Starfury - The Chosen convention report: February 3nd 2008, Sunday - Last Panel with Elisabeth, Keith & Vincent:
I It’s been quite a while that the con took place, but it still hurts to type, so I avoided as long as I could... but thank god there are such things as dairies, so here we go:
There were a couple of changes and delays on that day and not only we, but the actors also seemed to be a bit confused too: Vincent didn’t show up in Keith play as expected, but Sean Harry announced, that he will appear soon, so the last panel started without him. For some reason, Juliet mixed up her schedule too, because she left right after the play finished but was supposed to stay for this last panel. So there was only Keith and Elisabeth on stage at first, but Vincent arrived a few minutes later and joined them:

Starfury - The Chosen convention report: February 3nd 2008, Sunday - Keith Play:
I didn't do much during the morning, basically I was hanging out with Do and Mary - sometimes in the main hall, sometimes on the stairs. Besides to get to know each other better, nothing spectacular happened until Keith's play startet - and it was really funny.
He wrote it himself and it was about a guy (Jonathan), hopelessly in love with the mysterious Turandot (Juliet), who wakes up dead and tries to find out, what happens to him. He obviously was one the fools who tried to solve her riddles and failed, which didn't stop his love for her, very much to the annoying of his dead companion (Neil), who fails to talk some sense into him.

Originally Vincent supposed to be in the play but he never showed up but kept Keith's script with him, so that he was replaced by Jonathan. I must say, I did not like Jonathan as a person, but I was impressed by the performance he gave on stage. He was simply gorges as the hysterical "fool for love" and Neil was pretty good as his unintended companion, who became more and more impatient by Jonathan's mental blindness. A running gag besides Jonathan's yelling was, that he pronounced Turandot's name wrong as "Turandoh" and was constantly corrected by a more and more unnerved Neil: "...DOT!!!" :-) Juliet was as great as always, playing her Turandot quite delusional and Keith' seemed to be very pleased by his actors performances and laughed happily quite often :-)



Diesmal ist meine Ausrede, die Einträge nicht zweisprachig zu halten, daß ich noch krank geschrieben bin und nur mit einer Hand tippen kann :-)

Starfury - The Chosen convention report: February, 2nd 2008 - Party with Vincent:
We had a great time at the party. It started with the inevitable British con dance, but it got better later. Vincent came to our table, ask us if we’re up for a dance later and I replied “definitely” and so he had another chat with us, but it was actually harder to talk, because the music was very loud and we could barely hear each other, even when we put or heads close together. I remember him saying during a music break “Now lets talk, fast, fast!” and smiling and of course we were all laughing instead of talking and then the music came back and it was as hard as before ☺ So again, I’ll mostly stick to my questions, because Do already talked about her experiences and I basically couldn’t hear what Mary was saying and when Vincent answered her, I could only get parts of it.

• Con dancing: he thought that it wasn’t a really individual thing to do and he started to philosophize if he’s allowed to criticise and to call it weird or if that might be some sort of insult ;-) He finally decided that it would be OK to do so ☺ He mentioned that they only do it in the states with country music, what I already knew.

• Mad Men: he became again very passionate about it. He regretted that the ratings were not that good because the show is too intelligent, and people prefer to watch things like “Big Brother”. I asked him if he doesn’t think that the ratings will enhance now with the winning of the Golden Globe but he doesn’t seem to be so sure about it. I asked him, if it really is that bad, that the show had a rather small audience, because I know a couple of scifi shows, which always ever had a small, but steady audience and made it through quite some seasons. He disagreed with me because Lionsgate is a small company and they can’t afford that. The might broke easy, and when that happens… Mary asked a couple of questions regarding Mad Men too, but she sat the farthest away from me and the only one I could understand was about episode 4 “New Amsterdam”, which is the one he plans to use for the Emmy nomination. Later Vincent became passionate again about almost everyone who works at the show, including John Hamm, and I said, that I don’t like the character he's playing so much. He answered, that JH’s character is the “womanizer” at the show but I replied: “Doesn’t work for me” and the 2 other girls made sure, that Pete is the one ;-) It’s funny, I get along very well with almost every male or female character on the show except JH’s ☺ Man like him just push me away.

• Vincent's last name: I asked him about the correct pronouncing of his last name, because we actually had a discussion about that a while ago in Germany and he said his name in a German and in the American Way – and of course, right now, I don’t remember which was which, so I’m basically as smart as I was before that question ☺. He claimed to have some ancestors form Poland and Germany and the name was from there. I asked if he ever was in my country and he answered yes, but spared me the “beautiful country” part which usually follows then and which always sound silly to me. (Not that I don’t like my country, but for me it simply doesn’t sound honest if you ask someone if they ever were there and the always be like “ best country if the world” sort-of-thing. Not everything is shiny here and I prefer people who don’t pretend and do not throw empty phrases at me)

• Connor/Angel: He didn’t seem to like Angel, he didn’t feel welcome there and thought that Connor was badly written. He used a phrased which I wasn’t familiar with and this time I didn’t even had to ask what it means, he just get it from my face and started “translating”. I mean, this was something special with him: He was really sensitive about that not-being-native-English-issue and took care that you could understand him and I appreciated that more than I can say. I have had enough conversations in my life with English natives and especially with some male Brits at Starfury, were I had over and over again to ask what they mean, if they can’t speak a little slower and it tired me finally so much, so that I basically stopped talking at the last day (besides to my 2 girls). I run in actors at cons before who took care of a foreign audience, but so far Vincent is one of 3 actors who go that far with it (in case you care: the other were Robert Duncan McNeill & Garrett Wang, both from Star Trek Voyager).
  

• Convention: Having his reluctance about Angel in mind I asked him about conventions in general and he replied that it’s his 5th con (to my knowledge it's his 6th) and he likes it more now than at the beginning and small ones more than the big ones. He argued that with a bigger crowd things went out of control faster, someone does/says something stupid and others follow: “Men become more hostile, Women more aggressive”. He seemed to like it here, but he suspected that this might be his last convention, because Mad Men have quite a different Audience anyway (no con goers) and there are no conventions in the US. That’s actually not true and I sort of argued about that with him, but I think it was a misunderstanding: There are still cons in US (I’m right), but these are scifi or Star Trek related (so no cons for him, so he was right too ;-))
  

• Superior: Anyway, with all the Awards and therefore parties for the Mad Men cast took place the last weeks and the start of the shooting the 2nd season in 2 weeks, we could be happy that we had him here. He answered, that this con was a sidekick, because he was in London already and I wondered, but didn’t asked, if he was there because of the play he choose not to do. ( See my report from the Meet & Greet ). He didn’t liked London that much and considered the people arrogant, but he loves New York, were everybody seems to be friendly and I remember Do saying, that this has maybe to do with the European arrogance because of our history. Vincent made a very passionate statement afterwards, that to his conviction nobody should be superior to another human being, no matter were they are from, but he came back to a lighter mood and told us with a smile, that because of the great things which are going on with Mad Men right now, he actually just feel a little superior and I responded in the same mood, that I’m used to Americans feeling superior.

• Joss Whedons Blog / Writers Strike: I told him that JW wrote a while ago that the writers don’t get paid when stuff is released over the Internet (and I had things in my mind like additional scenes they shot for BSG, which take place between the seasons) and that I wasn’t sure, if I had understand it right. Vincent corrected me that the strike was about the whole “New media” area which includes DVDs. And I realized that for example AMC released the Mad Men episodes via I-tunes, so in that case they won’t get paid too.

• Pics for the Autograph session: I asked Vincent why he didn't bring any additional pics for the Autograph session. I regret that there were only some old Connor pics and nothing new, no stills, nothing from Mad Men. He said, that he don't have any which actually surprised me, because on every other con I ever attend the actors bring pics by themselves to make additional money.
  

• Literature: He had quite a long discussion with Do starting with Russian Literature and ending with a couple of authors, titles and contents of favoured books. He’s reading Proust right now, and as Mary didn’t knew about him, he explained it to her.

Vincent left later, but came back and took us to the dance floor. We started dancing and he told me that he liked my moves and the way I dance. He definitely knows what to say to a woman ;-) During the party Vincent came back to join us a couple of times, but in between we 3 girls had quite same fun with each other, especially when Do tried to make some pics of us during dancing. The light was too dark, but that didn’t stopped us from trying and to pose like silly ;-) Unfortunately the pics are pretty blurred, nevertheless it was fun doing them. When Vincent saw us taking the pics, he came over and stood between Mary and me (obviously he hadn’t heard about the con rule not to take pics with the actors at the party ☺) but this one ended as blurry as the other ones, especially when he basically run into Do and made a funny face at her while she was trying to get a shot ☺. Unfortunately I promised Do to join her for the Rocky Horror Dance and of course she forced me to keep my word. But I survived and we continued dancing, but I really didn’t like the music so much and when Vincent danced with me the next time I told him so. He didn’t liked it either, but “They won’t change it”, he was sure. But to my con experience, when an actor requests for different music he has a better chance to succeed than a paying guest and so he left and tried but came back claiming being not successful. But with next song the music suddenly changed and he beamed – so much for failing ☺. I don’t remember much more until the end of the party, when I told him, that they will now play the last song and he again danced with us. Afterwards he hugged and kissed me “Good Bye” and did the same to Do and to Mary and then for some reason came back to me and did it again, which probably let him win the Award for the man with the shortest memory at this con ☺))

The rest of this report will be for my Starfury Friends only, the reason is basically that I uploaded some pics here without having explicit permission, but they just belong to this night :-)
So please continue:

-> Our talk with Vincent / Con Party / Privat Pics / Sunday morning <-

Diesmal ist meine Ausrede, die Einträge nicht zweisprachig zu halten die Tatsache, dass ich derzeit ohne Internetanschluß bin :-)

Starfury - The Chosen convention report: Feruary, 2nd 2008 - Pics from the Panels, Documentary movie from Juliet Landau :

I was never really a part of the Angel or Buffy Fandom, but even I heard about her tremendous con reputation and you could see at Starfury clearly why.


Have to go to bed now :-)

Aus Zeitgründen ist es mir im Moment nicht möglich, meine Einträge 2-sprachig zu halten; nach der Berlinale wieder :-)

Starfury - The Chosen convention report:  February, 2nd 2008 - Pics from the Panels  Vincent & Keith :
As I said before, they mostly made fun of each other, but there were couple of questions asked nevertheless. Of course some old Angel related questions popped up and Vincent and Keith talked about the writers strike, but they said basically the same I already told you in my post before. I asked Vincent about Killing Zelda Sparks, and he answered, that it would be probably never released, because it wasn't any good. They were first time filmmakers, didn't know, how to do what, his wig was bad... well he seemed not to be very satisfied with the result :-) Besides that I wanted to know about Sweet Justice, because it's in some official press kits from his movies, but it isn't listed at IMDB. He said, he was actually in an episode, when he was like 13, but he didn't give away the episodes name, just someone who was on it with him, but I didn't understand the name.

As 2 days ago, I uploaded 8 pics with Vincent  and 1 with Keith to my German Fanpage and embedded them here in JL. As before, the size is between 300 and 700 kB, because the light was bad and some of them can only be watched very much downsized. I hope you enjoy them anyway :-)



Have to watch my next Berlinale movie now :-)

Aus Zeitgründen ist es mir im Moment nicht möglich, meine Einträge 2-sprachig zu halten; nach der Berlinale wieder :-)

Starfury - The Chosen convention report: February, 2nd 2008 - Pictures from the Panels

Elisabeth & Jonathan : I actually don't remember much from this panel, there weren't many questions asked. Funny was when Elisabeth joked she likes to be in a porne. That sort of followed her the whole weekend. She is pregnant right now and when she's been asked about further plans, she answered, she's "producing" a baby :-) Concerning her last show, she suspected her character to be gay and is of course fine with it. Although she thought it was funny, that the question popped up over again. If she could appear in the Angel Comic comics, she likes to be more at the dark side, like becoming a vampire.




Vincent & Keith : They mostly made fun of each other, so it was actually hard to place a question, because it felt like to interrupt them. I'm gonna talk about it tomorrow, because there are actually some things to say; right now I just want to post the next 10 pics with Vincent. As the one with Elisabeth, the size is between 300 and 700 kB, because the light was bad and some of them can only be watched very much downsized. I hope you enjoy them anyway :-)



Aus Zeitgründen ist es mir im Moment nicht möglich, meine Einträge 2-sprachig zu halten; nach der Berlinale wieder :-)
 

I'm still sick, last night I throwed up, so I couldn't post, but I've got better today and was capable of buying  Berlinale tickets for Saturday.

Starfury - The Chosen convention report: February, 1rst 2008 - Meet & Greet:
I was never at a Meet & Greet before, because it's something you cannot do when you have 2000-3000 guests. So I enjoyed it, the actors came to the table and talked for a while. I missed the first one, Keith, because I went to the Bar to get something to drink. George came after him and he was really funny and likable. He talked a bit about the Buffy comics he was involved and wanted to know, if we prefer the Angel or Buffy comics. I couldn't help myself but to tease him  a bit and answered: "Firefly" and he gave me a look and said: "I almost liked you." :-) John was next, he was annoying, already drunk and full of himself and I was happy that he left soon.

Vincent came next and that gave me the opportunity to ask a couple of questions. In this post I'll stick mostly to mine, because I remember them better and I guess, dresden_doll_01  and aldo_77  gonna post their stuff themselves. I don't try to keep this in the right order, I think it will be easier for you guys to follow, when I'll sort them into topics, ok?

• Livejournal: He asked us,  where we were from and after that if we know each other before, so we told him, that we found us via LJ. He said that a friend of him found kartheiser_grls and aldo_77s site. He wanted to know our LJ names again and when he asks, if we like LJ, I said, that it gives you the chance to be pretty precise about your interests (the tag system I miss so much on MySpace) and therefore it's easy to find people who go for the same stuff

• Mad Men:
  
• I think he was pretty excited that we all new the show and watched it via Internet, only aldo_77 saw the first 4 eps on Swedish TV, I think.
  
• Vincent told us, that the shooting of the 2nd season starts in 3 weeks  and was happy about the Golden Globes. But he's hoping to get an Emmy for himself or getting at least nominated for it and put himself into it.
  
• He didn't know much how the story will proceed, but the next season should be set up 2 years later ( and then 4 years later), Pete will have a child and maybe a different boss. He normally finds out about things like 5 days before shooting, which is quite normal for TV shows to my knowledge.
  
• I told him, that I find the storyline with the pregnant Peggy implausible, because she went for doctor at the beginning of the 1rst season and he said, that they had have sex to soon and her prevention might had needed like 30 days. before she should go for it (I remembered later, that my parents went pregnant too, although they had taken prevention, well,  it was the 60s, right?)
• He worked with Elisabeth Moss (Peggy) like 10 years  before on workshops  for directors and writers in Sundance.
• I think it was dresden_doll_01 who asked how much of Pete is a part of him, and he said ( as he usual does at cons before), that he is a nice guy, but added, that Pete comes easy to him. I asked him if Pete stays  a "gray  shaded  character"  ( that is a literal translation from German and he didn't get it when i asked it first:  it means someone who has as much good as bad sides)  and he agreed and hoped so.
  
• We all agree that Vincent plays a perfect pycho :-)
• He said that Mad Men is the best thing that happened to him and I asked, if that's not always the case, when someone work in a project and is happy there. I knew actors who say that always and even mean it at this particular moment, but he disagreed and reminded me, that he didn't liked Connor and mentioned it before. He thinks that he was to weak ( he actually used a different phrase, but I don't remember it ) and that he was badly written.
• He thinks that the writers strikes give AMC a good chance to grab some really good writes, because so far only UA, Lionsgate and the Weinstein Brothers made deals with them.
  
• I wanted to know if the next season will have only 13  episodes again, and he agreed. Because I heard that from some scifi actors before, I asked, if that means they'll have more time to shoot one episode. But that's unfortunately not true, because AMC is to small, so they have not much money and have to shoot actually faster (only 7 days per episode), only 2 instead of 4 cameras like Angel had, a.s.f.
• We talked again about the quality of the show and he became very excited about it: he thinks, that there is still a lot of chauvinism out there, it's just much beneath the surface than it was in the 60s, so the show is not only a show about the 60s, but - and here I filled in - about today.

• New Movies or Plays: Unfortunately there are no new movies in sight, he auditioned for a couple of shows as a supporting actor instead. I like his independent movies very much, basically  I'm  following his career because of that and I asked about his theater plans. He said, that he checked a play in London and didn't liked it and if he gets payed bad, he wanted at least to like the play. We talk about the low payment you receive on theater in the States, very unlike than in Germany. he made a joke about getting a play in Germany if there wasn't the German language.

• Style: I think it was dresden_doll_01 who asked him about a style manager and he answered that they only kill individuality.
  

• Angel: Vincent wanted to know if we knew him from Angel, but I saw him first in "The Unsaid" and dresden_doll_01 even before that.

Remember when I told you about the singing at the opening? I didn't bring my camera, but dresden_doll_01 did and allowed me to show this pics here :-)



So that's how Vincent looked at the first night - very "Mad Men"ish, don't you think :-)) Suits him.

That'll be all for now,  I'm afraid I have to throw up again :-( Or maybe I should eat something? Just not quite sure right now...
I'll continue posting  during the next couple of days and I still have a couple of nice pics to share :-)

Aus Zeitgründen ist es mir im Moment nicht möglich, meine Einträge 2-sprachig zu halten; nach der Berlinale wieder :-) 

Starfury - The Chosen convention report: February, 1rst 2008 - Arrival:
The way to Bristol was a nightmare: My bag broke directly after the 2nd security check. The flight was 2 hours late and I had less than 20 minutes to find my way in Heathrow to get the bus. I made it in 11 minutes, but of course ended up in the wrong bus station. Someone explained the way the the central station and I finally ended up in the right place. At the hotel I studied the paper I received when I checked-in at the Starfury registration desk, they had less in common with FedCon than I expected, so I had to ask them a couple of questions to make sure, I understand the rules :-)

I arrived in the Main Hall a while before the actual Opening started and I looked around and took my time, because I hoped aldo_77 would recognize me. And I was lucky, she and dresden_doll_01 saw me an d we talked until the ceremony began. It was a short one, basically all the actors were introduced by Neil Roberts, who acted as a chairman a couple of times during the convention, although he was a regular guest. It was nice and funny, especially when the actors had to sing Mandy. Vincent went with his mic from one actor/actress to the next, and "forced" them to sing :-)

After that the Meet & Greet starts, but I have to talk about that tomorrow, because it's late and I have to get up early: I'm already in Berlin for the Berlinale Film Festival and I have to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning to buy my tickets for the first day.

I don't have any pics from the Opening Ceremony, therefore I'll post here 3 from Vincent's first panel. Unfortunaly the light was the worst I ever experienced at a convention, so they are not brilliant. Ejoy anyway :-)


Aus Zeitgründen ist es mir im Moment nicht möglich, meine Einträge 2-sprachig zu halten; nach der Berlinale wieder :-)




I'll post more during the next days and I have a couple of nice pics to share :-)