Con report Sat and Sun
The Photosession was interesting because whilst I was queueing I was able to observe your idols at quite close quarters and I found it interesting to watch them react to what is essentially a bizarre set of circumstances. Of course whilst I was waiting patiently for it to be my turn I kept getting jolts of adrenalin and when I finally stood next to Jamie and later James my heart was fairly hammering in my chest. And to be fair I got the same jolt of omgflailysquee basically everytime I saw them. Anyhoo I had my picture with Jamie first and he was incredibly sweet, He recognised me from the meet and greet from the night before and we had a discussion about whether Lee Bear should have his uniform done up or not.... he decided not because he wanted the tags on display.
James looked totally bemused at me with the Lee bear but I think the expression he pulled in the photo really did show that. He was very sweet.
I'm kind of in awe at all the guest stars because presumably they don't necessarily find photo sessions all that interesting but they were without exception really nice.
I then had to wait for
ginny4harry as she got her gang bang shot with both James and Jamie.
First up was Leah Cairns Racetrack and Luciana Carro Kat. They were both very funny and had some good stories. Luciana spoke about how gutted she was when she was killed off and how much she loved working on the show. Leah had a similar story about the end of season 4 when Racetrack was given a whole lot to do and she somehow managed to screw up scheduling and all her dialogue got cut.
Next was Allesandra Torensani and Kate Vernon. Allesandra plays Zoe in Caprica, She is precious seriously, she is probably about 5' nothing and she's so petite she has alabaster skin and she looks like a freaking doll I swear. This was also her first con and she was so obviously stoked to be there. She was also horribly indiscreet and we got a lot of info about Caprica and I really really really can't wait to see it.
Kate Vernon had some great stories about Tigh me up and Tigh me down and I am ever more convinced from the stories that I've heard that Edward James Olmos is a dirty old man but in the best kind of way.
He directed the ep Tigh me up Tigh me down and he was getting her and Michael Hogan to behave like children to start with and then totally inapropriately and then in the dinner scene he told her to work the table and to put her foot inbetween Jamie's legs. She said in that moment Ellen Tigh was born.
The way she said put your foot, also funniest thing ever.
Sean Maher, Morena Baccarin and Jonathan Woodward were next and were the firefly panel. Morena and Sean were both hideously jetlagged and had the worst hangovers.
Morena spent most of the session with her head in her hands.
They warmed up eventually as did the crowd with questions. It bacame apparent that Sean adores Morena and there was a question about costums and Morena said that for Serenity the wardrobe mistress had implied she was fat. There was outraged gasps from everyone in the hall as she is the most exsquisitely elegant woman I think I've ever seen, She has immense natural poise.
Jonathan Woodward is a bit of a law unto himself, he was in like one ep of Buffy - conversatiosn with dead people and in the message in firefly. We were warned that he was a bit of a twat and he seemed okay in small doses.
That brought us to the final panel of the day James and Jamie. The really good thing about listening to James and Jamie is that they are both really eloquent speakers. James is a seriously good teller of tales, He also doesn't sit still for a moment.
Jamie on the other hand seemed a little bit surly. I don't know, that probably isn't fair to him. He's eloquent too, but there were times when, to me at any rate, he seemed exasperated with some of the questions. Particularly if they were to do with what happened after the end and also ones which seemed to mention Katee. He rolled his eyes whenever she was mentioned in an oh-what-has-she-been-saying-now? Way.
I've got a section later where i'll talk about what Jamie and James said in more detail because it's helped me with the way that I look at the finale to BSG and it fits better in it's own spot.
I watched the first ep of V and I really loved it. It's very sinister and it has Morena in it and it's wonderful. Very dark and very good. I don't remember the original I am but 0 years old but this is looking good. Very good. Very very good.
The party was a bit meh and I was creamed so we didn't stay late.
We avoided Jonathan Woodward on Sunday because he does this whole communion thing with whisky and was this time ably assisted by Leah and Luciana. I didn't take part because it was way too early for whisky.
Leah then did a solo Q&A which was excellent, She told some very funny stories from her travels, I will never look at tampax in quite the same way ever again.
Next up was Kate Vernon and James Callis and I was very frakking brave in this one because I got up and I asked a question. I asked which medium did they prefer working in and if there were any writers that they would love to work with.
I feel really lucky because I got incredibly full and frank answers from both of them about the differences and pros and cons of TV, Film and Theatre. Kate said that she loved TV because of the challege but loved the luxuriousness of TV and that she hadn't done any theatre for a long time but she should soon because it scared her and that was good.
James waxed lyrical, seriously I love him so much for that. He basically said that his first love was theatre but he enjoyed working in film and tv too. James also told us that at Drama school they had a week on acting for TV and the tutors spent the time bitching at each other.
Someone asked James about the death list and he spoke how that scene took all day to film because he couldn't physically sign it, He told the director that there would have to be a real and creible threat to Baltar and that there would have to a a gun against his head.
He was so vocal about it that Dean Stockwell told him to just sign the fucking thing. James said that also they changed something when it aired and it wasn't what he thought it should have been so he went ape at the producers because he felt that it undermined Baltar and that Baltar isn't a villain but is an anti hero in the truest sense of the word. Not a reluctant hero but a protagonist like Edmund in King Lear, my analogy not his.
The final Q and A was Jamie and Luciana in which I sat enrapt like a rabbit in the headlights again. Jamie seemed much more relaxed in this session. He confessed he's snobby about his science fiction, he likes it highbrow and that made me smile because I do too for the most part.
There was some good banter between Jamie and Luciana. She claimed he was spoilt because he got the legs cut off his flight suit and he retorted it was only after having sweated into it for two years. They then started talking about keeping cool and Luciana said she didn't think she had airflow and Jamie said trust me you had airflow. Because it was the airflow that stopped the helmets fogging up.
Jamie said he god told off because when he was filming with a helmet he often would be a bit spitty and he'd have to be reset a lot. The director would tell him can we go again without you gobbing this time mate?
He said that filming in the viper sucked because the only people who could hear him would be the sound guy, and director because of the mike and the helmet and when they went for a break he'd be stuck, trying to grab people's attention and no one could hear him. He pulled some awesome faces showing us what it was like.
He was asked what he got to keep and what he stole. He said he has two flight suits one which he stole and one he was presented with he also said that he had really wanted his presidential suit but he wasn't allowed to have it. Which is such a shame.
Someone asked Jamie about wearing the fat suit for early season three when he was Tubby Apollo. Jamie said on one hand he really enjoyed it because he got to eat what he liked for the duration of filming. He also found that cast and crew who hadn't seen him for a while thought it was real and would make comments and people would tut when he was eating doughnuts. Someone followed up that the fat suit made him look like Eddie and he laughed at that. He said that the latex would not let him sweat properly and it would erupt in pustules and that then he looked more like Eddie, I swear to the gods there was a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the room at that point.
Jamie was also asked about the pigeon scene. He said that when he envisaged the scene in his head he saw something like a finch and he was horrified when he arrived on set and he saw the biggest and fattest pigeon that he had ever seen. So much so that he had a hard time not hitting the frakking thing and he was very glad he remembered that he was supposed to be drunk and in fact drunked it up a bit more. There was a lot of fuss about the pigeon and how Callis' scenes always ended up with him being in bed with at least one woman and Jamie got pigeons or freezing in water or some such.
He was asked right out what the pigeon represented. He didn't give a straight answer for which I'm grateful for. He gave options and he said that his opinions were no more correct than theories that we all have.
One thing this con helped me with was the idea of closure in BSG. I have to some extent struggled with Lee's ending for a long time because he didn't seem to get any closure. But this weekend, after listening to Jamie it all kind of fell into place. Lee carried all his experiences with him. He would carry Kara with him always. Those that leave you never really leave because you keep them in your heart or wherever. And at the end he was the person with all the potential actually ready to start something new and not going into the west with the elves.
Both Jamie and James talked about the cyclical nature of the show and how the finale linked back to pre mini series to show that the show had come to the end of it's cycle. It all makes that much more sense to me now and I frakking love my show.