WonderCon 2010: Post 3: Zombie Edition: Resident Evil & Max Brooks -- Image Heavy!
And now I'll bring my final post of random thoughts and photos. I know I should be waiting more than a day after I get back from my trip to be doing all these posts. I keep looking at them and realize my thoughts might not really be flowing as well as I'd like. But my brain has been kind of on this vegetative state all day. So hopefully anyone looking at these is enjoying them :D
This post will be different - cause this post is what makes me happy :D And I'll have a teaser pic for once ;) Though my first zombie squeal has less pictures, but a lot of text, so I'll be nice and put it under a cut.
First we have to jump to Friday. Friday was the first day of the convention which started at noon. We didn't get there (because of my stop at the book store and checking into the hotel) til about 3pm. The night before there was an announcement online that you could get tickets to go to a special screening of the Resident Evil: Afterlife trailer in 3-D at one of the movie theaters with Paul W. S. Anderson and stars Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter being there for a Q&A while supplies last. The tickets were getting given away at Capcom's booth in the exhibition hall. Well, we went there first after registering and getting our passes. I seriously was expecting them to be out - which if they were just meant I'd go to the panel on Saturday.
So we get to the booth and I find these:
Tickets - score! But then I looked at the time, 7:30pm...in the middle of Kevin Smith's panel. Boo. But I grabbed one for me and my dad - and an extra. Because reading them the tickets state that it's done on a first come first serve until the theater is full, there are more ticket flyers than there are seats. But I take them and me and my dad both said we'd decide later. And btw, the reason why Milla isn't on the ticket - she was a last minute addition ;)
So we go through the day and do things at the convention. Around 5ish we went up to the grand ballroom (which is where all the major panels were - including Disney's) and get a seat. They were showing Fringe at the time so me and my dad took a bit to relax and talk things through. Kevin Smith's thing started at 6...or was supposed to, but he was running late, he came on about 6:30 so we stayed for a little bit and caught his intro. About 6:50 we decided we'd give the Resident Evil screening a shot and left to walk to the theater (which was between the convention center and our hotel - literally).
We got to the theater just about 7 and got in line. About 7:15 theater people were coming around to tell us the stars were a little delayed at the airport and they'd start letting people in about 7:30 but the event wouldn't start til closer to 8 - which was cool. When they finally started letting people in the line was very slow going. I finally got to the front and the people that were giving you the wrist band to let you into the theater and take your ticket said they only had 3 wristbands left and asked me how many were in my party. I said two and was given one - woot! :D When I walked with my dad into the theater with our wrist band I told him the zombie gods were looking out for me.
We went into the theater and were given our 3D glasses and told which auditorium to go to. When you walked up there the staff took off this little white ticket that was on your wrist band and gave you a small bag of popcorn and a bottled drink (coke or water) for free, then we got into the actual theater and directed to a seat. Me and my dad got stuck on the far left side of the theater in one of those two-seater rows. Not the most ideal position in the theater but I was just jazzed to be there :D They had some rows in the top "reserved" which we assume was for press or other big names from the con. When the seats were still empty the theater did let in some over flow people from the line we were in outside to fill up the theater - which I thought was really cool instead of letting the rows go to waste.
Finally the guy that would be running the event came out and introduced himself. He said the event would start shortly but that Capcom had given them some prize packages to give out that evening and the way you'd win them was by answering some trivia questions. Which by that point I stopped eating my popcorn and sat on the edge of my seat. I kept doing the "don't freeze up mantra" cause I know I can do Resident Evil trivia :D And then he started that up. I raised my hand for the first few questions but didn't get picked but then the announcer did something I will always be thankful for. He said he wanted to hear from the Resident Evil ladies and the next question had to be answered by a girl. His question was "what is enscribed on the inside of Alice's wedding ring?" I had that slight pause then raised my hand really high. He started saying "come on ladies" so I started waving my arm back and forth to try and get noticed and he picked me. I shouted out the answer "property of Umbrella Corporation" and when he said right I just let out this huge sigh of relief.
One of the girls from the theater brought me up this big manilla envelope for getting it right and I just sat there holding it the rest of the time in the theater XD When I answered the question right some of the girls in the row across from me made comments about how I earned that cause they had no clue :D I was a very happy Resident Evil geek at that point.
Then the stars finally came out - and luckily I was on the right side of the theater, they were coming in from under where I was sitting so I got to watch them walking in and out whenever they exited :) They all talked for a little bit then showed the first 3D trailer for Resident Evil: Afterlife. Which I have to say looks pretty damn good. Wesker looks WAY better and the 3D wasn't annoying, but the movie was shot with the Avatar camera system. So that could explain it.
After the trailer was done the actors came back out and there was a lot of joking around, sexual teases, and questions answered. There was just a really fun vibe about it all. They stuck around for awhile, especially because of them being a bit late - which they made some jokes about as well. Then they showed the trailer for us one more time before ending the event. I got asked by a couple people what I won (will talk about later) as we were leaving and then on the way out of the theater they gave everyone a Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D t-shirt for a promo. And because I'm a geek I kept my 3D glasses from the event :D
So now my Capcom prize pack :) I have a few extra things in here but I will explain, but first - photos :D
My Resident Evil swag :) Only one thing in this picture I didn't get Friday night (which is the badge up front). The rest was all from the Friday night event. The manilla envelope in the back is what I won my Capcom stuff in. I won one of the t-shirts, the other was my gift after the trailer screening. I won the Gold Edition Resident Evil 5 PS3 game and a Resident Evil 5 figure.
Here's the front of the shirt I won. The back only has the "Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles" logo on it so I didn't take a picture.
Here's the figure I won and the 3D glasses I got to watch the trailer in.
The PS3 game...which I don't own the system for. But my dad has been contemplating getting one to play God of War on. So I might just hang onto this :D Though I think I would always cause I'm a nerd *face palm* I have RE5 on Xbox 360 but never upgraded to the gold edition, so it would be interesting to see the difference.
Now this badge my dad bought me at one of the dealer booths at the convention on Saturday. He said he though his Resident Evil geek daughter needed it for the Resident Evil weekend :) So I just threw it in with this stuff to take a picture of.
And finally the shirt I got after leaving the theater. Nothing fancy and nothing printed on the back. So yeah...Friday night I was flying pretty high :D I got stopped a lot leaving the theater by people, some were asking which question I answered and everyone that did ask me that said they didn't know the answer. So yay me :D
And finally I'll show a teaser pic and then move into the events from Saturday :D
Next we move to Saturday. After the Disney panel I attended they did a Resident Evil: Afterlife 2D trailer screening. Which of course I sat through, especially cause I wanted to get some pictures since I didn't on Friday night :D Same people they had Friday night were there Saturday (though the girls weren't dressed as sexy as Friday night). Because the Disney panel ran long though they brought out all three guests at the same time. Just like Friday night they did a little introduction then showed the trailer and jumped right into Q&As.
So the picture above is to show how my pictures were turning out if I focused on the stage. I wasn't horribly far away, just don't have that killer zoom lense. So like the Disney panel I decided to take pictures off the projection screen. Some are going to be blurry from movement but the ones I'm posting are the ones I really like :D
Paul W. S. Anderson.
Milla Jovovich coming on stage. She was very energetic for both panels when she came on stage and left.
Finally one with Ali Larter.
Ali was really hard to get pictures of that weren't blurry or had her mouth open in a weird way.
The above picture was really cute. I caught it just a second too late to get Milla kissing her husband, this is her backing away. One of the audience members asked a question that Milla was going to answer but Paul cut her off. She kind of hit him and told him to just go ahead. They bickered for a second before Milla kissed him and then told everyone they can't really do this at home because their daughter goes into the "mommy why are you hitting daddy" mode. She said telling her daughter she'll understand when she's older just doesn't work.
And after that they left the stage. I know I'm not giving as much detail as to the conversations but I'm just still kind of floating with the Resident Evil geekiness :D After their panel was done I ended up leaving the ballroom and doing some other things around the con :)
Lastly we move to Sunday. In the morning we got up early so we could pack and check out - since we had to be checked out by noon. Got coffee in the Starbucks that was in the hotel and headed over to the convention early. We got there about 10:15 and got in line outside of the room Max Brooks was going to be doing his panel in, there was only 7 people ahead of us, so that helped calm the nerves about missing it. We were let in the room about 11, I picked a seat in front of the stage in the middle, third row.
Max Brooks came on right at 11:30 and got up on the stage and looked at the table that was up there. It was seated for 7 and he said since he was only one person it felt too weird to be up there by himself and had 6 people from the audience go up to sit with him - which I thought was extremely cool :D
Brooks did such a GREAT hour panel. He did a long intro for himself that talked about how he got into writing and what made him write about zombies (for those of you who are lost, Max Brooks wrote The Zombie Survival Guide & World War Z). Talked about his family and the things going on in society. And how the book came to print. Then he opened it up to a total Q&A. He was very friendly and didn't want to use the mic as long as everyone said they could hear him, most people didn't use the mic to ask questions to him either.
At one point he talked about how World War Z is maybe getting put into a movie. He said that he got to see the first script that was optioned out and even though he's not supposed to say this, he thought it was really good. He joked about how when you become a writer you have to take an oath that says "if my books ever optioned for a movie I have to say they killed my baby." He said it's really hard to do that when the scripts so good. That and he said (a few times) how he never thought he'd make money writing about zombies.
He took up the entire hour talking and I honestly could have listened to him talk for another hour. He was extremely engaging and very funny. This was a great panel to see at the end of the convention.
Some zombies that came to Brooks panel. I had to take a picture cause of the commando zombie. Contacts and all.
After the panel Brooks went to the booth for the company that put out the graphic novel of some of his stories from The Zombie Survival Guide to meet fans and sign. During the actual panel one guy was going around giving everyone that attended a free "teaser" comic for the graphic novel. I have both of Brooks novels but I haven't picked up the graphic novel yet so I thought that was really cool.
When it was my turn I gave Brooks my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide as well as the comic. I asked if he'd make the book out to me and he did no problem. Then I asked if I could get a picture (so I could have one without him talking) and he posed for me :) I told him he did a great panel and he was very nice chatting.
So here's the comic we were given and the front of my book.
And the signature he did on the inside :D
And with that...that's the end of my WonderCon pictures and my zombie blabbering :) *hugs for anyone that made it through all three*
This post will be different - cause this post is what makes me happy :D And I'll have a teaser pic for once ;) Though my first zombie squeal has less pictures, but a lot of text, so I'll be nice and put it under a cut.
First we have to jump to Friday. Friday was the first day of the convention which started at noon. We didn't get there (because of my stop at the book store and checking into the hotel) til about 3pm. The night before there was an announcement online that you could get tickets to go to a special screening of the Resident Evil: Afterlife trailer in 3-D at one of the movie theaters with Paul W. S. Anderson and stars Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter being there for a Q&A while supplies last. The tickets were getting given away at Capcom's booth in the exhibition hall. Well, we went there first after registering and getting our passes. I seriously was expecting them to be out - which if they were just meant I'd go to the panel on Saturday.
So we get to the booth and I find these:
Tickets - score! But then I looked at the time, 7:30pm...in the middle of Kevin Smith's panel. Boo. But I grabbed one for me and my dad - and an extra. Because reading them the tickets state that it's done on a first come first serve until the theater is full, there are more ticket flyers than there are seats. But I take them and me and my dad both said we'd decide later. And btw, the reason why Milla isn't on the ticket - she was a last minute addition ;)
So we go through the day and do things at the convention. Around 5ish we went up to the grand ballroom (which is where all the major panels were - including Disney's) and get a seat. They were showing Fringe at the time so me and my dad took a bit to relax and talk things through. Kevin Smith's thing started at 6...or was supposed to, but he was running late, he came on about 6:30 so we stayed for a little bit and caught his intro. About 6:50 we decided we'd give the Resident Evil screening a shot and left to walk to the theater (which was between the convention center and our hotel - literally).
We got to the theater just about 7 and got in line. About 7:15 theater people were coming around to tell us the stars were a little delayed at the airport and they'd start letting people in about 7:30 but the event wouldn't start til closer to 8 - which was cool. When they finally started letting people in the line was very slow going. I finally got to the front and the people that were giving you the wrist band to let you into the theater and take your ticket said they only had 3 wristbands left and asked me how many were in my party. I said two and was given one - woot! :D When I walked with my dad into the theater with our wrist band I told him the zombie gods were looking out for me.
We went into the theater and were given our 3D glasses and told which auditorium to go to. When you walked up there the staff took off this little white ticket that was on your wrist band and gave you a small bag of popcorn and a bottled drink (coke or water) for free, then we got into the actual theater and directed to a seat. Me and my dad got stuck on the far left side of the theater in one of those two-seater rows. Not the most ideal position in the theater but I was just jazzed to be there :D They had some rows in the top "reserved" which we assume was for press or other big names from the con. When the seats were still empty the theater did let in some over flow people from the line we were in outside to fill up the theater - which I thought was really cool instead of letting the rows go to waste.
Finally the guy that would be running the event came out and introduced himself. He said the event would start shortly but that Capcom had given them some prize packages to give out that evening and the way you'd win them was by answering some trivia questions. Which by that point I stopped eating my popcorn and sat on the edge of my seat. I kept doing the "don't freeze up mantra" cause I know I can do Resident Evil trivia :D And then he started that up. I raised my hand for the first few questions but didn't get picked but then the announcer did something I will always be thankful for. He said he wanted to hear from the Resident Evil ladies and the next question had to be answered by a girl. His question was "what is enscribed on the inside of Alice's wedding ring?" I had that slight pause then raised my hand really high. He started saying "come on ladies" so I started waving my arm back and forth to try and get noticed and he picked me. I shouted out the answer "property of Umbrella Corporation" and when he said right I just let out this huge sigh of relief.
One of the girls from the theater brought me up this big manilla envelope for getting it right and I just sat there holding it the rest of the time in the theater XD When I answered the question right some of the girls in the row across from me made comments about how I earned that cause they had no clue :D I was a very happy Resident Evil geek at that point.
Then the stars finally came out - and luckily I was on the right side of the theater, they were coming in from under where I was sitting so I got to watch them walking in and out whenever they exited :) They all talked for a little bit then showed the first 3D trailer for Resident Evil: Afterlife. Which I have to say looks pretty damn good. Wesker looks WAY better and the 3D wasn't annoying, but the movie was shot with the Avatar camera system. So that could explain it.
After the trailer was done the actors came back out and there was a lot of joking around, sexual teases, and questions answered. There was just a really fun vibe about it all. They stuck around for awhile, especially because of them being a bit late - which they made some jokes about as well. Then they showed the trailer for us one more time before ending the event. I got asked by a couple people what I won (will talk about later) as we were leaving and then on the way out of the theater they gave everyone a Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D t-shirt for a promo. And because I'm a geek I kept my 3D glasses from the event :D
So now my Capcom prize pack :) I have a few extra things in here but I will explain, but first - photos :D
My Resident Evil swag :) Only one thing in this picture I didn't get Friday night (which is the badge up front). The rest was all from the Friday night event. The manilla envelope in the back is what I won my Capcom stuff in. I won one of the t-shirts, the other was my gift after the trailer screening. I won the Gold Edition Resident Evil 5 PS3 game and a Resident Evil 5 figure.
Here's the front of the shirt I won. The back only has the "Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles" logo on it so I didn't take a picture.
Here's the figure I won and the 3D glasses I got to watch the trailer in.
The PS3 game...which I don't own the system for. But my dad has been contemplating getting one to play God of War on. So I might just hang onto this :D Though I think I would always cause I'm a nerd *face palm* I have RE5 on Xbox 360 but never upgraded to the gold edition, so it would be interesting to see the difference.
Now this badge my dad bought me at one of the dealer booths at the convention on Saturday. He said he though his Resident Evil geek daughter needed it for the Resident Evil weekend :) So I just threw it in with this stuff to take a picture of.
And finally the shirt I got after leaving the theater. Nothing fancy and nothing printed on the back. So yeah...Friday night I was flying pretty high :D I got stopped a lot leaving the theater by people, some were asking which question I answered and everyone that did ask me that said they didn't know the answer. So yay me :D
And finally I'll show a teaser pic and then move into the events from Saturday :D
Next we move to Saturday. After the Disney panel I attended they did a Resident Evil: Afterlife 2D trailer screening. Which of course I sat through, especially cause I wanted to get some pictures since I didn't on Friday night :D Same people they had Friday night were there Saturday (though the girls weren't dressed as sexy as Friday night). Because the Disney panel ran long though they brought out all three guests at the same time. Just like Friday night they did a little introduction then showed the trailer and jumped right into Q&As.
So the picture above is to show how my pictures were turning out if I focused on the stage. I wasn't horribly far away, just don't have that killer zoom lense. So like the Disney panel I decided to take pictures off the projection screen. Some are going to be blurry from movement but the ones I'm posting are the ones I really like :D
Paul W. S. Anderson.
Milla Jovovich coming on stage. She was very energetic for both panels when she came on stage and left.
Finally one with Ali Larter.
Ali was really hard to get pictures of that weren't blurry or had her mouth open in a weird way.
The above picture was really cute. I caught it just a second too late to get Milla kissing her husband, this is her backing away. One of the audience members asked a question that Milla was going to answer but Paul cut her off. She kind of hit him and told him to just go ahead. They bickered for a second before Milla kissed him and then told everyone they can't really do this at home because their daughter goes into the "mommy why are you hitting daddy" mode. She said telling her daughter she'll understand when she's older just doesn't work.
And after that they left the stage. I know I'm not giving as much detail as to the conversations but I'm just still kind of floating with the Resident Evil geekiness :D After their panel was done I ended up leaving the ballroom and doing some other things around the con :)
Lastly we move to Sunday. In the morning we got up early so we could pack and check out - since we had to be checked out by noon. Got coffee in the Starbucks that was in the hotel and headed over to the convention early. We got there about 10:15 and got in line outside of the room Max Brooks was going to be doing his panel in, there was only 7 people ahead of us, so that helped calm the nerves about missing it. We were let in the room about 11, I picked a seat in front of the stage in the middle, third row.
Max Brooks came on right at 11:30 and got up on the stage and looked at the table that was up there. It was seated for 7 and he said since he was only one person it felt too weird to be up there by himself and had 6 people from the audience go up to sit with him - which I thought was extremely cool :D
Brooks did such a GREAT hour panel. He did a long intro for himself that talked about how he got into writing and what made him write about zombies (for those of you who are lost, Max Brooks wrote The Zombie Survival Guide & World War Z). Talked about his family and the things going on in society. And how the book came to print. Then he opened it up to a total Q&A. He was very friendly and didn't want to use the mic as long as everyone said they could hear him, most people didn't use the mic to ask questions to him either.
At one point he talked about how World War Z is maybe getting put into a movie. He said that he got to see the first script that was optioned out and even though he's not supposed to say this, he thought it was really good. He joked about how when you become a writer you have to take an oath that says "if my books ever optioned for a movie I have to say they killed my baby." He said it's really hard to do that when the scripts so good. That and he said (a few times) how he never thought he'd make money writing about zombies.
He took up the entire hour talking and I honestly could have listened to him talk for another hour. He was extremely engaging and very funny. This was a great panel to see at the end of the convention.
Some zombies that came to Brooks panel. I had to take a picture cause of the commando zombie. Contacts and all.
After the panel Brooks went to the booth for the company that put out the graphic novel of some of his stories from The Zombie Survival Guide to meet fans and sign. During the actual panel one guy was going around giving everyone that attended a free "teaser" comic for the graphic novel. I have both of Brooks novels but I haven't picked up the graphic novel yet so I thought that was really cool.
When it was my turn I gave Brooks my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide as well as the comic. I asked if he'd make the book out to me and he did no problem. Then I asked if I could get a picture (so I could have one without him talking) and he posed for me :) I told him he did a great panel and he was very nice chatting.
So here's the comic we were given and the front of my book.
And the signature he did on the inside :D
And with that...that's the end of my WonderCon pictures and my zombie blabbering :) *hugs for anyone that made it through all three*