about to start a TV pilot with no name as of yet. Given how TV works, there's no guarantees it will ever see the light of day. Then he was moving on.

During the long wait between Alan and Adam, I said hello to Ms. Grey. I hadn't recognized her, but others had and mentioned she was in Buck Rogers, so I said hello and how much I had liked the show. She was obviously focused on work, though so I didn't say much. I firmly second all of the positive comments about her. Now I'm going to have to see if I can find the series anywhere :)

By the time Adam made it to our table, he was already being warned about running out of time. Firecrackr just mentioned how much we've loved everything he's done, and I asked if he knew when The Freediver was going to be released here in the US, but he said he had no idea. He made a few comments about some of the amazing things free diver's are able to do. Then he really was being pressured to leave, but we gave up our seats so a very young girl could talk to him for just a minute. I think there were a few things I missed, so maybe Firecrackr will post her thoughts (probably on the Universal board, though).

At that point people started leaving, and we said hurried good-bye's and we'll-call-laters because we had another photo-op with Alan. As we headed out the door of Delmonico's, though, we noticed Alan, Adam and entourage right in front of us, so at least we knew we weren't going to be late.

Photo with Alan was just as quick as Adam's. We met the same British fan again and later sat with them during the Firefly panel.

There was a short presentation by Diamond Select Toys with teaser shots of the Mal and Jayne action figures (two versions each). He also mentioned there was a fifth figure, but he wasn't allowed to show it. There was much coughing of 'Reavers' in the audience. The presenter said he had a DVD set to give away, but wasn't sure how to do it, so he just asked who wanted it. Well, my wife leaped up and said "Right here!', so he called her up and gave it to her! There was a bit of boo-ing-ish noise from the audience, but the presenter said, "Hey she beat you all to it!". That's my wife!

Then there was short video clip with scenes from the series, with some background music. It did look nice, but I suspect there was a bit of disappointment that it had nothing new in it :) Then enthusiastic applause for Adam, Alan and Loni Peristere (Effects director?). They each talked a bit about, then I noticed there was only one person in line for questions, so I got behind her. I can't remember what she asked, but when they were done answering, Alan flipped a coin and asked her to call it. She said tails, Alan looked at it and frowned and said, sorry heads. At which point Adam said, loudly, "Tails"! He did that several times, sometimes not even letting Alan look at the coin first :) So Alan asked the woman a trivia question: "What is Wash's full name?" The woman couldn't get it even with several of us in line brainstorming. Then a question was asked at the other microphone (forgot what it was, sorry). The trivia question was "What is the name of Jaynes knife?" Another miss :( Not looking good for the fans. Then it was my turn to ask. My question was "There were a handful of shots in the series where you were supposed to be in space suits in zero-gravity. If you had the opportunity, would you shoot those in real zero-gravity? Ignoring the cost." Adam said "And the nausea?" Then he described what it's like to work on a wire for eight hours. Sounds pretty grueling. Alan didn't really say anything, but Loni said he'd love it because then his team wouldn't have to remove all the wires from the shots! Alan flipped a coin and I called heads. Who knows what it really landed on, but they Loni asked me: "In the pilot, or the REAL first episode, what was the name of the maneuver Wash used to escape the Reaver ship?" As usual, under pressure my mind froze up, but I had just watched it the night before so I managed to remember "Crazy Ivan". Alan gave me one of the end-of-series t-shirts with a yellow-ish Serenity on the front and the Chinese characters for Firefly on the back. I'm afraid I don't remember much of what happened after that, but it was all good.

After the panel, Firecrackr gave my Jayne hat to the UK lady's brother (she did promise to knit me another one), hope they had a good time. Eventually we met up with FireFlyFan3 again, plus a considerably larger group of Browncoats. I know Redaly, Dan?, Saxon, and Ewok were there, but can't remember the names of the others. We went to a Starbucks for a while, where there was quite a bit of mutual simultaneous videoing going on. Unfortunately I was quite outclassed since my camera can only take small-sized 30 second clips. Several people had been going for quite a while so when heads started to droop, a bunch of us said good-byes and headed out. Firecrackr and I dropped a couple of people off at their hotels, but we decided to drive home rather than stay the night.

COMMENTS

Friday, March 18, 2005 5:42 AM

BLEYDDYN

I'm glad one of you liked the hat, at least! My wife is already half done with a new hat, and I'm actually almost done with my first one, although I used cheap polyester yarn for my first 'practice' hat.

Photos of the hat on it's travels would be great! From everything I've read it sounds like the UK Serenity con is going to be great, hope you have a blast.

By the way, if you could post again, that would be great. The first one came through as Anonymous, which seems to happen every now and then on this site.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005 5:28 AM