Supanova 2011
My somewhat belated report.
I went on the Sunday. I'd never been there early enough for the doors opening before, but I didn't want to miss any of the talks I was keen on, and I wasn't sure how long it would take to get inside. But for some strange reason, the EFTPOS queue was shorter than either the cash queue or the prepaid queue. Sweet.
James Marsters
I've never been much of a Spike fan, but I thought I'd go see James Marsters anyway. It was the first time I'd heard him speaking in his natural accent, and he has a lovely voice! I generally prefer talks followed by Q&A, rather than pure Q&A, since the quality of the latter depends on the questions, but they were pretty good, and he knew how to run with them.
On Joss:
"Joss was a great guy, who didn't like me much." Joss wasn't a fan of the Anne Rice style romantic vampire. To him, vampires were a metaphor for the traumas of adolescence, so they were meant to be ugly and quickly defeated. But David Greenwalt convinced him to include one romantic vampire, and that was Angel. And Angel became very popular.
Spike was meant to be a Sid Vicious style villain, and he was meant to be dead after five episodes. When Angel turned evil, his first act was supposed to be killing Spike and getting together with Dru. But Spike became quite popular too. Joss would say, "I don't care how popular you are, you're dead after five episodes! Dead!" So James spent the rest of the seven seasons of the show keeping a low profile and trying to avoid Joss.
Also, he only said yes to bleaching his hair when he thought it was for five episodes.
On playing heroes versus playing villains:
The hero is always feeling guilty about something, always on the run, and always trying to help people. The villain can just lurk about and then pop the hero one. When you play the villain, they stack you up to be just as cool as the hero, except that in the last fight, you lose.
On acting:
Inside all people are all people. So acting is not putting on a mask, but taking off the mask.
On his favourite screen relationship:
He nominated three.
Juliet Landau, because she was a stage actor too, and they could share their mutual amazement at the strange things film people did. "She's completely fearless, and I'm completely shameless." And they would do inappropriate things together below the camera frame, and then laugh over it when watching the show after.
Amy Acker, because she was lovely, but he was always in a relationship whenever he appeared on Angel. Finally, he came back to film when he happened to be single, but she was married.
John Barrowman, because he was a great person, and when James gashed his leg on set and didn't want to tell anyone and just stuck it together with sticky tape (!), John noticed him bleeding through his costume, and got his own surgeon to stitch James up, and had the costume drycleaned before the next scene. (And yes, he was a good kisser too.)
On stage acting versus film acting versus singing:
Acting is like those Japanese restaurants where the chef cooks the ingredients in front of you and then serves up the finished meal.
When you're a stage actor, you're the chef, and the script and the props and everything else are your ingredients, and you combine them together to serve up the result to the audience.
When you're a film actor, you're the piece of celery. It's job to be the freshest piece of celery you can be, but in the end, the editor is the chef.
With singing, you can be all alone, and writing your emotions into a song, and when you play it for other people, they might say, "I feel that way too," or at least they might not be disgusted by the way you feel, and so you feel less alone.
So his preference was for stage acting, then singing, then film acting.
Overall, he was a great speaker, warm and funny and confident, with plenty of entertaining and insightful things to say. I've never been much of a Spike fan, but I think I'm now a James Marsters fan.
Tom Felton
Warning: minor Harry Potter epilogue spoiler below.
The queue was massive, and yes, I am slightly ashamed to admit that I queued. I should have remembered that there are a lot more Harry Potter fans than Buffy fans.
Tom Felton was warm and friendly and called people "lovely", which had the audience sighing. On the other hand, his session was bit awkward, because some people would keep asking inappropriate questions.
The very second question was about fanfic, and what his favourite pairing was. Argh! The audience groaned, and I put my head in my hands. Do people not have any sense of etiquette anymore? The asker even had the gall to repeat the question. He gave a remarkably polite answer, about people being inspired by Jo's writing to start writing themselves. And this was not the only fanfic question asked in the session. What's sad is that this probably isn't the first time he's had to face these kinds of questions. It made me remember how why HP fandom sometimes has the reputation it does.
There were normal questions though, and he seemed like he appreciated the chance to be part of something like Harry Potter. Although he mentioned that when he was a kid, he was never allowed to do things like skateboarding, skiing, and snowboarding. And having to dye his hair blond for ten years was not much fun either.
One question was about the epilogue set nineteen years later, and how he felt about Draco marrying "a random woman", while everyone else married someone they knew at school. (When hearing the question phrased like that, I realised how much more normal the former is than the latter.) Tom deferred to "the wonderful JK Rowling" on the question, which was a diplomatic answer he pulled out often.
Best question was from a nine year old kid, who wanted to know, "When will we get our Hogwarts letters?" Everyone went awwww. I thought Tom handled it well, saying "Have you been good?" and "Study hard and we'll see." (My sister thought this was setting them up for future heartbreak, but I would argue this was not the forum to tell a kid, "It's only a story, you're never going to Hogwarts.")
Shopping
I picked up TANG! (Astonishing Tales of Dating, Bed Bugs and Toilet Mishaps), This is Ghost Ghost (by Richard Fairgray aged 7), and an irresistible onigiri cushion from Sugart. I also picked up my SMASH! ticket, although I'm a little disappointed that it now costs $25. I resisted picking up the Uncharted Waters Online demo disk, because I probably should not embark on any more MMORPGs.
Photos
Best cushions ever!
Giant Connect Four!
Plush junk food!
Giant maggot puppet!
Angry Bender!
I went on the Sunday. I'd never been there early enough for the doors opening before, but I didn't want to miss any of the talks I was keen on, and I wasn't sure how long it would take to get inside. But for some strange reason, the EFTPOS queue was shorter than either the cash queue or the prepaid queue. Sweet.
James Marsters
I've never been much of a Spike fan, but I thought I'd go see James Marsters anyway. It was the first time I'd heard him speaking in his natural accent, and he has a lovely voice! I generally prefer talks followed by Q&A, rather than pure Q&A, since the quality of the latter depends on the questions, but they were pretty good, and he knew how to run with them.
On Joss:
"Joss was a great guy, who didn't like me much." Joss wasn't a fan of the Anne Rice style romantic vampire. To him, vampires were a metaphor for the traumas of adolescence, so they were meant to be ugly and quickly defeated. But David Greenwalt convinced him to include one romantic vampire, and that was Angel. And Angel became very popular.
Spike was meant to be a Sid Vicious style villain, and he was meant to be dead after five episodes. When Angel turned evil, his first act was supposed to be killing Spike and getting together with Dru. But Spike became quite popular too. Joss would say, "I don't care how popular you are, you're dead after five episodes! Dead!" So James spent the rest of the seven seasons of the show keeping a low profile and trying to avoid Joss.
Also, he only said yes to bleaching his hair when he thought it was for five episodes.
On playing heroes versus playing villains:
The hero is always feeling guilty about something, always on the run, and always trying to help people. The villain can just lurk about and then pop the hero one. When you play the villain, they stack you up to be just as cool as the hero, except that in the last fight, you lose.
On acting:
Inside all people are all people. So acting is not putting on a mask, but taking off the mask.
On his favourite screen relationship:
He nominated three.
Juliet Landau, because she was a stage actor too, and they could share their mutual amazement at the strange things film people did. "She's completely fearless, and I'm completely shameless." And they would do inappropriate things together below the camera frame, and then laugh over it when watching the show after.
Amy Acker, because she was lovely, but he was always in a relationship whenever he appeared on Angel. Finally, he came back to film when he happened to be single, but she was married.
John Barrowman, because he was a great person, and when James gashed his leg on set and didn't want to tell anyone and just stuck it together with sticky tape (!), John noticed him bleeding through his costume, and got his own surgeon to stitch James up, and had the costume drycleaned before the next scene. (And yes, he was a good kisser too.)
On stage acting versus film acting versus singing:
Acting is like those Japanese restaurants where the chef cooks the ingredients in front of you and then serves up the finished meal.
When you're a stage actor, you're the chef, and the script and the props and everything else are your ingredients, and you combine them together to serve up the result to the audience.
When you're a film actor, you're the piece of celery. It's job to be the freshest piece of celery you can be, but in the end, the editor is the chef.
With singing, you can be all alone, and writing your emotions into a song, and when you play it for other people, they might say, "I feel that way too," or at least they might not be disgusted by the way you feel, and so you feel less alone.
So his preference was for stage acting, then singing, then film acting.
Overall, he was a great speaker, warm and funny and confident, with plenty of entertaining and insightful things to say. I've never been much of a Spike fan, but I think I'm now a James Marsters fan.
Tom Felton
Warning: minor Harry Potter epilogue spoiler below.
The queue was massive, and yes, I am slightly ashamed to admit that I queued. I should have remembered that there are a lot more Harry Potter fans than Buffy fans.
Tom Felton was warm and friendly and called people "lovely", which had the audience sighing. On the other hand, his session was bit awkward, because some people would keep asking inappropriate questions.
The very second question was about fanfic, and what his favourite pairing was. Argh! The audience groaned, and I put my head in my hands. Do people not have any sense of etiquette anymore? The asker even had the gall to repeat the question. He gave a remarkably polite answer, about people being inspired by Jo's writing to start writing themselves. And this was not the only fanfic question asked in the session. What's sad is that this probably isn't the first time he's had to face these kinds of questions. It made me remember how why HP fandom sometimes has the reputation it does.
There were normal questions though, and he seemed like he appreciated the chance to be part of something like Harry Potter. Although he mentioned that when he was a kid, he was never allowed to do things like skateboarding, skiing, and snowboarding. And having to dye his hair blond for ten years was not much fun either.
One question was about the epilogue set nineteen years later, and how he felt about Draco marrying "a random woman", while everyone else married someone they knew at school. (When hearing the question phrased like that, I realised how much more normal the former is than the latter.) Tom deferred to "the wonderful JK Rowling" on the question, which was a diplomatic answer he pulled out often.
Best question was from a nine year old kid, who wanted to know, "When will we get our Hogwarts letters?" Everyone went awwww. I thought Tom handled it well, saying "Have you been good?" and "Study hard and we'll see." (My sister thought this was setting them up for future heartbreak, but I would argue this was not the forum to tell a kid, "It's only a story, you're never going to Hogwarts.")
Shopping
I picked up TANG! (Astonishing Tales of Dating, Bed Bugs and Toilet Mishaps), This is Ghost Ghost (by Richard Fairgray aged 7), and an irresistible onigiri cushion from Sugart. I also picked up my SMASH! ticket, although I'm a little disappointed that it now costs $25. I resisted picking up the Uncharted Waters Online demo disk, because I probably should not embark on any more MMORPGs.
Photos
Best cushions ever!
Giant Connect Four!
Plush junk food!
Giant maggot puppet!
Angry Bender!