Melbourne Experience Pt 1 (with pics)
This is going to be long but I thought I'd write up my experiences with my friends as I really had a fun time. I've also thrown in some pics of Connor and Alan for those who prefer looking and not reading! I've inserted headings so that if you're only interested in reading certain bits, you can skip to it!
There was more to Melbourne than Joe Flanigan. Yes, life does exist outside Stargate! It was very fun to meet
kirei_seimei again and even more fun that derry667 and yokiem flew over too. On top of that, I saw kaaatie who flew over from Adelaide and garneteve whom I only met for the first time at the expo. I also met up with meganina and her sister who attended the Sunday and other non-LJ fans that I talked to at the cocktail party and queues.
I flew into Melbourne on Friday afternoon.yokiem, derry667 and I had separate flights and the very kind kirei_seimei picked each one of us up separately and we had 3 trips to her place. My flight was actually delayed because a freak storm hit Sydney and the tarmac had to be closed whilst one of the other planes got struck by lightining which also delayed yokiem's flight.
Cocktail Party
I attended the cocktail party on Friday evening but I haven't read any reports of anyone else attending it. It was fun mainly because I actually got to talk to a couple of fans that I haven't met before and I saw fans that I've seen around Sydney. What I really liked about this was that there were tonnes of random people who attended; people who may have watched SGA but didn't participate in the fandom, partners of people dragged to this... all in all, not all of them were fangirls like at the London Expo or other cons. In fact I had one conversation with a couple about swimming!
I really didn't know who the guests were and so I couldn't tell them apart from the fans until I asked someone and was told that anyone with an American accent most likely qualified as a guest. I met Billy West who voices Fry and other characters on Futurama, Richard Horvitz and very very briefly, Alan Tudyk at the cocktail drinks. I spent most of my time actually talking to Billy West's wife or partner, who was very typically American-Los Angeles and full of compliments about Melbourne and Australia. She, Richard and Billy had taken the trams around the city and were very humbled by how polite and friendly people were.
They adored the public transport in Melbourne and I guess that's probably because they don't take public transport in LA and they're more recognisable there. She also commented how she felt utterly rude because she couldnt' wait in queue when she was getting her coffee and was so used to the faster pace of life in LA but was very impressed with how down to earth everyone was in Melbourne. She and Billy are doing some sight-seeing in NZ and I believe they will be there for the expo too. I wouldn't say that she was nice in the traditional sense but she was a very interesting lady to talk to. She was just blown over by the cultural diversity in Australia and basically how nice people are in this country! I think I spent about an hour talking to her... which was the longest I spoke with any guest.
When we talked about Australia being very multicultural, we somehow got onto the topic of travel. The most intriguing comment she made was that they would never visit China as long as it was a communist country. I wasn't sure if this was because of the show or it was a deep personal and political stance but I didn't ask her although I was quite curious about it.
Nearly running over Alan Tudyk
yokiem, kirei_seimei and I actually saw Alan Tudyk before the cocktail party. I think he was crossing a street in front of our car. I didn't know it was him but it was kirei_seimei who shouted out "Alan" (not to him though as the windows were up) and then claimed she nearly ran him over! Alan was surrounded by a lot of females at the cocktail party and I wanted to say hi but only got a very brief moment. He was very jet lagged and looked tired; or maybe it's just the way his eyes look!
After the cocktail party, I met up withyokiem and kirei_seimei and hung around the city whilst waiting for derry667 to arrive. When she finally did, we headed back to the house to have coffee and tea and just chat. Despite not getting to bed till about 1 or after that, we were all awake around 7 the next morning. I was kinda tired, having had a long week at work and if I didn't have to go out the next day, I'd still be up talking to them. It was very exciting for all of us as derry667 and kirei_seimei had not seen each other since the Hewlett was last here for the BOBW con and when kirei_seimei was last in Sydney, derry667 was in Canada.
The next morning, we had a big breakfast at a café nearkirei_seimei's place and then rocked up to the expo spot around 11. Again, compliments to kirei_seimei as she had to drive a distance to park the car because parking was full at the expo centre!!!
Arriving at the Expo Centre
There weren't many people at the expo around 11. In fact there was hardly a queue for autographs and at that point in time, none of my friends bought autograph tokens and so no one got any autographs. I had a VIP/gold Armageddon ticket which cost me a couple of hundred bucks and though at that time, I wished I hadn't spent so much money, on hindsight I'm glad I bought it because you don't have to queue for autographs or photos if you have a VIP ticket. I suspect that most of the other VIP ticket holders were there for Joe Flanigan.
As part of my gold ticket, I was entitled to one autograph with every guest at the expo. So I ended up getting Connor to sign an Enterprise pic, Peter Woodward to sign a random pic of himself and Alan to sign my Serenity DVD.
You have to understand that at this point, I was one of the few people queueing for autographs and the only ViP ticket holder and so there was no rush or crowd. It wasn't like a con where they tell you to move on. There was no one policing the autograph queues and we could have taken any pictures we wanted.
Meeting the guests
Connor was the first guest I met and I think I was just so in awe of how good-looking he was that I just said the most stupid things. I won't repeat anything because it's too embarrassing but needless to say he was a nice fella.
I was so nervous that I forgot thatderry667, kirei_seimei, yokiem, kaaatie and garneteve were standing 2 feet behind me, taking photos of me and Connor. Imagine a row of 5 ladies with 6 cameras (including mine) flashing at my back and Connor (and squeeing at the same time). I didn't see it at first but apparently, John Wesley Shipp (aka The Flash) was smiling at the all the commotion ( he was sitting next to Connor). I actually asked Connor if he'd pose for a photo or two and hence that's how derry667 took some photos of me, K9, Cuddles and Connor.
Peter did not know what/who K9 was... but he happily posed. I didn't speak to him for long as again, I hadn't much to say but I thanked him for coming etc. I wish I'd said something more intelligent or meaningful to Alan but I honestly didn't know anything to say. I told him that I hadn't actually seen much of Firefly or any of Serenity but I was getting to it. He actually said that I'd probably enjoy it more as I didn't know the spoilers and everything.
Here are various photos I did get:
These are self-explanatory... he was quite taken aback at K9, obviously not a Doctor Who fan!
This is Alan's PR agent I think. She was quite nice and friendly, also American.
He really is incredibly handsome!
Oh Alan... he was soooo cute! And amused by the Australian advertising on my Serenity DVD!
Whilst I was wondering around withderry667, we also saw Chris Rankin sitting alone with no queue, so I got his autograph and asked him to pose with K9; which he readily agreed.
I met Peter after Connor and snapped a few shots, or ratheryokiem did with my camera!
After the photos, we attended the talks. Connor's was first and we had good seats (3rd from front) because I believe that two of my friends had come early to queue up.
Connor's Talk
I didn't take notes so I can't really say much but he gave us stories about Enterprise and SGA. The really funny bits I remember was his wraith impersonation (check out my Connor clips andyokiem's lj), him doing the heroic command pose (hand on hip) as opposed to the non-heroic pose (hand still on hip but pointed the other way) and telling us about pranks on Enterprise. Apparently he had this habit of accidentally breaking props on the Enterprise set.
There were questions asked about Enterprise and its cancellation and he gave a pretty long and elaborate answer about the show. He said that he didn't attend the wrap party when it finally ended because of the way TPTB had treated them - and the fact that the crew was not invited!
He told us a story of the time the whole cast teased Scott about an ad he did ages ago by breaking out and singing the tune to the ad when Scott walked onto the set.
He was asked the usual "What was it like working with ..." on SGA. He said that he mostly worked with Rachel, Paul and a bit of David and Joe. His favourite scenes were with Paul and hmm, he said that we haven't seen them yet - and he was referring to potentially S3 and S4 eps. His general comment was that if SGA wasn't renewed for S5, we'd be left with some pretty big questions.
He told us that he hadn't planned to be an actor and only became one because he was trying to impress a girl in school... I loved Connor because he was very funny, warm and he seemed to be be pretty attuned to fandom on-goings. Maybe it's being in the Trekkie fandom? He said that he gave 4 years of his life to Enterprise and in that 4 years, also got married and had a kid - something he was very happy about. Even though he was a guest on Atlantis, he appeared to know about the show and the characters quite well. He spoke like someone who was quite used to cons and fandom.
He made sarcastic jibes about the microphone - because he was fielding questions from fans but apparently you were supposed to put your hand up and wait for some guy to come around with the microphone before you could ask questions of the guests. I thought that asking him to try vegemite after he'd decline was over the top. What annoyed me was after he declined by making jokes about it being a concentrated yeast extract, one of the girls still pestered him to eat it. I know some people don't see it that way but if someone asked me to eat vegemite and after I said no repeatedly, I'd get the shits if I kept getting asked! I hate vegemite and I've tired it!
He also told us that he'd always envisioned Trip as being from Oklahoma because he'd done the accent in a stage play. When he finally found out that the writers had written Trip as being from Waterfall, Nebraska, he tried to change that but unfortunately, the character was a courtesy of a friend of one of the producers and so they refused to change the storyline. What amused him was that he had met some fans from Waterfall, who complimented him on the accent!
After Connor's talk, we vacated the room and re-entered it, thereby losing our wonderful third row seats. Confined to the middle of the room, I didn't take photos but resort to videos as Alan was too far away for me.
Alan Tudyk
I genuinely enjoyed listenning to Alan even if I didn't get all the jokes and stories - eg the dinosaurs! I think I've put up most of the avi's that I recorded.
What I did love about him was how warm and funny he was and how receptive he was to us. And what surprised me was also that I honestly didn't know that he'd been in quite a number of movies such as Dodgeball, A Knight's Tale, 3:10 to Yuma, I Robot and Death at a Funeral. He actually said that Russell Crowe had a habit of inviting people over to his place to watch tapes of his favourite football team (the Rabbitohs in Sydney) play and of course, he'd show them the matches where he team won! He told us other stories about donning a green latex suit to be the robot in I, Robot and just various stories about Nathan Fillion.
He mentioned that he's pretty good with accents - hence he'd been English in two movies. A guy asked him about Death at the Funeral (which I saw on Sunday and reckon it's fantastic!) and where he sought references to play someone on drugs. He told us an elaborate story about really working hard to look high and made comments about magic mushrooms in Amsterdam from years ago! A lady asked him if it really was his naked body and if he could prove it! Alan assured us that that really was his naked butt in the movie...
Since I don't read/participate much in the Firefly fandom, I don't know these but apparently Nathan is famous for playing on set pranks and off set pranks. Alan mentioned that there was a time when he used to smoke and Nathan hated it so every time he lent him a lighter, it'd have a mini-jolt of electricity to shock him when he used it. And there was also the time when he house-sat Nathan's place whilst Nathan was away and took care of the dog. Just as he was leaving, he picked up one of the pens to write a message and got another electric jolt. He said it was so like Nathan to do stuff like that to him all the time.
He also showed us a long clip that Nathan and him made when they were filming Jaynetown which never made it to the DVD for legal and other reasons. He asked us not to film it and so I didn't. It was quite funny and just had some a tour of the set, cast interviews, scenes of him goofing around in between takes and a very funny outburst from Adam Baldwin. Oh and at the end, the mighty Joss Whedon made an appearance. I guess if you're a Buffy and/or Angel and/or Firefly fan, you'd know who he was.
Alan also mentioned that DVD sales for Serenity were so good that they are going to release a special edition DVD of the movie. Not sure when though. He said that there are rumours of another movie and Joss had actually told him that if he made another movie, he'd been in it. He joked that he hoped that he'd return as a figment of Zoe's erotic dream. He also mentioned that had the series progressed, they would have possibly written in Zoe and Wash having a baby.
I think that the most common question he gets asked is if he knew he was going to die and how Joss told him. He seemed pretty good natured about it and said, "That's Josh. He kills people."
Alan's talk was so popular that they held another session at 5pm for him because quite a number of people could not attend the 2pm one (the room was full!). The next time we went to his talk at 5pm, I found out that Gold Pass ticket holders were entitled to be at the front of the queue (not necessarily better seats but there's a good chance that if you entered the room first, you'd get better seats). So for his second talk, I found myself sitting in the first row, right in front of the stage and getting a good view of Alan!
He wasn't an easy man to photograph as he moved around a lot even though he was sitting on the couch and he tended to look down or had droopy eyelids so that all the photos I took had him looking like his eyes were closed! Another thing that struck me about him was that he looks deceptively small and geeky in movies but he's really quite tall (6') and muscular. If you saw how his tee clung to his torso, you'd notice all the muscles!
After Alan's first panel, we headed downstairs for photos.
Until the photo session, I had no idea that the VIP pass allowed me priority without queuing to photos. Lochie, one of the volunteers at the expo was extremely helpful and understanding. I don't know how many other people had the same idea as me but I knew when I first saw Alan and Connor in the autograph line that I'd want to have a photo with them together! Admittedly, I came for Joe Flanigan but these two blond guys were so incredibly warm, funny and so handsome that I found them both incredibly attractive.
This is the final product (ok, the good photo. I left the other photo out...)
I think that the photo looks comical because we'd been posing for a few minutes and I sort of got bored of smiling!
You have no idea how many minutes passed while they had their arms around me. The lighting was bad and the photographer, Peter made us pose again and again as shot after shot was not good enough! I was so well cushioned between these two hunky blonds! OMG!
Connor and Alan actually asked me if I'd like them to pose differently and I stupidly said nothing. I was really dumb strucked by how wonderful they were and I shut my mouth because I was afraid to say something stupid... attractive men do that to me! It wasn't till later that I realised that I could have asked Connor to do his "Rawr" or command pose likegarneteve did!
After the expo
We headed home after a long day and I unloaded all the photos ontokirei_seimei's computer. All my memory cards were full with pics and vids of the days' event and I'd used up one camera battery! Thankfully I had a spare battery and kirei_seimei backed up my stuff onto a DVD. We had dinner in Lygon Street, in a lovely Italian restaurant. We then went to Borders and later, to a lovely Italian coffee/bakery place.
Since I've been back from Europe, I had not seen so many lovely cakes and sweets! Even the foodcourt in David Jones in Sydney pales in comparison... but this quaint Italian place brought back memories of the basement of Forum des Halles in Paris. I grabbed a chai latte and a slice of cheese cake.
I prefered a B&W photo but I couldn't take the whole place - the cakes were certainly delicious and mouth-watering!
It was quite late at night (after 11) when we finally cabbed it home. But we still watched the latest SGA ep (4x03) which had me laughing at the weirdest moments. Then it was bed for all of us (around 1am) as word at the expo was to get there early on Sunday to get a good queue position for Flanigan.
Other links in my LJ
Joe and Connor pics
Joe and Alan expo vids
Vids of Alan's talk at the expo
There was more to Melbourne than Joe Flanigan. Yes, life does exist outside Stargate! It was very fun to meet
kirei_seimei again and even more fun that derry667 and yokiem flew over too. On top of that, I saw kaaatie who flew over from Adelaide and garneteve whom I only met for the first time at the expo. I also met up with meganina and her sister who attended the Sunday and other non-LJ fans that I talked to at the cocktail party and queues.I flew into Melbourne on Friday afternoon.
yokiem, derry667 and I had separate flights and the very kind kirei_seimei picked each one of us up separately and we had 3 trips to her place. My flight was actually delayed because a freak storm hit Sydney and the tarmac had to be closed whilst one of the other planes got struck by lightining which also delayed yokiem's flight.Cocktail Party
I attended the cocktail party on Friday evening but I haven't read any reports of anyone else attending it. It was fun mainly because I actually got to talk to a couple of fans that I haven't met before and I saw fans that I've seen around Sydney. What I really liked about this was that there were tonnes of random people who attended; people who may have watched SGA but didn't participate in the fandom, partners of people dragged to this... all in all, not all of them were fangirls like at the London Expo or other cons. In fact I had one conversation with a couple about swimming!
I really didn't know who the guests were and so I couldn't tell them apart from the fans until I asked someone and was told that anyone with an American accent most likely qualified as a guest. I met Billy West who voices Fry and other characters on Futurama, Richard Horvitz and very very briefly, Alan Tudyk at the cocktail drinks. I spent most of my time actually talking to Billy West's wife or partner, who was very typically American-Los Angeles and full of compliments about Melbourne and Australia. She, Richard and Billy had taken the trams around the city and were very humbled by how polite and friendly people were.
They adored the public transport in Melbourne and I guess that's probably because they don't take public transport in LA and they're more recognisable there. She also commented how she felt utterly rude because she couldnt' wait in queue when she was getting her coffee and was so used to the faster pace of life in LA but was very impressed with how down to earth everyone was in Melbourne. She and Billy are doing some sight-seeing in NZ and I believe they will be there for the expo too. I wouldn't say that she was nice in the traditional sense but she was a very interesting lady to talk to. She was just blown over by the cultural diversity in Australia and basically how nice people are in this country! I think I spent about an hour talking to her... which was the longest I spoke with any guest.
When we talked about Australia being very multicultural, we somehow got onto the topic of travel. The most intriguing comment she made was that they would never visit China as long as it was a communist country. I wasn't sure if this was because of the show or it was a deep personal and political stance but I didn't ask her although I was quite curious about it.
Nearly running over Alan Tudyk
yokiem, kirei_seimei and I actually saw Alan Tudyk before the cocktail party. I think he was crossing a street in front of our car. I didn't know it was him but it was kirei_seimei who shouted out "Alan" (not to him though as the windows were up) and then claimed she nearly ran him over! Alan was surrounded by a lot of females at the cocktail party and I wanted to say hi but only got a very brief moment. He was very jet lagged and looked tired; or maybe it's just the way his eyes look! After the cocktail party, I met up with
yokiem and kirei_seimei and hung around the city whilst waiting for derry667 to arrive. When she finally did, we headed back to the house to have coffee and tea and just chat. Despite not getting to bed till about 1 or after that, we were all awake around 7 the next morning. I was kinda tired, having had a long week at work and if I didn't have to go out the next day, I'd still be up talking to them. It was very exciting for all of us as derry667 and kirei_seimei had not seen each other since the Hewlett was last here for the BOBW con and when kirei_seimei was last in Sydney, derry667 was in Canada. The next morning, we had a big breakfast at a café near
kirei_seimei's place and then rocked up to the expo spot around 11. Again, compliments to kirei_seimei as she had to drive a distance to park the car because parking was full at the expo centre!!! Arriving at the Expo Centre
There weren't many people at the expo around 11. In fact there was hardly a queue for autographs and at that point in time, none of my friends bought autograph tokens and so no one got any autographs. I had a VIP/gold Armageddon ticket which cost me a couple of hundred bucks and though at that time, I wished I hadn't spent so much money, on hindsight I'm glad I bought it because you don't have to queue for autographs or photos if you have a VIP ticket. I suspect that most of the other VIP ticket holders were there for Joe Flanigan.
As part of my gold ticket, I was entitled to one autograph with every guest at the expo. So I ended up getting Connor to sign an Enterprise pic, Peter Woodward to sign a random pic of himself and Alan to sign my Serenity DVD.
You have to understand that at this point, I was one of the few people queueing for autographs and the only ViP ticket holder and so there was no rush or crowd. It wasn't like a con where they tell you to move on. There was no one policing the autograph queues and we could have taken any pictures we wanted.
Meeting the guests
Connor was the first guest I met and I think I was just so in awe of how good-looking he was that I just said the most stupid things. I won't repeat anything because it's too embarrassing but needless to say he was a nice fella.
I was so nervous that I forgot that
derry667, kirei_seimei, yokiem, kaaatie and garneteve were standing 2 feet behind me, taking photos of me and Connor. Imagine a row of 5 ladies with 6 cameras (including mine) flashing at my back and Connor (and squeeing at the same time). I didn't see it at first but apparently, John Wesley Shipp (aka The Flash) was smiling at the all the commotion ( he was sitting next to Connor). I actually asked Connor if he'd pose for a photo or two and hence that's how derry667 took some photos of me, K9, Cuddles and Connor.Peter did not know what/who K9 was... but he happily posed. I didn't speak to him for long as again, I hadn't much to say but I thanked him for coming etc. I wish I'd said something more intelligent or meaningful to Alan but I honestly didn't know anything to say. I told him that I hadn't actually seen much of Firefly or any of Serenity but I was getting to it. He actually said that I'd probably enjoy it more as I didn't know the spoilers and everything.
Here are various photos I did get:
These are self-explanatory... he was quite taken aback at K9, obviously not a Doctor Who fan!
This is Alan's PR agent I think. She was quite nice and friendly, also American.
He really is incredibly handsome!
Oh Alan... he was soooo cute! And amused by the Australian advertising on my Serenity DVD!
Whilst I was wondering around with
derry667, we also saw Chris Rankin sitting alone with no queue, so I got his autograph and asked him to pose with K9; which he readily agreed.I met Peter after Connor and snapped a few shots, or rather
yokiem did with my camera!After the photos, we attended the talks. Connor's was first and we had good seats (3rd from front) because I believe that two of my friends had come early to queue up.
Connor's Talk
I didn't take notes so I can't really say much but he gave us stories about Enterprise and SGA. The really funny bits I remember was his wraith impersonation (check out my Connor clips and
yokiem's lj), him doing the heroic command pose (hand on hip) as opposed to the non-heroic pose (hand still on hip but pointed the other way) and telling us about pranks on Enterprise. Apparently he had this habit of accidentally breaking props on the Enterprise set.There were questions asked about Enterprise and its cancellation and he gave a pretty long and elaborate answer about the show. He said that he didn't attend the wrap party when it finally ended because of the way TPTB had treated them - and the fact that the crew was not invited!
He told us a story of the time the whole cast teased Scott about an ad he did ages ago by breaking out and singing the tune to the ad when Scott walked onto the set.
He was asked the usual "What was it like working with ..." on SGA. He said that he mostly worked with Rachel, Paul and a bit of David and Joe. His favourite scenes were with Paul and hmm, he said that we haven't seen them yet - and he was referring to potentially S3 and S4 eps. His general comment was that if SGA wasn't renewed for S5, we'd be left with some pretty big questions.
He told us that he hadn't planned to be an actor and only became one because he was trying to impress a girl in school... I loved Connor because he was very funny, warm and he seemed to be be pretty attuned to fandom on-goings. Maybe it's being in the Trekkie fandom? He said that he gave 4 years of his life to Enterprise and in that 4 years, also got married and had a kid - something he was very happy about. Even though he was a guest on Atlantis, he appeared to know about the show and the characters quite well. He spoke like someone who was quite used to cons and fandom.
He made sarcastic jibes about the microphone - because he was fielding questions from fans but apparently you were supposed to put your hand up and wait for some guy to come around with the microphone before you could ask questions of the guests. I thought that asking him to try vegemite after he'd decline was over the top. What annoyed me was after he declined by making jokes about it being a concentrated yeast extract, one of the girls still pestered him to eat it. I know some people don't see it that way but if someone asked me to eat vegemite and after I said no repeatedly, I'd get the shits if I kept getting asked! I hate vegemite and I've tired it!
He also told us that he'd always envisioned Trip as being from Oklahoma because he'd done the accent in a stage play. When he finally found out that the writers had written Trip as being from Waterfall, Nebraska, he tried to change that but unfortunately, the character was a courtesy of a friend of one of the producers and so they refused to change the storyline. What amused him was that he had met some fans from Waterfall, who complimented him on the accent!
After Connor's talk, we vacated the room and re-entered it, thereby losing our wonderful third row seats. Confined to the middle of the room, I didn't take photos but resort to videos as Alan was too far away for me.
Alan Tudyk
I genuinely enjoyed listenning to Alan even if I didn't get all the jokes and stories - eg the dinosaurs! I think I've put up most of the avi's that I recorded.
What I did love about him was how warm and funny he was and how receptive he was to us. And what surprised me was also that I honestly didn't know that he'd been in quite a number of movies such as Dodgeball, A Knight's Tale, 3:10 to Yuma, I Robot and Death at a Funeral. He actually said that Russell Crowe had a habit of inviting people over to his place to watch tapes of his favourite football team (the Rabbitohs in Sydney) play and of course, he'd show them the matches where he team won! He told us other stories about donning a green latex suit to be the robot in I, Robot and just various stories about Nathan Fillion.
He mentioned that he's pretty good with accents - hence he'd been English in two movies. A guy asked him about Death at the Funeral (which I saw on Sunday and reckon it's fantastic!) and where he sought references to play someone on drugs. He told us an elaborate story about really working hard to look high and made comments about magic mushrooms in Amsterdam from years ago! A lady asked him if it really was his naked body and if he could prove it! Alan assured us that that really was his naked butt in the movie...
Since I don't read/participate much in the Firefly fandom, I don't know these but apparently Nathan is famous for playing on set pranks and off set pranks. Alan mentioned that there was a time when he used to smoke and Nathan hated it so every time he lent him a lighter, it'd have a mini-jolt of electricity to shock him when he used it. And there was also the time when he house-sat Nathan's place whilst Nathan was away and took care of the dog. Just as he was leaving, he picked up one of the pens to write a message and got another electric jolt. He said it was so like Nathan to do stuff like that to him all the time.
He also showed us a long clip that Nathan and him made when they were filming Jaynetown which never made it to the DVD for legal and other reasons. He asked us not to film it and so I didn't. It was quite funny and just had some a tour of the set, cast interviews, scenes of him goofing around in between takes and a very funny outburst from Adam Baldwin. Oh and at the end, the mighty Joss Whedon made an appearance. I guess if you're a Buffy and/or Angel and/or Firefly fan, you'd know who he was.
Alan also mentioned that DVD sales for Serenity were so good that they are going to release a special edition DVD of the movie. Not sure when though. He said that there are rumours of another movie and Joss had actually told him that if he made another movie, he'd been in it. He joked that he hoped that he'd return as a figment of Zoe's erotic dream. He also mentioned that had the series progressed, they would have possibly written in Zoe and Wash having a baby.
I think that the most common question he gets asked is if he knew he was going to die and how Joss told him. He seemed pretty good natured about it and said, "That's Josh. He kills people."
Alan's talk was so popular that they held another session at 5pm for him because quite a number of people could not attend the 2pm one (the room was full!). The next time we went to his talk at 5pm, I found out that Gold Pass ticket holders were entitled to be at the front of the queue (not necessarily better seats but there's a good chance that if you entered the room first, you'd get better seats). So for his second talk, I found myself sitting in the first row, right in front of the stage and getting a good view of Alan!
He wasn't an easy man to photograph as he moved around a lot even though he was sitting on the couch and he tended to look down or had droopy eyelids so that all the photos I took had him looking like his eyes were closed! Another thing that struck me about him was that he looks deceptively small and geeky in movies but he's really quite tall (6') and muscular. If you saw how his tee clung to his torso, you'd notice all the muscles!
After Alan's first panel, we headed downstairs for photos.
Until the photo session, I had no idea that the VIP pass allowed me priority without queuing to photos. Lochie, one of the volunteers at the expo was extremely helpful and understanding. I don't know how many other people had the same idea as me but I knew when I first saw Alan and Connor in the autograph line that I'd want to have a photo with them together! Admittedly, I came for Joe Flanigan but these two blond guys were so incredibly warm, funny and so handsome that I found them both incredibly attractive.
This is the final product (ok, the good photo. I left the other photo out...)
I think that the photo looks comical because we'd been posing for a few minutes and I sort of got bored of smiling!
You have no idea how many minutes passed while they had their arms around me. The lighting was bad and the photographer, Peter made us pose again and again as shot after shot was not good enough! I was so well cushioned between these two hunky blonds! OMG!
Connor and Alan actually asked me if I'd like them to pose differently and I stupidly said nothing. I was really dumb strucked by how wonderful they were and I shut my mouth because I was afraid to say something stupid... attractive men do that to me! It wasn't till later that I realised that I could have asked Connor to do his "Rawr" or command pose like
garneteve did! After the expo
We headed home after a long day and I unloaded all the photos onto
kirei_seimei's computer. All my memory cards were full with pics and vids of the days' event and I'd used up one camera battery! Thankfully I had a spare battery and kirei_seimei backed up my stuff onto a DVD. We had dinner in Lygon Street, in a lovely Italian restaurant. We then went to Borders and later, to a lovely Italian coffee/bakery place.Since I've been back from Europe, I had not seen so many lovely cakes and sweets! Even the foodcourt in David Jones in Sydney pales in comparison... but this quaint Italian place brought back memories of the basement of Forum des Halles in Paris. I grabbed a chai latte and a slice of cheese cake.
I prefered a B&W photo but I couldn't take the whole place - the cakes were certainly delicious and mouth-watering!
It was quite late at night (after 11) when we finally cabbed it home. But we still watched the latest SGA ep (4x03) which had me laughing at the weirdest moments. Then it was bed for all of us (around 1am) as word at the expo was to get there early on Sunday to get a good queue position for Flanigan.
Other links in my LJ
Joe and Connor pics
Joe and Alan expo vids
Vids of Alan's talk at the expo