Hangin' Out with the Cast of Community, Talking About Scholarly Shit.
One week ago today, I was at CommuniCon, the convention for fans of Community, hanging out with show writer Andy Bobrow.
The night before, I visited the set of Community, where I watched them take five hours to film two scenes. The first has a brilliant Britta line and pop culture reference that will be very relevant in March when it airs, and the second one was a fun Chang scene (I don't think that's too spoilery). I got to hang in THE ACTUAL STUDY ROOM, meet Joel McHale and have him groan about having to sign scripts for fans, talked to Gillian Jacobs and Alison Brie about what fan/audience studies are, got giant hugs from Danny Pudi and the ever wonderful Yvette Nicole Brown, and made eye contact with John Oliver, Jonathan Banks (I wanted to introduce myself, but the guy's Mike from Breaking Bad, total badass, and I was too scared to meet), and Ken Jeong.
The first thing I heard when I got to the set was John Oliver's british accent, and I desperately wanted to tell him how much I loved him on The Daily Show over the summer (the only chance I got to watch it was when my mom and dad were on vacation and my dad wasn't watching Fox News, so his episodes were very special to me). I nearly peed my pants at the sound of his voice. When I first glanced at him and Joel McHale I was scratching my nose, so I almost died of embarrassment. You just met Joel McHale, and he caught you scratching your nose! Good one!
Gillian Jacobs was very bouncy and came right up to me, and while Yvette Nicole Brown cuddled with me, it wasn't until the end of the night. Gillian's boyfriend was there, and I got to overhear a conversation between him, Gillian, Jonathan Banks, and Pam, the supervisor of hair and makeup discuss LA restaurants. Alison Brie joined in, and once again I almost peed my pants, because it's ANNIE FUCKING EDISON, probably my third favorite female television character of all time, after Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars. I didn't get to talk much with Danny Pudi, but he pulled me aside and gave me a big hug without saying a word. The thing that I found funny was that it took me being there a few hours to realize that Pierce and Troy (Chevy Chase and Donald Glover) weren't there. The study group flowed so well I didn't notice their absence. That's not to say I don't miss the characters, but they do fill in their roles in the study group very well with Banks, Oliver and Jeong. The study room is stronger than the sum of its parts, and it carries on very well.
Oh, and I walked off the set with the script Andy gave me to follow along with the dialogue. I didn't mean to, and I think I wasn't supposed to, but I did, and I'm not giving it back.
CommuniCon was, as always, a blast. Maegwen from Twitter made Jeff/Annie buttons with the word "pathological" on them, referencing the kerfuffle when Andy Bobrow got annoyed with an (admittedly very annoying) Jeff/Annie fan on Twitter and said Jeff/Annie fans were "pathological." A twitter storm hit him like a hurricane, and I got my first interaction with him explaining how fans are very sensitive to people pathologizing fandom because of the stigma of the deranged stalker-fan that permeates ideas of fandom. Maegwen (Lisa) gave one to Andy, and he was a great sport about it. I got a picture with him, Dan Harmon, and Chris McKenna holding my theory books to show the people at UROC/McNair Scholars Program that funded my trip that I was there for scholarly reasons, though the only thing I got from being there was a continuation of the Bobrowgate (the "pathological" thing that I'm doing a conference paper on), where the fans took back "pathological," with buttons, T-shirts and fan art supporting pathological as something to own and be proud of. It was visual rhetoric becoming part of the discourse, and made the use of the word a textual response to Andy as a producer. I also met someone who follows me on Twitter, who is currently doing her Master's degree at CSU Northridge and plans on doing her Ph.D. on disability and fandom. Her name is Lara and she is in a wheelchair, and I told her about having mental illness and the role fandom plays in maintaining my mental health. It was kind of exciting to have someone come up and go "I know you!" I'm big on Twitter, I guess.
I got a lot of footage for nvrbnkisst to make a fan montage (unfortunately I was only allowed to bring a camera to the set because of Sony's fear of spoilers, so we don't get any footage of the cast other than Gillian and Yvette's appearance at CommuniCon). I got good stuff of the panels and of general fans waving and saying hi, and of Inspector Spacetime. I don't know how to get the footage to her, however, so if anyone knows a place to upload lots of video files, let me know.
Oh, and I found inspiration for a BtVS vid! Finally! It's going to be a tribute to the women of the Buffyverse to Florence + the Machine's "Raise it Up (Rabbit Heart)" (I originally was looking for something to do a Buffy/Tara friendship vid for red_satin_doll, but then I wanted to add Dawn, then I wanted to add Anya, then I wanted to add Cordelia, then I wanted to add Faith, and finally I just decided to make it an all female characters vid, including Fred and Potentials). Just so no one gets excited about it, this will probably take me months to do, because it will take me at least two weeks to rip all my Buffy DVDs and download Angel (yes, I'm also surprised I don't already have it downloaded), then it will take me maybe three months to get a decent timeline of shots down, then another three months of being an obnoxious perfectionist trying to improve it. In between that time my short attention span will probably lose interest in it, so there will be lulls when I'm working on something else. So don't get your hopes up that it will come anytime soon.
The night before, I visited the set of Community, where I watched them take five hours to film two scenes. The first has a brilliant Britta line and pop culture reference that will be very relevant in March when it airs, and the second one was a fun Chang scene (I don't think that's too spoilery). I got to hang in THE ACTUAL STUDY ROOM, meet Joel McHale and have him groan about having to sign scripts for fans, talked to Gillian Jacobs and Alison Brie about what fan/audience studies are, got giant hugs from Danny Pudi and the ever wonderful Yvette Nicole Brown, and made eye contact with John Oliver, Jonathan Banks (I wanted to introduce myself, but the guy's Mike from Breaking Bad, total badass, and I was too scared to meet), and Ken Jeong.
The first thing I heard when I got to the set was John Oliver's british accent, and I desperately wanted to tell him how much I loved him on The Daily Show over the summer (the only chance I got to watch it was when my mom and dad were on vacation and my dad wasn't watching Fox News, so his episodes were very special to me). I nearly peed my pants at the sound of his voice. When I first glanced at him and Joel McHale I was scratching my nose, so I almost died of embarrassment. You just met Joel McHale, and he caught you scratching your nose! Good one!
Gillian Jacobs was very bouncy and came right up to me, and while Yvette Nicole Brown cuddled with me, it wasn't until the end of the night. Gillian's boyfriend was there, and I got to overhear a conversation between him, Gillian, Jonathan Banks, and Pam, the supervisor of hair and makeup discuss LA restaurants. Alison Brie joined in, and once again I almost peed my pants, because it's ANNIE FUCKING EDISON, probably my third favorite female television character of all time, after Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars. I didn't get to talk much with Danny Pudi, but he pulled me aside and gave me a big hug without saying a word. The thing that I found funny was that it took me being there a few hours to realize that Pierce and Troy (Chevy Chase and Donald Glover) weren't there. The study group flowed so well I didn't notice their absence. That's not to say I don't miss the characters, but they do fill in their roles in the study group very well with Banks, Oliver and Jeong. The study room is stronger than the sum of its parts, and it carries on very well.
Oh, and I walked off the set with the script Andy gave me to follow along with the dialogue. I didn't mean to, and I think I wasn't supposed to, but I did, and I'm not giving it back.
CommuniCon was, as always, a blast. Maegwen from Twitter made Jeff/Annie buttons with the word "pathological" on them, referencing the kerfuffle when Andy Bobrow got annoyed with an (admittedly very annoying) Jeff/Annie fan on Twitter and said Jeff/Annie fans were "pathological." A twitter storm hit him like a hurricane, and I got my first interaction with him explaining how fans are very sensitive to people pathologizing fandom because of the stigma of the deranged stalker-fan that permeates ideas of fandom. Maegwen (Lisa) gave one to Andy, and he was a great sport about it. I got a picture with him, Dan Harmon, and Chris McKenna holding my theory books to show the people at UROC/McNair Scholars Program that funded my trip that I was there for scholarly reasons, though the only thing I got from being there was a continuation of the Bobrowgate (the "pathological" thing that I'm doing a conference paper on), where the fans took back "pathological," with buttons, T-shirts and fan art supporting pathological as something to own and be proud of. It was visual rhetoric becoming part of the discourse, and made the use of the word a textual response to Andy as a producer. I also met someone who follows me on Twitter, who is currently doing her Master's degree at CSU Northridge and plans on doing her Ph.D. on disability and fandom. Her name is Lara and she is in a wheelchair, and I told her about having mental illness and the role fandom plays in maintaining my mental health. It was kind of exciting to have someone come up and go "I know you!" I'm big on Twitter, I guess.
I got a lot of footage for nvrbnkisst to make a fan montage (unfortunately I was only allowed to bring a camera to the set because of Sony's fear of spoilers, so we don't get any footage of the cast other than Gillian and Yvette's appearance at CommuniCon). I got good stuff of the panels and of general fans waving and saying hi, and of Inspector Spacetime. I don't know how to get the footage to her, however, so if anyone knows a place to upload lots of video files, let me know.
Oh, and I found inspiration for a BtVS vid! Finally! It's going to be a tribute to the women of the Buffyverse to Florence + the Machine's "Raise it Up (Rabbit Heart)" (I originally was looking for something to do a Buffy/Tara friendship vid for red_satin_doll, but then I wanted to add Dawn, then I wanted to add Anya, then I wanted to add Cordelia, then I wanted to add Faith, and finally I just decided to make it an all female characters vid, including Fred and Potentials). Just so no one gets excited about it, this will probably take me months to do, because it will take me at least two weeks to rip all my Buffy DVDs and download Angel (yes, I'm also surprised I don't already have it downloaded), then it will take me maybe three months to get a decent timeline of shots down, then another three months of being an obnoxious perfectionist trying to improve it. In between that time my short attention span will probably lose interest in it, so there will be lulls when I'm working on something else. So don't get your hopes up that it will come anytime soon.