Mr Collins, may I compliment you on your face.
My rambling recap All Hell Breaks Loose 3 - Sydney
Check the Super Wiki page for more coverage
I am by nature an unsentimental, rather cynical person. I don’t know what it is, but fandom generally, and being around fangirls in particularly, breaks out the rainbows and kittens in me.
So yeah, here’s my rather sparkly Con report!
After a 2 year break, SPN returned down under with All Hell Breaks Loose 3. I had been to each of the previous ones and these Aussie Cons are quite different than other SPN Cons (although I haven’t been to any others).
AHBL3 had one day in Sydney and one in Melbourne. There was a cocktail party and a breakfast with guests (not a panel, but actually having breakfast!) in each city, but only for the VIP/Platinum ticket holders. Both days were well attended - I’d guess around 7-800 fans in Sydney.
I went along with the wonderful ”mel_b_angel”, ”ajk” and Bec (first time Con goer!). I first met Mel in RL , when we went to see Jared at his appearance at Supanova in Sydney in 2008 (during his pink gingham shirt phase…) and it was great to spend a fangirlish weekend with her.
The venue was again at NSW uni, in a lecture hall. Good venue as far as stage/seating goes, but there’s really no where to hang out other than in your seat, which limits opportunities to meet other fans, which of course is half the reason to go. Thanks to the power of twitter I did manage to catch up with a few online peeps including the world-touring ”redteekal” who had amazing tales to tell.
First thrill of the day was the Impala! Yes, she was a soft top 2 door, but she was VERY shiny. I love that our fandom adores this car so much, and people were taking pics with her all day.
The day ended up being photoops, all the panels and then autos. I quite liked having all the panels one after another. And now onto the guests - Misha, Jim, Richard, Corin Nemec and Traci Dinwiddie. Interesting that only 2 guests were in Season 7, and probably only Misha will be in S8.
What shows with these guests, is their close involvement with fandom, and their experience at doing Cons. They were all great performers, and really friendly with the fans. I’ve said it often before, but one of the things I do love about the Cons, is that the actors, just like us, have made friendships with each other, that wouldn’t have existed otherwise, and a number of them mentioned this.
In some of the press interviews they did Misha, Jim and Richard all said how much they loved doing the Cons, in no small part because they get to fly into a different city and feel like a rock star for a weekend. Richard said:
“It’s basically someone saying, ‘Hey, would you come to a city you’ve never been to and go hang out in a hotel with people who love you?’ It’s the greatest gig of all time! The fans want me here. It’s an amazing experience. Every convention is its own party, and regardless of if we’ve been to that city before or not, every convention has its own energy and its own vibe because it’s different people [and] different guests. It’s different fans. I just think it’s a blast.”
Anyway -
Traci: Traci is a hippy chick. Exactly the sort of person I would normally hang shit on for all her talk of psychic energy and stuff. But oh man that would be like kicking a puppy! She’s extremely lovely, and anyway who can get a group of Aussies singing along in a drumming circle has got something going for her!
I was interested that while Traci has been out in the queer press about the fact that she’s in a relationship with a woman (and identifies as bi), she used non-gendered pronouns for her partner at the Con, despite talking about acting as a celebrant to a lesbian couple, and marriage equality generally. Not surprising tho - fandom can be rather dauntingly heterosexual.
Traci has these fascinating parallel fannish experiences tho - one is SPN, and the other is from her role in Elena Undone, which has seen her attending lots of dykey festivals.
Richard and Corin: Corin was a last minute fill-in, and I must say I wasn’t particularly interested - I mean Christian Campbell was hardly a memorable character! But his genre-heavy resume means he’s a Con veteran, and he worked so well with Richard. Everyone who met him got a big hug, and he wrote an essay for his autos! He seemed to having a brilliant time, and never stopped smiling!.
Richard - well he was in his fucking element. He worked the crowd like a comic at his best. He’s a physical performer as well, and as fans know from pervious Cons, loves to get amongst the audience. One girl had her questions written out, and he took the piece of paper, and answered the Bobby/Jim question, which resulted in him breaking out into some Cossack dancing! He pronounced Vegemite as tasting liked “canned anus” and Corin, who’s been here a number of times, was able to school him on how to apply it properly to toast. He also had thought through how he could be bought back on the show (as the original Trickster that Gabriel had been impersonating - he had a whole spiel on it!)
The whole panel had me laughing til my face hurt. I hear Creation have engaged Richard as MC for the whole Las Vegas Con - an excellent idea!
Jim: Jim’s a great story teller, and again, is great at working with the fans. One thing I noticed with all guests, is that their Con experience means they can turn the most boring (or in some cases cringe worthy) question around.
Another note on questions - Jim noted in a response to one question “I’m sure you all know this from video at other Cons…” Now this is interesting - Jim (and the others) obviously has a lot of contact with the more hard core fans (yes that’s me and you) who watch all the Con vids and know a lot about the Show. But the Con was a good reminder that many fans don’t … they’re not on social media, they don’t visit SPN websites (or the Wiki!). And really I have no other explanation as to why people would ask the question about on set pranks EVERY time (Jim’s response: there are more questions about pranks, then there have been pranks…)
Jim did talk about being duped into attending what he thought was an annual on-set safety lecture, only to find the crew had put together a video of Bobby over 7 seasons. Side note on the suckiness of an actor’s life - acting jobs are hard to get, and a regular gig on a set you like, with a role you like, is incredibly rare. So to essentially lose that job, not through any fault of your own, must be really hard. Jim said he hadn’t heard anything about whether Bobby would be back.
Jim also spoke about Jensen directing. He said that looking back, he could see Jensen had been preparing for directing all his years on the show - that he was always interested in all the technical aspects of filming, and was always talking to the crew about how they did things. He reitereated that Jensen was very good at it, an dhe was pleased to see he was doing it again next seasons.
Misha: Oh Misha. You amazing creature you. He was in fine form. He managed to be at once his whacky snarky self and then segue into talking sincerely about his charity work. One of my favourite anecdotes was when a fan asked “Why does Cas have a more profound bond with Dean, when Sam is way hotter?”, he developed into a whole skit (ie fanfic) about how Cas and Dean have spent all this time together and swapped stories and developed a friendship, whereas Cas and Sam just fuck. You had to be there…. Oh he actually speculated that there are less Sam and Cas scenes purely because he and Jared crack up too much when they’re together.
Best fan line of the day went to the woman who opened her question with “Mr Collins I would like to compliment you on your face. It’s fantastic”.
As with Jim, I feel for Misha in terms of his transition from series regular to guest. And while he’ll obviously be in some of S8, he said he didn’t know how much he would be in it - or in what direction Cas’s character would go.
He mentioned both in the panel and a press interview the Wim Wenders movie “Wings of Desire” (exquisite movie - watch it if you haven’t), which features an angel (Cassiel!) who falls so he can experience sensory pleasures (feeling sunlight, eating icecream) and love. Misha said “
Cas’ experiences of being a human so far have been the exact opposite end of that spectrum: It’s been what it’s like to be drunk, disillusioned and lonely and depraved. So I would love Cas to have some, just one nice thing to happen to him.
Bottom line - I love it when the actors are as concerned about these characters as we are!
I do have to include this bit from one of the interviews on his costars:
“I can tell you what Jensen is really like: he’s a monster, a truly terrible human being,” he smiles. “He beats small children and feasts on the hearts of puppies. But Jared’s an absolute sweetheart.”
other stuff Had an auto with Misha, got to tell him that Divine had just one a Leo award which he was stoked about, although it was outshone by Mel’s discussion of her NKOTB love with him!
Had decided to get a Richard auto due to his awesomeness - I don’t really collect autos, but lets face it its really a chance to talk to them for a minute or two! And then I got a DM from Jim Michaels, setting me up with this inside joke he and Richard have. So I say hi, and then start in asking him about working with union and non-union grips. And Richard is like O.o WTF? OMG - JimMicahels told you to say that! How did he even …LOL. Which yeah - the power of twitter!
Post Con Mel headed off to NKOTB/BSB concert for fangirling of a different kind, and Bec and ”ajk” and I and @AmyinSydney (aka SweetonDean) and @shelleyreneee and her brother. There were many many bottles of champagne drunk and IMPORTANT SPN things discussed. I think.
Being around fangirls is an elixir. Also, I tend to hug everyone which I don’t normally do. I think this fandom, this cast and crew, have created something truly psychotically, erotically codependent and awesome.
And I’m still drunk on it.
ETA: Oh yeah and Misha drew a spurting winged cock on a tee for charity and Corin took his shirt off. Twice. And there were fans from all over the world including a Kuwati guy called Dean.
Check the Super Wiki page for more coverage
I am by nature an unsentimental, rather cynical person. I don’t know what it is, but fandom generally, and being around fangirls in particularly, breaks out the rainbows and kittens in me.
So yeah, here’s my rather sparkly Con report!
After a 2 year break, SPN returned down under with All Hell Breaks Loose 3. I had been to each of the previous ones and these Aussie Cons are quite different than other SPN Cons (although I haven’t been to any others).
AHBL3 had one day in Sydney and one in Melbourne. There was a cocktail party and a breakfast with guests (not a panel, but actually having breakfast!) in each city, but only for the VIP/Platinum ticket holders. Both days were well attended - I’d guess around 7-800 fans in Sydney.
I went along with the wonderful ”mel_b_angel”, ”ajk” and Bec (first time Con goer!). I first met Mel in RL , when we went to see Jared at his appearance at Supanova in Sydney in 2008 (during his pink gingham shirt phase…) and it was great to spend a fangirlish weekend with her.
The venue was again at NSW uni, in a lecture hall. Good venue as far as stage/seating goes, but there’s really no where to hang out other than in your seat, which limits opportunities to meet other fans, which of course is half the reason to go. Thanks to the power of twitter I did manage to catch up with a few online peeps including the world-touring ”redteekal” who had amazing tales to tell.
First thrill of the day was the Impala! Yes, she was a soft top 2 door, but she was VERY shiny. I love that our fandom adores this car so much, and people were taking pics with her all day.
The day ended up being photoops, all the panels and then autos. I quite liked having all the panels one after another. And now onto the guests - Misha, Jim, Richard, Corin Nemec and Traci Dinwiddie. Interesting that only 2 guests were in Season 7, and probably only Misha will be in S8.
What shows with these guests, is their close involvement with fandom, and their experience at doing Cons. They were all great performers, and really friendly with the fans. I’ve said it often before, but one of the things I do love about the Cons, is that the actors, just like us, have made friendships with each other, that wouldn’t have existed otherwise, and a number of them mentioned this.
In some of the press interviews they did Misha, Jim and Richard all said how much they loved doing the Cons, in no small part because they get to fly into a different city and feel like a rock star for a weekend. Richard said:
“It’s basically someone saying, ‘Hey, would you come to a city you’ve never been to and go hang out in a hotel with people who love you?’ It’s the greatest gig of all time! The fans want me here. It’s an amazing experience. Every convention is its own party, and regardless of if we’ve been to that city before or not, every convention has its own energy and its own vibe because it’s different people [and] different guests. It’s different fans. I just think it’s a blast.”
Anyway -
Traci: Traci is a hippy chick. Exactly the sort of person I would normally hang shit on for all her talk of psychic energy and stuff. But oh man that would be like kicking a puppy! She’s extremely lovely, and anyway who can get a group of Aussies singing along in a drumming circle has got something going for her!
I was interested that while Traci has been out in the queer press about the fact that she’s in a relationship with a woman (and identifies as bi), she used non-gendered pronouns for her partner at the Con, despite talking about acting as a celebrant to a lesbian couple, and marriage equality generally. Not surprising tho - fandom can be rather dauntingly heterosexual.
Traci has these fascinating parallel fannish experiences tho - one is SPN, and the other is from her role in Elena Undone, which has seen her attending lots of dykey festivals.
Richard and Corin: Corin was a last minute fill-in, and I must say I wasn’t particularly interested - I mean Christian Campbell was hardly a memorable character! But his genre-heavy resume means he’s a Con veteran, and he worked so well with Richard. Everyone who met him got a big hug, and he wrote an essay for his autos! He seemed to having a brilliant time, and never stopped smiling!.
Richard - well he was in his fucking element. He worked the crowd like a comic at his best. He’s a physical performer as well, and as fans know from pervious Cons, loves to get amongst the audience. One girl had her questions written out, and he took the piece of paper, and answered the Bobby/Jim question, which resulted in him breaking out into some Cossack dancing! He pronounced Vegemite as tasting liked “canned anus” and Corin, who’s been here a number of times, was able to school him on how to apply it properly to toast. He also had thought through how he could be bought back on the show (as the original Trickster that Gabriel had been impersonating - he had a whole spiel on it!)
The whole panel had me laughing til my face hurt. I hear Creation have engaged Richard as MC for the whole Las Vegas Con - an excellent idea!
Jim: Jim’s a great story teller, and again, is great at working with the fans. One thing I noticed with all guests, is that their Con experience means they can turn the most boring (or in some cases cringe worthy) question around.
Another note on questions - Jim noted in a response to one question “I’m sure you all know this from video at other Cons…” Now this is interesting - Jim (and the others) obviously has a lot of contact with the more hard core fans (yes that’s me and you) who watch all the Con vids and know a lot about the Show. But the Con was a good reminder that many fans don’t … they’re not on social media, they don’t visit SPN websites (or the Wiki!). And really I have no other explanation as to why people would ask the question about on set pranks EVERY time (Jim’s response: there are more questions about pranks, then there have been pranks…)
Jim did talk about being duped into attending what he thought was an annual on-set safety lecture, only to find the crew had put together a video of Bobby over 7 seasons. Side note on the suckiness of an actor’s life - acting jobs are hard to get, and a regular gig on a set you like, with a role you like, is incredibly rare. So to essentially lose that job, not through any fault of your own, must be really hard. Jim said he hadn’t heard anything about whether Bobby would be back.
Jim also spoke about Jensen directing. He said that looking back, he could see Jensen had been preparing for directing all his years on the show - that he was always interested in all the technical aspects of filming, and was always talking to the crew about how they did things. He reitereated that Jensen was very good at it, an dhe was pleased to see he was doing it again next seasons.
Misha: Oh Misha. You amazing creature you. He was in fine form. He managed to be at once his whacky snarky self and then segue into talking sincerely about his charity work. One of my favourite anecdotes was when a fan asked “Why does Cas have a more profound bond with Dean, when Sam is way hotter?”, he developed into a whole skit (ie fanfic) about how Cas and Dean have spent all this time together and swapped stories and developed a friendship, whereas Cas and Sam just fuck. You had to be there…. Oh he actually speculated that there are less Sam and Cas scenes purely because he and Jared crack up too much when they’re together.
Best fan line of the day went to the woman who opened her question with “Mr Collins I would like to compliment you on your face. It’s fantastic”.
As with Jim, I feel for Misha in terms of his transition from series regular to guest. And while he’ll obviously be in some of S8, he said he didn’t know how much he would be in it - or in what direction Cas’s character would go.
He mentioned both in the panel and a press interview the Wim Wenders movie “Wings of Desire” (exquisite movie - watch it if you haven’t), which features an angel (Cassiel!) who falls so he can experience sensory pleasures (feeling sunlight, eating icecream) and love. Misha said “
Cas’ experiences of being a human so far have been the exact opposite end of that spectrum: It’s been what it’s like to be drunk, disillusioned and lonely and depraved. So I would love Cas to have some, just one nice thing to happen to him.
Bottom line - I love it when the actors are as concerned about these characters as we are!
I do have to include this bit from one of the interviews on his costars:
“I can tell you what Jensen is really like: he’s a monster, a truly terrible human being,” he smiles. “He beats small children and feasts on the hearts of puppies. But Jared’s an absolute sweetheart.”
other stuff Had an auto with Misha, got to tell him that Divine had just one a Leo award which he was stoked about, although it was outshone by Mel’s discussion of her NKOTB love with him!
Had decided to get a Richard auto due to his awesomeness - I don’t really collect autos, but lets face it its really a chance to talk to them for a minute or two! And then I got a DM from Jim Michaels, setting me up with this inside joke he and Richard have. So I say hi, and then start in asking him about working with union and non-union grips. And Richard is like O.o WTF? OMG - JimMicahels told you to say that! How did he even …LOL. Which yeah - the power of twitter!
Post Con Mel headed off to NKOTB/BSB concert for fangirling of a different kind, and Bec and ”ajk” and I and @AmyinSydney (aka SweetonDean) and @shelleyreneee and her brother. There were many many bottles of champagne drunk and IMPORTANT SPN things discussed. I think.
Being around fangirls is an elixir. Also, I tend to hug everyone which I don’t normally do. I think this fandom, this cast and crew, have created something truly psychotically, erotically codependent and awesome.
And I’m still drunk on it.
ETA: Oh yeah and Misha drew a spurting winged cock on a tee for charity and Corin took his shirt off. Twice. And there were fans from all over the world including a Kuwati guy called Dean.