• Ralph Macchio (“The Karate Kid”)
• Jerome Flynn (Bronn from “Game Of Thrones”)
• Miltos Yeromelou (Syrio Forel from "Game Of Thrones")
• Ross Mullan (Primary White Walker from "Game Of Thrones")
• Andrew Rothenberg (Jim from “The Walking Dead” and Malcolm from “True Blood”)
• Michael Koske (Various Zombies from "The Walking Dead")
• Alberto Rodriguez A.K.A. Alberto Del Rio (Wrestler)
• Solofa Fatu Jr. A.K.A. Rikishi (Wrestler)
• Brian Christopher A.K.A. Grandmaster Sexay (Wrestler)
• Scott Garland A.K.A. Scotty 2 Hotty (Wrestler)
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It’s now Monday afternoon on the 20th of October and I’m 24 hours removed from my time at “London Film And Comic Con (Winter)”. LFCCW was my second “LFCC” event of the year and my second time attending the smaller, more intimate ‘winter’ version of the franchise (I do intend to write up my notes from LFCC and LFCCW last year and put them on the blog soon too). If I were to pick one word to describe my time at LFCCW this year, it would be ‘relaxing’. I know, I know, I can hear all of you guys that attended the summer show and not the winter show screaming at your monitors, iPads, tablets, and mobile phones (damn there’s a lot of tech...) right now, demanding to know how a convention can ever be considered relaxing! It’s simple, really. The winter version of the show is much smaller than the summer version of the show. LFCC 2014 (the summer show (review of that event here)) was the biggest convention in the history of the UK from an attendance standpoint as far as I’m aware. The number of attendees for the summer event that I’ve seen thrown around is 100,000 (I have no idea if that number is accurate). I only attended the winter event on the Sunday, which is generally a quieter day for any convention than the Saturday, but I would be surprised if there were ever more than 3,000 people in the building at any one time.
I just read a comment from Showmasters on their forums that this year’s LFCCW was 25% more people and 40% more space used than last year’s event, which could help to explain why LFCCW felt eerily quiet. Last year’s event was in the Olympia, whereas this year’s was in Earls Court 2 (the same as the summer show), so it would be impossible for me to gage if 40% more space was used without getting out a tape measure and driving back to London. As dedicated as I am to you guys, I’m not hauling my ass back to London before “Hallowhedon” at the end of this month. I don’t want you guys to get the wrong idea and think that LFCCW was a ghost town because it wasn’t. However, there was room to move and breathe at this event, which there was not at the summer show. Sweet baby, Gandalf, I could flail my arms to my heart’s content and live happily in the knowledge that I’d rarely hit someone in the face. Obviously, from a purely selfish attendee standpoint, the fewer people at a convention, the better. The queues are smaller, there’s more room to move, more room to peruse the merchandise stalls, and the arena remains a cooler temperature. Outside of Ralph Macchio and Jerome Flynn, nobody’s queue seemed to be larger than 10 people at any one time. Many guests’ queues were rarely more than 2-3 people.
(Sunday's schedule)
This year’s LFCCW was also the smallest group of friends that have ever attended a convention with me, as it was just me and my friend Hayley driving down to London. We left our house promptly at 6am (read: 6:10am) and arrived in London by 8:20am. The drive down was rather painless for once. No traffic, no hassles, no horseshit...metaphorical horseshit, of course. Even though I’d done the clever thing and pre-bought my ticket, Hayley had not. Therefore, I joined her in the queue to buy a ticket on the day. We joined the queue at 8:30am and were about 20th in the queue!
We’d have been around queue position 1,324,121 at the summer show (I deny that there is any hyperbole there)! Due to being so close to the front of the queue, we were inside the arena by 9:05am. As I’ve attended many conventions by this point, I knew that the first thing to do was go and get virtual queuing tickets for Ralph Macchio and Jerome Flynn, as I knew they’d be popular guests. Virtual queuing tickets allow you to go off and do what you need to, then return at a later point. After grabbing these, it was off to the sales desk to buy my studio photo tickets for Jerome Flynn, Alberto Rodriquez, and the Too Cool group shot (Solofa Fatu, Brian Christopher, and Scotty Garland). £85 lighter and giddy with excitement (read: tired), I headed over to Jerome Flynn’s autograph area to meet the man behind Bronn from “Game Of Thrones”. Those of you that watch the show will know that Bronn is awesome. Outside of Tyrion, one could argue that Bronn has the greatest lines on the show. These nuggets of wisdom include...
• Bronn: “There’s no cure for being a cunt.”
• Armeca (in regards to Bronn’s broken nose): “Poor nose.”
Bronn: “Don’t feel sorry for him, he’ll be halfway up your arse before the night’s through.”
• Tyrion: “The Eyrie. They say it’s impregnable.”
Bronn: “Give me ten good men and some climbing spikes. I’ll impregnate the bitch.”
...Charming man, no?
Surprisingly, Jerome Flynn was the only guest that was in an enclosed autograph area on Sunday. Basically, the bigger guests are usually walled off so you can’t see them unless you’re getting an autograph from them. Ralph Macchio was out in the open slumming it with the regular folk, which took me a little off guard because he’s a big guest. Anywho, Jerome was awesome. Definitely worth the £20 it cost to get his autograph. His queue was rather large, so I didn’t get that much time with him (a minute or two perhaps), but it’s still more time than you get with the top tier of guests that Showmasters has offered historically such as Peter Dinklage or Stan Lee (I mentioned these two specifically because I met them personally). It makes sense that you don’t get much time with these bigger stars. They want to give as many people as possible the opportunity to meet them, as opposed to a large number of people going home empty handed. Jerome was all smiles. He extended his hand first (love it when they initiate things!), asked how I was doing, and we got talking about “Game Of Thrones”. I mentioned to him that I love his work as Bronn and he’s really helped bring the character to life. (DON’T READ THE NEXT TWO SENTENCES UNLESS YOU’VE FINISHED “GAME OF THRONES” SEASON FOUR) I told him that I was curious as to where the show was going to go with his character because Bronn is absent from the books after Tyrion leaves King’s Landing at the conclusion of “A Storm Of Swords”. Now that the show has reached this point, where will they go with Bronn? Obviously, they’re gonna keep Jerome around because he’s terrific, so the story they give him will be largely new. Jerome explained to me that he couldn’t tell me much because of contractual issues, but Bronn has a very interesting part to play over the next season and he’s just finished filming in Seville, Spain. This gives me a little theory about the role he’s going to play, as I know which other characters have been filming in Spain for the 5th season. I told Jerome I would see him later on for our photo shoot, we shook hands again, and I was on my merry way.
(There's almost 30 years between those photos)
I sense some kind of wizardry.
Ralph gave me a little card for a 25-minute short drama piece called "Across Grace Alley" that he wrote and directed personally. The website for the piece is located here and you can buy it for just $2.99. Here's the trailer for it...
I asked Ralph if embedding the trailer directly on to my blog was allowed. He said it was. I thanked Ralph for his time, we shook hands, and I left. Great, great experience.
By this time in the morning, it was about 10:15am, so I quickly ran to The Sword Stall’s merchandise table to collect my replica of Faith’s jackal knife from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” before my photo shoot with Jerome Flynn. Now, I’ve wanted a replica of Faith’s jackal knife for FIFTEEN years. No joke. I’m not blessed with the £400+ you need to buy one of the ones created for the show, so an exact replica is the best option available to me. I’ve been hounding The Sword Stall about it for at least two years. Sending them Facebook messages, talking to them at conventions, and generally being a polite pain in their ass. They finally relented, people! Thus proving once and for all that nagging works! In fact, nagging also got me a £10 discount, as I was the primary reason they created these replica knives in the first place. They spent £500 custom-making a dye and cast for the knife so that it would be an exact replica and then they made around 70, I believe. Look at the pretty!...
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By the time I finished chatting at The Sword Stall, it was time to head over to photo area C for my shot with Jerome Flynn. Compared to LFCC summer, this was painless. Gone were the stuffy, hot, humongous queues and in their place were the respectable 100-person queues. My photo session with Jerome ran like clockwork. As I was leaving, I told Jerome that I’d see him at Wales Comic Con Part II next month (review of Part I here), and he responded with “see you there, Shane!”...excuse me? You remembered my name?! This is such a rarity! Especially considering that Jerome’s queue had been busy all morning. What a wonderful chap! Elated, I exited the photo area, only to queue straight back up at photo area C for my photo with Ralph Macchio (I can’t type that name without thinking of the way Barney Stinson says it in “How I Met Your Mother”) that was scheduled to start at 11:10am. While waiting in queue for Ralph’s session to begin, I bumped into my friend David Bedwell, Showmasters’ resident social media guru. We talked about the event, wrestling, and the good ol’ days of conventions. It was a really pleasant 15 minutes to catch up and kill time before entering my Ralph shoot. As I got to the front of Ralph’s queue, the crew member that was next to Ralph whispered to me “there’s no handshakes, I’m afraid”. That’s cool with me, as I’ve already shaken his hand at the autograph table. Perhaps Ralph had started to feel sick or had just shaken hands with a particularly grimey-looking person (perhaps it was me?). It didn’t make a difference to the shoot either way, I just found it odd that he was shaking hands at the autograph table and didn’t in the photo session...adds to my “started to feel sick” theory, I suppose. Did any of you meet Ralph in the afternoon on Sunday? Was he offering handshakes at the autograph table then or during his second photo session?
(Apologies for the quality, it's a photo of a photo)
Now, I have a weird trait at conventions. That is that I despise looking at my photos until I get home. There is method to this madness, though. If I dislike one of my photos, it’ll throw me off my game for the rest of the day. I’ll turn into a petulant child and have a mental tantrum. Therefore, if I don’t look until I get home, I can’t have my day ruined by a photo. Of course, the downside to this is that if a photo came out badly (blinking, booger-in-nose, etc.), I’d be powerless to get another one. Luckily, this hasn’t happened yet, but I’m fairly certain I just jinxed myself. Have no fear, gentle readers. If the day ever comes that I get home to discover a turd of a photo, I’ll post it on the blog for your amusement.
Two photos down and two autographs down by 11:15am. There were just two things left to do that had a fixed timetable – my photo session with Alberto Rodriguez at 1:35pm and my group shot with Too Cool at 2:55pm. That gave me about three hours of free time to get any last autographs I wanted, sit in on a couple of talks, and check out the rest of the merchandise tables. Speaking of merchandise, my friend Hayley bought the following at LFCCW...2x Norman Reedus mugs, 1x Norman Reedus A3-poster, and a 10-inch Norman Reedus action figure. Sensing a theme? Myself and Hayley decided to check out “The Walking Dead” talk on Stage 1 involving Andrew Rothenberg and Michael Koske (who plays various zombies throughout the show). Highlights from that talk include :-
• I was surprised to find that the seats in the audience were only about a third full for this talk.
• Andrew said that if the zombie apocalypse ever comes, he’ll be out fighting with guns, not sitting under a tree waiting to die like Jim was at the end of his character journey.
• Andrew still watches the show and is clearly a big fan from the way he talks about it. He didn’t know any of the cast before joining the show, but he mentioned that he’s still in contact with many of the cast and singled out Jeff DeMunn (Dale) as someone that he still hangs out with on a regular basis.
• Michael told us that when the show first started, the zombie actors had to go to “Zombie School” to learn how to move and act like a zombie. He also mentioned that Zombie School acted as a way to separate the great zombie actors from the good. Zombies on the show are split into three categories :- hero zombies (the ones at the forefront of the action), mid-ground zombies, and background zombies. Luckily, Michael has been a ‘hero zombie’ every time he’s appeared on the show thus far and has developed a reputation of being a great zombie actor. So much so that most of the roles he’s offered these days are for zombie-type shows and films.
• When filming the scenes where Shane and Otis are in the abandoned school on a supply run, the actors would eat with the actors and the zombies would eat with the zombies. It was like little human vs. non-human cliques.
• Andrew is a fan of 80’s horror movies because they took place at a time before CGI and special effects became too good. The writers and directors had to rely on techniques where the audience used their imaginations more, which is way more frightening than special effects could ever be. Ironically, Michael wasn’t a fan of horror movies before starting his work on “The Walking Dead”.
• Michael likes the fact that the show has started to go down its own path as time has gone on, rather than try to religiously stick to the graphic novels, as television is a much different way of storytelling than graphic novels. The TV show still hits the key points of the graphic novels, but outside of that it finds its own way.
• Michael joked that it’s ironic that the prosthetics and makeup that’s used makes you look and smell great. The makeup is all good for the skin, so he always leaves the show looking and feeling better than when he went in.
• Andrew talked about what the filming process was like on “True Blood”. During a scene, he would be talking and the director would yell “cut!” so they could put his vampire teeth in when he was supposed to vamp-out, and they’d put a dot on his forehead so the CGI team had a marker to successfully turn his face vampiric in the editing room.
• Michael told us that it’s actually barbecued meat that’s used on “The Walking Dead” to represent human flesh. However, when a zombie is eating something stringy like intestines, it’s actually barbecued meat wrapped in condoms. Eww.
• Andrew originally auditioned for Jim, but the network also wanted him to read for Daryl Dixon too, so he did. The role of Jim was given to another actor by The Walking Dead’s casting agents, but for whatever reason AMC didn’t approve of the actor. Therefore, the role eventually went to Andrew.
• Andrew just auditioned for “Gotham” before coming out to England for the convention. He wasn’t allowed to say what role he was auditioning for, but I hope to see him on the show soon.
• Somebody asked the guys what English show they would like to be a part of if they could be. This question was particularly funny as Michael was wearing a T.A.R.D.I.S. hoody and has a “Doctor Who” tattoo...can you guess what his answer was? He also mentioned “Game Of Thrones”, even though that’s not technically English, it’s just primarily filmed in Ireland and has a lot of English actors. Andrew chose “Doctor Who” and “Sherlock”, but also said that “Game Of Thrones” would be cool too.
• Finally, someone asked who would win in a fight, Rick or Daryl. Michael emphatically chose Rick. He said that Rick is badass and has literally torn a man’s throat out with his teeth, whereas Daryl’s an emotional pussy (I believe that was his wording. It was certainly close to that if not exact). Please bear in mind that he said this in a jokey way, Daryl lovers! Andrew defended Daryl (before also choosing Rick) and quipped that he was going to tell Norman, and Michael begged him not to because “Norman’s already pissed at me because I haven’t seen ‘Boondock Saints’ yet!”
• Both guys presented themselves well in this talk. Andrew's more straight-laced style of Q&A beautifully blended with Michael's more exciteable, enthusiastic one. Coming into the event, I knew very little about Michael Koske. After watching him talk for 30 minutes, I found myself leaving as a big fan of his!
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(Some of Michael's work on the show)
After “The Walking Dead” talk drew to a close, myself and Hayley moved forward a few rows, ready for the “Game Of Thrones” talk to start. For this talk, we were in the centre of row 4. Originally, the panel was scheduled to be Miltos Yeromelou (Syrio Forel) and Ross Mullan (The primary White Walker since the season two finale, “Valar Morghulis”, and also The Teller in Doctor Who’s “Time Heist” and Silent in “The Time Of The Doctor”). However, as an unannounced bonus, Jerome Flynn was also added to the panel. Highlights include :-
• When Ross first auditioned for “Game Of Thrones”, he hadn’t read the books or seen the television show. He entered the audition and said, “hello, I’m here for ‘King Of Thrones’”. They quickly corrected him that it was “Game Of Thrones” and he asked them if it was a game. Oops.
• Jerome was largely retired from acting and was living in Pembrokeshire before getting the part of Bronn on “Game Of Thrones”. When he was first connected to the part, he was sceptical because he thought it was going to be “a pile of American crap”, but quickly after arriving on set and reading the scripts, he realised that it was something special.
• Ironically, Ross’ scenes all take place on screen north of the wall in the snow and ice, yet the recording of his scenes all took place in a studio with a green screen, where he was stiflingly hot.
• Ross learned how to ride a horse for the show. The show paid for him to have five months of horse-riding training, where he also learned how to ride bareback (no saddle). The phrase “bareback” was used for a couple of other more crude jokes later in the panel, which was comedy gold.
• One of Miltos’ favourite times on set was getting to “beat up five Hungarian stunt actors” for a day and a half. There was this one particular move that kept going awry and every time Miltos performed it, he’d somehow headbutt one of the stunt men in the testicles.
• When Bronn fights Ser Vargis Egen at The Eyrie in the first season of the show, Jerome actually ended up falling into the moon door on one occasion!
• Someone asked the question of which character they’d like to play other than their own. Jerome said he’d like to “hang with Daenerys”, but Arya is the character he finds himself rooting for the most. He also mentioned that he recently met Emilia Clarke (Daenerys) for the first time a couple of days previously at a party. Ross said that he’d like to be the “Queen of Dragons”, Daenerys, while Miltos said that he’s always been Team Arya. There seems to be a lot of Arya love from the cast of the show.
• Miltos actually has a posh English accent. The accent he uses for Syrio Forel is an exaggerated version of his father’s accent.
• The White Walker makeup takes 5 hours of sitting in the chair to complete.
• Miltos was an experienced stage swordfighter before landing the role of Syrio on “Game Of Thrones”, which greatly helped him win the part.
• Ross talked about recently working on “Doctor Who” as The Teller in “Time Heist”. He said he was blown away by how professionally and efficiently the show was run and that Peter Capaldi is a wonderful, caring, warm, terrific man.
• Someone asked Jerome how he prepared for the romance scenes at the brothel in “Game Of Thrones”. A sly smirk crept across his face before he answered “romance at the brothel? I didn’t know those two words went together”. He said that a few times he had to ‘breathe deeply’ on set because the girls were both gorgeous and naked. His voice went a few octaves higher as he desperately asked (jokingly) to change the question.
• Ross was born in Canada. He came to England on holiday in 1991 and never left.
• Someone brought up Robson and Jerome and asked how that musical sensation came about. Jerome mentioned that it started with a performance of “Unchained Melody” on “Soldier Soldier”. Soon after that, Simon Cowell called them and offered them a music deal. Apparently, Robson was on the phone to Simon Cowell and was politely refusing the offer until Simon mentioned the monetary figure. Robson did a double-take and said “how much?!”, before they quickly agreed to the deal. Jerome’s telling of that story was great.
• I’m just going to leave a special bullet-point to mention how awesome Miltos is. I met him last year at “Cardiff Film And Comic Con” and he’s an absolute gent! Very funny, very articulate, very charismatic guy and definitely worth meeting if he’s attending a convention you’re going to. Plus, he’s one of only three actors who’s ever offered a photo at the autograph table without me having to ask. We took a normal photo, a judgmental photo, and a wacky photo. Great guy!
The “Game Of Thrones” talk finished at 12:30pm, which left me with an hour to kill before my next photo. Myself and Hayley used this time to check out all of the merchandise stalls at LFCCW. During this time, between various Norman Reedus merchandise for Hayley, I bought myself a gorgeous “Firefly” art print...
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I leisurely moseyed on over to photo area B for my shot with Alberto Rodriguez. Two-time WWE Champion, two-time World Heavyweight Champion, Money In The Bank winner, Royal Rumble winner, former mixed martial artist, and wrestling legend. Much like the photos in area C earlier in the day, the crew at photo area B were on top of their game. Granted, this might have been because there were about 35 people in the queue, but they still did a good job. Alberto came across as equal parts respectful and nonchalant. He casually stood with one hand in his pocket throughout the photo shoot and offered some words of thanks after the photo was taken. A little later in the afternoon, I was contemplating getting Alberto’s autograph, but he was sat at his table with big headphones on, watching something on his iPad, so I thought I may as well leave him to it.
With one hour left before my final photo session of the day, I decided to go and meet Andrew Rothenberg and get his autograph. Andrew was a highly chatty man. One could argue that he was trying to talk for as long as possible because he was a little bored due to a lack of queue for some of the day. Either way, he was great...if not a little dejected looking. We talked about his time on “The Walking Dead” and how Jim brought a humanising element to the show at the beginning. It was realistic that someone would snap. I asked him outside of Jeff DeMunn, who else is he still in contact with. In short, it was basically everyone. We swapped stories about Norman Reedus, Andrew Lincoln, Sarah Wayne Callies, Jon Bernthal, and Jeff DeMunn, and what it was like working with those guys. I filled him in on some of my experiences with meeting Norman, Sarah, and Jon last year, and told him that Norman brought the crossbow with him to LFCC ‘13. Andrew joked that he wanted to sign Hayley’s A3-poster of Norman Reedus and I asked if it was because he defended him in the talk earlier in the day. I grabbed a picture with Andrew at the autograph table too, which was cool. I headed over to the cosplay area to talk to my friend Becca and her friend Esti (A.K.A. Chiquitita). They filled me in on some of the more hilarious stories of Saturday, where they interviewed some of the wrestlers. Sadly, I cannot put these stories in my review, as it might get some people into trouble.
By this point in the day, we needed a seat. We chilled out on the floor next to photo area B before my Too Cool group shot at 2:55pm. The group shot was awesome. Solofa, Brian, and Scotty all bounced off of each other stupendously well. High energy, high excitement, lots of fun! Brian even joked that I’d dressed up for the occasion to meet Too Cool because I was wearing a suit and tie (brutha’s gotta look good, right fellas?...I’m sickened by that spelling of “a brother has”). It’s clear that Solofa is the leader of the group as much in real life as he was in the fictional world of the WWE storylines. He was the guy arranging the poses for the photos and calling the next person over. Getting to meet all three of the stable together was a truly special experience. Usually, you’d get one or even two, but getting all three of a group together is rare. After collecting my Too Cool photo (which is printed instantly after it’s taken), we headed back to the car park and started the three-hour drive back home.
(For some reason a photo of a photo makes me look insanely pale...)
To conclude, LFCCW wasn’t going to set the world on fire. The guest line-up was so-so and the amount of attendees seemed small. Yet, with that being said, it turned out to be a decent convention. Everyone I met ranged from ‘good’ guest to ‘terrific’ guest, without a dud in sight. The event was calm, quiet, and relaxing, the staff were awesome, the stalls were as good as they usually are, and I left Earls Court 2 feeling elated and positive...if not a little tired. Would I go to LFCCW again? Yes. I’ve been the past two years and will almost definitely go again in 2015. If you went to the summer LFCC and were put off by the humongous queues and crowds, LFCCW might just be for you instead. It’s basically LFCC-light. The same format, the same convention, only smaller.
If you were at LFCCW, please let me know your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below. If you weren’t there, comment anyway! Who’ve you met? What experiences have you had? Have you been to a convention before? Let me hear it.
FINAL SCORE: 6.5/10
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