• James Marsters
• Emma Caulfield
• Jeff Ricketts
• Jonathan Woodward
• George Hertzberg
• Dayne Johnson
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1) If this is your first time on "Shangel's Reviews", I'm currently reviewing every single episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" in depth. A list of all the reviews I've written so far can be located here.
1) If this is your first time on "Shangel's Reviews", I'm currently reviewing every single episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" in depth. A list of all the reviews I've written so far can be located here.
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With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?
I’m back,
ladies and gentlemen! Fresh from three days of fun, fantasy, fangs, and
fangasms! Now, I’m going to be honest with you, I think I slept about 4 hours
in three nights combined over the weekend of “Vampire Ball 5”, and even now on
Tuesday morning, my brain is still a little fuzzy. But, I need to start getting
all this awesomeness down on paper, lest
I forget some of this deliciousness. For those of you that are sat there
right now wondering what the fiddlesticks (for the kiddies) I’m going on about,
allow me to explain...
“Vampire Ball” is an annual event ran by Starfury Conventions. The theme of the convention guests is, you guessed it, vampire shows...excluding Twishite...sorry, typo, Twilight. We’ve been treated to actors from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, “True Blood”, “Lost Girl”, and more in the past. As my long time readers will remember, I attended last year’s “Vampire Ball” and reviewed the event here (Christian Kane is a God!). At this year’s event, I took great satisfaction in six of you coming up to me and telling me that you bought your ticket for this year’s “Vampire Ball” because of my review and my recommendation at the end of that review. While last year’s “Vampire Ball” took place in the Thistle Hotel, Heathrow, London, this year’s event was in the Hilton Hotel in Birmingham. The Hilton holds a special place in my heart because it was the venue for last year’s “Hallowhedon 5” event (reviewed here), where I met Jeff Ricketts (who is now my client), Brad Bell (who I’ve stayed in contact with), Alexis Denisof, Tom Lenk, Jane Espenson, K. Todd Freeman, and Sarah Hagan (great dancer!). I know that a lot of people had problems with the Hilton last year (caught cleaners stealing money, a disabled friend of mine was left to fend for herself when the fire alarm went off...), but I absolutely adore the place. It’s gorgeous, spacious, and just screams excitement to me. I was particularly jubilant for “Vampire Ball 5” because the line-up of guests was so phenomenal. Seriously, when was the last time the UK had a weekend convention like this that was headlined by two main cast members of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”/“Angel”? Five years ago?
“Vampire Ball” is an annual event ran by Starfury Conventions. The theme of the convention guests is, you guessed it, vampire shows...excluding Twishite...sorry, typo, Twilight. We’ve been treated to actors from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, “True Blood”, “Lost Girl”, and more in the past. As my long time readers will remember, I attended last year’s “Vampire Ball” and reviewed the event here (Christian Kane is a God!). At this year’s event, I took great satisfaction in six of you coming up to me and telling me that you bought your ticket for this year’s “Vampire Ball” because of my review and my recommendation at the end of that review. While last year’s “Vampire Ball” took place in the Thistle Hotel, Heathrow, London, this year’s event was in the Hilton Hotel in Birmingham. The Hilton holds a special place in my heart because it was the venue for last year’s “Hallowhedon 5” event (reviewed here), where I met Jeff Ricketts (who is now my client), Brad Bell (who I’ve stayed in contact with), Alexis Denisof, Tom Lenk, Jane Espenson, K. Todd Freeman, and Sarah Hagan (great dancer!). I know that a lot of people had problems with the Hilton last year (caught cleaners stealing money, a disabled friend of mine was left to fend for herself when the fire alarm went off...), but I absolutely adore the place. It’s gorgeous, spacious, and just screams excitement to me. I was particularly jubilant for “Vampire Ball 5” because the line-up of guests was so phenomenal. Seriously, when was the last time the UK had a weekend convention like this that was headlined by two main cast members of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”/“Angel”? Five years ago?
This year’s
event was headlined by the one and only James Marsters. If you don’t know who
James Marsters is, please leave this blog at the next available exit. James is
known for playing the iconic vampire Spike from both “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”
and “Angel”. As headliners go, that’s a
huge name, yet, Sean Harry had another trick up his sleeve. That trick came
in the form of Emma Caulfield, who played the hilarious Anya from “Buffy The
Vampire Slayer”. Now, Emma hasn’t been over to the UK for a convention in
nearly a decade, so she could have been the sole headliner in her own right.
Count it, people! That’s TWO bonafide
headliners. That’s TWO main cast
members. When you compare this to the line-up for next month’s “Hallowhedon 6”,
with no headliners announced from any Joss Whedon show thus far, you can see
why “Vampire Ball” was holding all of my excitement. Rounding out this
incredible line-up was Starfury’s favourite son, Jonathan Woodward, Jeff
Ricketts, Dayne Johnson, Janina Gavankar, and Tamara Gorski. Sadly, Janina and
Tamara both had to pull out before the event, so they were replaced by George
Hertzberg. This meant that all six guests were from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”
and/or “Angel”, which works perfectly for my tastes.
Jonathan
Woodward is known for playing Buffy’s vampire counsellor and enemy, Holden
Webster, in the final season’s “Conversations With Dead People”. In addition to
that, he was a recurring character in the final season of “Angel”, Knox, who
you may remember as the fucker that was responsible for Fred’s death, as well
as playing Tracey in Firefly’s “The Message”. To my knowledge, there are only
six actors in the world that appeared in all three of “Buffy The Vampire
Slayer”, “Angel”, and “Firefly”, so to have one of these actors on the guest
list is a big deal to hardcore fans. To have two on the guest list is something that I don’t believe has ever
happened before. Jeff Ricketts played Weatherby of the Watcher’s Council in
Buffy’s “This Year’s Girl” and “Who Are You?”, as well as playing the same
character in Angel’s “Sanctuary”, after the Watcher’s Council chased Faith to
the City of Angels. Jeff also played the memorable Spider Demon in Angel season
four’s “Sacrifice” (my favourite Whedon role of his), and one of the Hands of
Blue (#2) in Firefly’s “The Train Job” and “Ariel”. A little FYI, if you wanna
know the fate of the Hands of Blue, check out the comic ‘Serenity: Those Left
Behind’. It bridges the gap and shows you what happened between “Firefly” and
“Serenity”. George Hertzberg is best known for playing the ‘Big Bad’ of “Buffy
The Vampire Slayer” season four. Part man, part demon, and part machine, Adam
was unstoppable until the core four Scoobies combined their essence to create a
Super Slayer, who ripped Adam’s uranium core out of his chest...how charming.
Finally, we had Dayne Johnson. Dayne worked in the makeup department on “Buffy
The Vampire Slayer”, before becoming the head makeup artist on “Angel”. That’s
one helluva line-up, freaks and geeks!
As most of
you are aware, I’m Jeff Ricketts’ manager (his term, not mine). I book his
convention appearances. However, Jeff arranged this one with Sean about a week
before I became Jeff’s “manager”. Due to this, I bought myself a nice, shiny
gold ticket to go to the event. Even if I couldn’t go as his “manager”, I was
still desperate to go to the event because first and foremost I’m a diehard fan
of the shows and have been since I was eight years old. I run a frickin’
Buffyverse Facebook page (hyperlinked for cheap promotion)! After buying this ticket, Jeff and Sean very kindly gave
me an “event staff” badge, which meant I could sit next to Jeff at the
autograph table, and have access to the green room. You should have seen my
face when I received this wonderful piece of news. My face melted...not
literally. I was going to be able to sit next to Jeff at the autograph table,
get to talk to all of the wonderful attendees, and have access to a green room that contained two of the main
actors from my favourite television show. What you’ve got to understand is that
James Marsters was arguably my biggest
childhood and teenage hero. Spike was the
man to me. I had gigantic Spike posters covering two walls of my bedroom
when I was a kid. Getting to share a green room with your hero and getting to
know him a little bit personally away from the convention activities themselves
simply doesn’t happen. It’s a pipedream!...but it wasn’t. This was legit. I can
say with pride that I maintained my professionalism all weekend. I didn’t
fanboy once...in front of him, at
least. So, before I dive into the review of the event itself, I have to say a massive thank you to both Jeff Ricketts
and Sean Harry for allowing me to not only attend a wonderful convention, but
for allowing me to partake in all of the behind the scenes activities as well.
I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.
Two A4-pages
down and I haven’t even started the bloody review yet...
I arrived at
the beautiful Hilton Hotel in Birmingham at around 1pm on Friday the 26th
of September. I entered the lobby of the hotel filled with excitement,
butterflies in my belly, and an incredibly full bladder. My drive to the event
was dire. I downloaded a satnav app.
on my phone, but it didn’t recognise a route between my house and the Hilton
Hotel. So I downloaded another app., but the same thing happened. Third app.,
nope. Fourth app., nope. Then I realised that my phone has a built-in satnav,
which worked perfectly. DON’T JUDGE ME,
I’VE ONLY HAD THE PHONE A WEEK! Once I’d emptied my bladder (you all asked
for a detailed review, you have only yourselves to blame), I bumped into two
regular convention attendees that I know very well, Mark and Oli. I sat down
with them and quickly realised that Dayne Johnson and his friend John were sat
on the table next to us drinking cocktails. My first thought was “damn, how old
is the photo that Sean put on the website?” (I’M KIDDING!). I didn’t want to go over and pester Dayne before the
event started (I’ve never met him before this event), as I knew he was going to
be surrounded by people all weekend and have very little time to himself
outside of his hotel room. My hotel room was booked in Jeff’s name, so I had to
wait for Jeff to haul his butt downstairs before I could check-in. I’d arranged
to meet him at 2pm, so I spent the next hour chatting to Mark and Oli, getting
our appetites wet for the coming weekend. Jeff arrived, I checked in, walked
into my hotel room doorframe, rubbed my head, shook it off, unpacked, and
headed downstairs for the registration opening at 4pm.
When I’m
attending a convention, the first thing I like to do after registering is to
take 10 minutes to study the activity schedule for the weekend ahead. At some
conventions, the talks, autographs, and studio photos can often happen at the
same time, so you have to pick and choose what you want to do. Not at Starfury,
bitches. The photos are in the morning, the talks are in the afternoon, the
autographs are in the evening, and the party is at night. If you wish to do
everything, you have that option available, which is a much, much better way to
schedule an event. Why would I pay for an event and then have to miss half of
it because two things are happening at the same time? This event was a little
different because I’d be with Jeff for a certain percentage of it, which
therefore meant my timings were different to the regular attendees sometimes.
Here is the schedule :-
All I had to
do was go and buy any studio photos (studio photos aren’t included in the
ticket price for Starfury) or 8x10’s I wanted and I could chill out until
8:30pm. One of the things I love about
Starfury events is that the pace is so relaxed. If the guests are happy to stay
later than what’s written on the schedule, they have that option. If things are
running 15 minutes late, none of the attendees care or get annoyed. Everyone is
so laidback and friendly! What kind of
bizarro world have I stepped in to?! I moseyed on over to the studio photo
tickets desk and purchased myself...
·
1x James Marsters (Saturday) (£20)
·
1x Emma Caulfield (Saturday) (£20)
·
1x James Marsters and Emma Caulfield together
(Saturday) (£40)
·
1x Jonathan Woodward (Saturday) (£10)
·
1x George Hertzberg (Saturday) (£15)
·
1x Jonathan Woodward in complete vampire makeup
(Sunday) (£20)
One thing
quickly became apparent to me. All of
my photos except Jonathan Woodward in vampire makeup were on Saturday morning,
which meant that drinking Friday night was a no-go. I didn’t wait SIXTEEN YEARS to meet James and have the
photo turn out like total shit because I looked hungover and as rough as a
dog’s ass (where did that expression come from?). This also meant that I could
get as drunk as I wanted to on Saturday night without fear of looking horrific
the next day because my only photo was with Jonathan in vampire makeup, and I
figured that I couldn’t look any worse
than a vampire, right? The 8x10’s stall was selling some limited edition (100
of each) art prints for James Marsters, Emma Caulfield, Jonathan Woodward, and
George Hertzberg for £10 each, so I swiftly snatched up one of all four. All
four were number 2/100, which made my OCD joyous.
By this
point, it was about 4:30pm and I had nothing to worry about until the main hall
opened at 8pm. I work a full-time job, a part-time job, and a full-time degree
through the Open University. I’m not used to having three hours of completely
free time. So, what did I do with my time? Went back to my hotel room and lazed
around doing absolutely nothing. It was bliss.
The opening
ceremony kicked off at 8:30pm, as scheduled. Sean Harry acted as Master of
Ceremonies for the event and filled us in on how the weekend was going to run.
He gave us some notes about the raffle, our 20% discount for the bar
(cha-ching!), and then introduced us to the guests one by one. Each guest came
out for a couple of minutes, introduced themselves, talked about how excited
they were to be there, etc. It’s just a way to kickoff the weekend and get
everyone’s excitement flooding for the event. First out was Jonathan Woodward.
For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Jonathan, he sounds
just like Bill Murray and acts just like Robin Williams. High energy, high
excitement, completely over the top, and gut-bustingly funny. Jonathan has done
many, many Starfury events before, so to Sean and a lot of the regular
attendees, he’s simply a part of the family by this point. He knows many people
by name and he’s watched a lot of the long time attendees grow up. Even though
Jonathan has been to Starfury a lot of times before, this was his first
convention in Birmingham. The first thing he did was take control of the two
big screens on either side of the stage, go to Craig’s List, and look for
things on sale in Birmingham. He told us later in the weekend that he hadn’t
pre-planned this moment. He didn’t go to Craig’s List before coming out on
stage to check what was going to pop up. The first six images appeared on
screen and *boom!*, first one was a
naked man’s hairy ass crack. Way to keep it classy, Birmingham! There was also
what appeared to be used ladies underwear on screen.
In fact, it caused such a stir that George Hertzberg came out to see what had appeared...
Other highlights from the opening ceremony were Jeff Ricketts doing a lap of the main hall for his introduction. Well, I say ‘lap’...he actually went halfway around and ran back again. James Marsters challenged us all to try and find questions that would embarrass him over the weekend. If you’re going to be meeting James soon, give it some thought. He doesn’t get embarrassed easily. I got a personal kick out of Sean Harry’s jokes at the expense of the Twilight franchise too. These jokes would later turn around and bite him in the ass (pun-believable!) the following night at the costume competition.
In fact, it caused such a stir that George Hertzberg came out to see what had appeared...
Other highlights from the opening ceremony were Jeff Ricketts doing a lap of the main hall for his introduction. Well, I say ‘lap’...he actually went halfway around and ran back again. James Marsters challenged us all to try and find questions that would embarrass him over the weekend. If you’re going to be meeting James soon, give it some thought. He doesn’t get embarrassed easily. I got a personal kick out of Sean Harry’s jokes at the expense of the Twilight franchise too. These jokes would later turn around and bite him in the ass (pun-believable!) the following night at the costume competition.
Straight
after the opening ceremony, it was time for the gold ticket holders to go to
the meet and greet. Essentially, the meet and greet is an hour, where you sit
down at one of numerous tables, and the guests make their way around the room
table by table. At this particular meet and greet, there were fifteen tables
setup, with 6-12 people per table. My table consisted of two lovely ladies, two
lovely Scottish ladies, Simon, a crew member, my friend Becca (who supplied all
the pictures from the Q&A’s for this review), and myself. With this meet
and greet having fifteen tables and six guests, there were times where you were
guest-less and just getting to know the other people that were sat at your
table. It was a great way to make new friends and acquaintances for the
weekend, especially as some people come to these conventions alone. Highlights
from the meet and greet were...
-
Jonathan Woodward told us how he went to
Scotland a few years back and took part in a whisky tasting tour. I mentioned
to Jonathan that I actually brought a bottle of 10-year-old Aberlour scotch
with me to the convention, and we made plans to drink it together on the
Saturday night.
-
Dayne Johnson recognised me from our brief
Facebook conversation a few days prior to the event, so he came to sit next to
me, while his friend John sat at the opposite side of the table. Dayne is a
very friendly guy. I mean, very friendly.
Constantly smiling, stroking my leg, stroking my arm, stroking my hand,
inquiring about my tattoos...he bounced off of his friend John really well as
they were both rather, erm, I’m going to go with the word ‘merry’ by this point
in the evening. Dayne explained to me that he brought his friend John with him
because John’s mother had sadly passed away a week previously, so Dayne wanted
to give him a weekend of fun and enjoyment to take his mind off of it for a
while before having to go back to reality, which was a really sweet thing to
do.
-
Every guest except Dayne sat opposite me at the
table. This was awesome because it
meant that everybody gave me so much eye contact. I will admit, I was a little
trepidatious to meet Emma because historically a couple of the Whedon women
I’ve met (not at Starfury) have been a little distant and acted like they
didn’t particularly want to be at the convention. Luckily, Emma was the
complete opposite to this. She was very engaging, looked everyone in the eye, gave people big hugs in the photo sessions if they desired it...she was a
complete sport for the whole event, which means that everyone goes home happy,
which is kinda the whole point in the first place. Emma explained to us that
California is in the middle of a major drought at the moment. They have
hosepipe bans in place and they’re very restricted
at the moment. Emma was so happy to be flying over to England because it would
mean that she could bask in some much needed rain...but then she arrived in
England and it was sunny. Emma said that this seems to be a recurring theme
with her recently. She’s chasing the rain, but all she’s getting is sunshine.
Doesn’t seem like the worst power in the world to have, does it? Constant
sunshine wherever you go. Unless, you’re
desperate for some rain, of course.
-
James talked about working on “Supernatural” and
he mentioned that it was the first time he ever got to know Charisma Carpenter.
When he was on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”, he always assumed that
Charisma was just like Cordelia. He assumed that Charisma was the stereotypical
cheerleader type, but discovered that she’s actually a really cool lady and he
really appreciated her by the time they finished recording the episode. For
those of you unaware, James and Charisma played a married couple in
Supernatural’s seventh season.
-
This event was scheduled to finish at 10pm. None of the six guests left at 10pm
because they were taking more time talking at each table than Starfury had
anticipated. By midnight, one table and one guest remained in the room...my
table and George Hertzberg. The hilarious thing about our conversation with
George is that I don’t think we mentioned “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” once.
George explained to us that he has a lovely wife and three young boys, and he
decided to leave Los Angeles and move to Dallas, Texas, to raise his family. He
works in an office now and absolutely loves the work he’s doing. Every single
time he mentioned his family, even if it was jesting at the anarchy of having
to try to control three young boys, his face lit up. I never thought I’d meet a
celebrity family man I had more respect for than Alexis Denisof, but I hold
George in that same esteem. He’s just a nice guy, you know? He doesn’t act like
a celebrity at all. Some guests don’t
act like celebrities, but they exude star power. George exudes nothing other
than being a regular, normal, happy, appreciative guy. I was very impressed
with George. We spent most of our conversation talking about the drought in
Texas, and George started filling us in on the history of the lakes in Texas,
and how he thinks Texas and California could handle their water supply more
effectively in the future. We also talked about the Scottish people voting to
stay a part of the UK. It was the most bizarre, unique, random conversation
I’ve ever had at a meet and greet, but it was highly interesting.
-
Jonathan Woodward left the meet and greet at
about 11:45pm, wearing a gigantic chocolate wrapper over his head that he’d
fastened into a hat, and downing a pitcher of some cocktail that had been left
on one of the tables. Top bloke.
-
All six guests left a good first impression. I
do have to apologise because this is the only part of the weekend that I didn’t
take notes for, as it would have been impossible to in such an intimate setting
without coming across like a jerk. I know that I talked to James, Emma, and the
rest about much more than this, but at this present moment it’s disappeared
from my delicate brain.
By the time
we left the meet and greet hall, it was 12:30am. I stayed down at the party for
a while before heading up to bed. I needed to look my best for my Saturday
morning photo sessions, and there’s only so much I can do with my strikingly
average-looking face at the best of times.
The first
photo session of the day on Saturday morning was scheduled for 9am, and it was
for Jeff Ricketts, Jonathan Woodward, and Dayne Johnson. The cool thing about
Starfury conventions is that if you have a studio photo ticket with more than
one of the guests in the photo session, you can choose to have individual
photos with the guests, or with two of the guests together, or all three guests
if you so desire. You can mix and match between the guests in attendance so
long as you have purchased photo tickets for the guests you want. Another great
thing about the Starfury photo sessions is that the backdrop is great and the
photographer is frickin’ awesome. Half of my Hallowhedon shots were so damn light that I looked like I was
sick. I had to darken them on my computer because the lightening was
ridiculously bright. Stupidly bright. The Starfury photos are a more natural
looking light, which gives a much cleaner, higher quality picture. The only
other major difference between “Hallowhedon” and “Vampire Ball” photos is that
Hallowhedon’s are instantaneous, while you have to wait a couple of hours for
Vampire Ball’s to be developed. This didn’t matter to me in the least as I was
there all weekend and on both days my photos were back in plenty of time to get
them signed at the autograph table. For this first session, my only photo was
with Jonathan Woodward, who wrapped me in a gigantic hug and shook my hand
before the photo was taken. Seriously, I don’t think I can adequately put into
words what a terrific convention guest Jonathan Woodward is. There’s a reason
why Sean brings him back time and time again.
An hour
later, it was time for the studio photo session with James Marsters, Emma
Caulfield, and George Hertzberg. This was easily the busiest one of the weekend
for me (and in general) because I had a photo with James, Emma, and George
individually, and then an additional one with James and Emma together.
Historically speaking, I’ve never left a convention and been happy with all of
my studio photos. I tend to dislike my appearance in general, but especially in
such high quality settings. If the photo is a little grainy, it can cover up
some of my flaws. Convention photos don’t offer me this small mercy, so my mug
is subjected to showing off its full form. However, this year’s “Vampire Ball”
is the first convention ever where
I’ve loved every single studio photo.
By the time
I left the studio photo session, with a grin plastered across my face, it was
time for Dayne’s talk/Q&A on the stage. One of the perks of having Dayne
over for a convention is that he can apply makeup to people on stage and walk
you through the process while answering questions at the same time. On Sunday,
Dayne would be putting Jonathan Woodward in his vampire makeup from when he played
Holden Webster on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. On Saturday, he would be putting
someone (I’m not sure if it was a volunteer or pre-arranged, as I missed the
first 5 minutes of the talk due to the photo session) in the makeup from
“Angel” season five’s “Hell Bound”. If you remember, in that episode Spike sees
a collection of people that are mutilating their bodies, being tortured, etc.
Spike wanders across one of them chopping his own fingers off, with cuts all
over his face. Here’s a reminder of that uplifting visual...
Here are
some of the highlights from the talk/makeup demonstration :-
·
Dayne joked with the guy that he was putting the
prosthetics on that he’d forgotten the de-bonder for the glue.
·
Apparently Dayne is known around Hollywood as
‘One Cue Tip’ because he can do everything he needs with, you guessed it, one
cue tip (gluing, applying, etc.).
·
Someone asked Dayne if he can still watch
television shows and movies as a fan without the makeup and prosthetics
distracting him. Dayne said that the makeup, surprisingly, wasn’t his usual
distraction. He often finds himself getting lost in the background of scenes,
rather than paying attention to the foreground. He’ll be busy looking at the
extras or the back of the set instead of paying attention to what’s going on.
Dayne said that if he starts doing that, it means that he’s getting bored with
whatever’s on-screen. The example he jokingly used was anything involving
Angelina Jolie.
·
Sparingly, every 10 minutes or so, Dayne would
ask the volunteer/assistant if he was okay. He said this was his way of making
sure that his subject hadn’t died due to a lack of being able to breathe under
the prosthetics. I think he was joking....
·
The most challenging prosthetic, demon, or
monster that Dayne had to construct while on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and
“Angel” was Angel season four’s ‘The Beast’. The Beast took 5 hours of makeup
and prosthetics every day in order to be ready for the camera. It was a suit
with a zip up the back, but all of The Beast was shown, so the full body of the
suit needed to be painted.
·
Dayne currently works as the head of the makeup
department on “Criminal Minds” and has done so for almost a decade. If he could
work on any other show right now, it would be “The Walking Dead” or “American
Horror Story” (another Tim Minear penned show).
·
Dayne was asked if he ever had any scary moments
or close calls while working on “Angel”. Dayne said that for the most part
everything ran smoothly, but there was one incident that stuck in his mind. If
you remember Angel season five’s “Life Of The Party”, there’s a big, bulky
version of Lorne. Evidently, the actor behind that makeup had his neck burned
quite badly by the sulphur in the prosthetic because sometimes the prosthetics
don’t have enough time to dry properly.
·
Dayne was the first makeup artist to apply the
prosthetics and makeup to Emma Caulfield for Anyanka.
The whole
process took around 2 hours, but here is the stunning end result...
Straight
after Dayne’s makeup demonstration, it was time for Jonathan Woodward and Jeff
Ricketts’ Q&A for an hour. If you quizzed everyone who went to “Vampire
Ball 5” on what their favourite talk of the weekend was, I think the vast
majority of people would say Jonathan and Jeff’s talk. Jonathan and Jeff have
never met before “Vampire Ball” weekend, but their chemistry together is
undeniable. They’re kindred spirits, both onstage and offstage. Jonathan’s
random, hilarious, improvised, scatty personality matches Jeff’s eccentric,
off-the-wall, psychic one perfectly. Jeff has this thing on stage where he uses
ESP and tries to be a psychic and channel messages from people mentally. Is he
a real psychic or is he a fraud? Read this section and then decide for
yourself...
·
This is going to be the hardest ‘talk’ to put
into words because most of it was on the fly, completely ad-libbed, and a
collection or grunts, facial expressions, and noises. There was very little in
the way of actual Q&A. The first part of the talk consisted of Jonathan and
Jeff discussing Jonathan’s Craig’s List pictures from the night before at the
opening ceremony. Jonathan explained to us here that he hadn’t planned that at
all and what came up on screen was completely genuine. They then started
talking about edible underwear (due to one of the pictures that was on the
screen), and Jonathan disturbingly remarked that all underwear is edible. Eww.
·
Jeff’s ESP ways led Jonathan into the audience,
where Jeff was trying to find information about a lady from the audience
psychically, but through Jonathan. This all resulted in Jonathan allowing the
mental waves to pass into his mouth and through his ass, which was pointed in
the direction of Jeff on stage. I swear, I haven’t laughed as hard as this
since watching the scene in ‘The InBetweeners Movie 2’ where Neil’s poo is
chasing Will down the waterslide.
·
One of the things that Jeff picked up from the
lady’s mind was a collection of noises, which Jeff tried to translate, before
realising he was remembering noises from the hotel’s PPV package the night
before (read: porn). Jonathan quipped that you can get package deals on those
movies in hotels now.
·
Jeff then asked the lady if she could possibly
be pregnant, but requested that Jonathan ask this question to her in a positive
way. So, Jonathan started talking about how pregnancy could give her nice
skin...for about four days.
·
Jonathan said that about once every five months,
someone will shout at him across the street, “YOU KILLED FRED, YOU BASTARD!”,
and Jonathan’s response was “yeah! Ten years ago! On TV! She had it coming!”. How dare he! Fred did not have it coming! Jonathan enjoyed
playing Knox because it’s so rare for a villain to actually succeed in their plan to destroy one of the main
characters. How many villainous characters can boast of actually accomplishing
their task?
·
Jeff, who lives in Vienna, Austria, these days,
was asked a question from someone that he thought sounded German. So, in his
excitement, Jeff started talking to the young man in German...until the young
man cut him off with a completely deadpan “I’m not German”. Everyone was in
hysterics.
·
This led us to Jeff’s psychic abilities of the
day. Jeff picked a volunteer to come up to the stage, choose a number between
one and four, and then retrieve the piece of paper from his pocket. She picked number
four, and the piece of paper read “I knew you were going to pick number four”.
Spooky! Later in the talk, someone asked Jeff, in the interest of full
disclosure, could he please show us that he had three other pieces of paper in
other pockets, saying the same for numbers one, two, and three. Jeff, outraged
by this refusal to accept his psychic ability, asked the lady to pick a number
between one and four. She chose number two. Jeff kindly asked Jonathan to turn
over her chair and collect the piece of paper underneath one of the legs. What
Jeff didn’t realise is that the chairs are all linked together, so it was a
difficult process for Jonathan to try to pry the chair apart from the rest. He
quipped that it’s just like Jeff to stand on stage barking orders while he has
to do the impossible tasks. The piece of paper under the chair read “I knew you
were going to pick number two”. Oh, I’ve also got to mention that Jonathan
found a 5p on the floor halfway through the talk and stuck it to his forehead.
That’s always worth mentioning. For those of you that were at “Vampire Ball”,
the lady who asked the question was not a
plant and Jonathan did not place the
piece of paper under the chair when he went over. The piece of paper was under
the chair from the beginning of the talk. Genius trick or genuine psychic
abilities, you decide.
·
Jeff mentioned that it was his birthday a few
days before the convention started and asked if anyone else had a birthday that
week. A few people raised their hands and Jeff and Jonathan led a chorus of
‘Happy Birthday’...which quickly spiralled into Jeff and Jonathan singing songs
I’d never heard of before and bursting into a spontaneous dance routine
together. My client, ladies and gentlemen!
·
The talk ended with Jonathan showing us a video
that he’d recorded earlier in the day. He went into Birmingham city centre to
record some footage on his phone of the finer things of Birmingham, having
found the worst of Birmingham on Craig’s List the night before. Of course, what
he was actually doing was showing the worst of Birmingham again. Things like
grumpy people and random pieces of fruit. He also recorded footage of himself
getting onto the wrong bus and having to be collected by one of Starfury’s crew
members, who didn’t look impressed. He said that Sean didn’t know this yet and
joked that it would be fine because at least he made it back to the hotel in
time for the talk. He told all of us to go outside of the hotel at least once
over the weekend and enjoy the beautiful sights of Birmingham because it’s a
sorry state of affairs when the smokers are getting more fresh air than the
non-smokers. Absolutely hilarious. UPDATE!
I talked to Jonathan last night (1st October) and he said that he’ll
send me this video over the next few days, so it might be worth checking back
here in a week because the video of Jonathan wandering around Birmingham will
be on this review!
After Jonathan and Jeff’s talk there was a 30-minute intermission before Emma Caulfield’s solo talk. I used this time to grab a drink, take a relaxing piss, un-numb my ass, and go and say ‘hi’ to some friends. I’ve got to be honest, I love Emma’s short hair. It looks great on her. Want to know something interesting about Emma Caulfield? This hilarious, loud, bubbly, over-the-top personality on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” is actually quite shy in front of an audience in real life. She didn’t come across as shy or nervous at all when I was talking to her one-on-one, but in front of an audience she seemed a little shy, which was rather adorable. Highlights! :-
·
Emma hated
being in the Anyanka makeup and prosthetics. Between scenes she’d
constantly be picking at it because it itched, so the makeup department were
constantly having to touch up the paint and re-apply small pieces of the prosthetic
that had unglued. Emma used to say that taking off the prosthetics and makeup
at the end of the day was better than sex.
·
Emma doesn’t own the rights to her Essnemma
YouTube channel, which is why we haven’t seen any new episodes since her
contract was up. She does intend to start another YouTube show soon (while
keeping the rights herself this time), but hasn’t decided on what it’s going to
be about.
·
Emma was recently in Australia for a convention
and she was constantly walking into people and getting odd looks. In her mind
she kept thinking “get out of the way, will you!”, before realising that she
was walking on the wrong side of the road.
·
Emma adored her role as the Blind Witch in “Once
Upon A Time” and would love to play that character again. She described herself
as ‘obsessed’ with the character. Apparently she had no idea how she was going to play the character until five minutes
before shooting began.
·
Emma wasn’t a fan of Anya’s quick death on
“Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, but it was her decision to be killed on the show. She
requested for Joss to kill Anya. Whether the show came back for an eight season
or there was the potential for a film down the line, Emma was ready to say
goodbye to “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and Anya after playing the character for
five years. The reason why Emma was happy for Anya to die was because Anya’s
character had come full-circle. She went from not understanding humanity and
the world to being willing to die to protect them. It was a beautifully poetic
story.
·
Emma is still in frequent contact with pretty
much everybody from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, and she listed Tony Head, Seth
Green, and Tom Lenk as the people she sees the most from the show. Apparently
she visits Tony almost every time she’s in England. After saying that, she
joked that she actually hates them all and never sees them anymore because she
doesn’t get paid to hang out with them.
·
Emma describes actors and actresses as ‘monkey
bitches’. They get told where to stand, what to say, how to move, how to look...it
was hilarious to listen to her talk about her profession in such a
light-hearted way.
·
Her favourite episode of “Buffy The Vampire
Slayer” is “Restless” because it somehow manages to be a perfectly crafted
masterpiece, yet also keep within the confines of having the episode feel like
a real dream...randomly appearing in places, the Cheese Man, etc.
·
The last scene of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”
that Emma ever filmed was her death scene in “Chosen”, which also happened to
be on her birthday.
·
Emma hasn’t watched an entire episode of the
show since she filmed “Chosen”. Mostly because she hates to watch herself on screen, as she’s too critical of her own
work to enjoy it properly.
·
Emma said that filming “Once More With Feeling”
was phenomenal, but she struggled with the singing because she doesn’t consider
herself a naturally gifted singer, even though her mother was a professional
singer. She said “thank God for auto-tuning”.
·
Her favourite villains ever on “Buffy The
Vampire Slayer” are The Gentlemen because they’re literally one of the
creepiest things she’s ever seen in her life.
·
Somebody in the audience asked Emma if she
disliked bunnies or had a vendetta against bunnies. Emma’s response was a big,
light-hearted speech about how she doesn’t dislike bunnies. She loves all
animals and can we please pass along to our friends that she doesn’t dislike
bunnies. She said all of this with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her
eye, but you just know that she meant
every single one of those jokey words. How many times do you think she’s been
asked about bunnies in the past fifteen years? Thousands? She ended her little
mock speech with “it’s Drew Goddard’s fault for all this bunny hatred from
Anya, and he doesn’t even know why he
added this to Anya’s character! He just said ‘why not’!”. She joked that
she’s changing her answer because she is starting to hate bunnies because of
all the bunny questions over the past fifteen years.
·
Her top three favourite television shows ever
are “The X-Files”, “Star Trek: Voyager”, and “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
She watches these shows on repeat and was even watching “The X-Files” in her
hotel room just before coming on stage.
·
She was asked who the better kisser was, Tony
Head, Nicky Brendan, or James Marsters. She thought about the answer for a long time before deciding that it was
James. However, she did add the asterisk that it was Spike who was the good kisser, not James. James is such a method
actor that when he was on camera playing Spike, he was Spike. So he kissed her as Spike, not as James.
·
If Emma had one word to describe Anya it would
be ‘searcher’. Anya was constantly trying to find the answers to questions that
she didn’t understand about the world...why people die, why people continue to
do things that make them sad, why people don’t care about money as much as she
does. After becoming human, Anya became a student of humanity and it was this
search that encompassed her life for most of the show.
·
Emma told us a very amusing story about her
infamous speech in “The Body”. The speech that makes most people bawl like a
baby. Throughout that entire speech,
all Emma could think about was how hungry she was and how desperate she was for
a pee. When she was recording it, she felt as though she was doing a bad job
because she was distracted by her desire to pee. Also, Joss recorded that scene
time and time again because he wanted ‘the right kind of teardrop’ on Anya’s
face during the speech.
·
The ending of “Selfless” is the moment of Anya’s
character journey that resonated with her the most personally. It’s the one
where Anya is asking Xander “what if I really am nobody?”. That’s a question
that Emma has asked herself during her life, so this moment really struck a chord
with her.
·
Emma has a terrible memory and barely remembers
any of her lines or scenes from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” ten years later.
However, she has a fantastic memory when it comes to memorising lines.
·
She was asked if she could play any historical figure,
who would she play? Emma’s response was “hasn’t Meryl Streep played them all by
this point?”
·
The movie “Poltergeist” really scared her as a child. For some reason her family decided
that was going to be the movie for family night when she was four years old.
·
Finally, Emma told the audience that she’d never
seen any of “Doctor Who”, and the audience literally let out a gigantic,
exasperated, shocked gasp. Emma’s reaction to this gasp was absolutely
priceless and she apologised for never having seen the show.
Due to
Dayne’s makeup tutorial running 30 minutes later than scheduled, I had to run
away from the talk hall before James Marsters and George Hertzberg’s Q&A.
If any of you that were in that talk are reading this, feel free to fill us all
in on what happened in the comments section of this review! However, just because I wasn't there, it doesn't mean I didn't have awesome friends taking photos...
I had to leave the talk hall because I needed to collect my studio photos from the morning’s shoots, collect my art prints and 8x10’s to be signed, and get my collection of notes before meeting Jeff and Toni in the suite that was going to serve as the autograph session room. Before heading to the autograph hall, I quickly grabbed some ‘Badger’ tickets as well. Badger tickets are £10 each and they entitle you to an extra autograph with any of the guests.
I had to leave the talk hall because I needed to collect my studio photos from the morning’s shoots, collect my art prints and 8x10’s to be signed, and get my collection of notes before meeting Jeff and Toni in the suite that was going to serve as the autograph session room. Before heading to the autograph hall, I quickly grabbed some ‘Badger’ tickets as well. Badger tickets are £10 each and they entitle you to an extra autograph with any of the guests.
The
autograph session itself was an absolute treat. Before the doors opened to the
attendees, I went around to get my own autographs. On Saturday, James was the
first person people met as they entered the room, followed by Emma. On the
Sunday, Emma and James were last. I think Starfury realised that having the
headline guests at the front caused a crush of people at the beginning, which
made the line back-up rather drastically.
James
Marsters – What is there to say about James Marsters? The guy is all class.
He doesn’t act like a big star, he doesn’t have any arrogance or superiority
complex. He’s just like Christian Kane was last year. A straight-up, regular,
everyday guy that you could envision bumping in to at a bar and spending the
night shooting the shit with. What I loved about James was that he spent a good
few minutes talking to everybody. He
wasn’t one of these “hi”, “hi”, “bye”, “bye” guests. He was engaging, he seemed
interested in you, he seemed grateful that you came, he gave everyone eye-contact,
smiles, and handshakes. He made you feel appreciated,
which is a very rare gift for a convention headliner to have. I talked to
James for quite a while about his career, about “Dragon Warriors”, his
experiences with voice acting, and so on. The biggest “Buffy The Vampire
Slayer” question I had for James was to ask him how he enjoyed the experience
of writing the “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” comic book continuation one-shot
‘Spike: Into The Light’, which takes place after “Grave” and before “Lessons”.
James explained to me that he told Joss Whedon after “Angel” finished that Joss
had seven years to do more “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” or “Angel” before it
would be too late for James to realistically play the role any longer. If Joss
wanted him to do anything at all,
he’d be there. One line in a film, a cameo on a TV show...if he wanted Spike to
appear, James would be there, under the proviso that it happened within seven years of “Angel” finishing.
Fast-forward six years, Joss calls James and asks James if he’d be interested
in making a Spike TV movie. James jumped at the chance, but Joss didn’t yet
have an actual idea for the film. James told Joss that he’d had an idea in the
back of his head for years, and he filled Joss in on his idea. Unfortunately,
budgetary problems meant that the movie never came to fruition, but James’ idea
eventually became this one-shot comic. He absolutely loved the experience of
writing it and would happily do it again in the future. James signed the 8x10”
art print for me, my studio photo of the two of us together, and also an 8x10”
for Robyn (my girlfriend), as she’s a massive
fan of the show (specifically Spike), but couldn’t be there this time
around.
Emma
Caulfield – The funny thing about Emma is that when we were talking one-on-one,
whether it was the green room or the autograph table, we never talked about
“Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. Not once. At
the autograph table, we both fangasmed over our mutual love of “The Walking
Dead” and “Game Of Thrones”. We discussed who we thought was going to survive
the coming season of “The Walking Dead”, and I asked her if she’s read the “A
Song Of Ice And Fire” book series (that’s the “Game Of Thrones” books for those
of you unaware). She hasn’t read them. She said that it would be cool for Arya
or someone like that to sit the Iron Throne when all is said and done. I filled
her in on my theory surrounding the conclusion of “Game Of Thrones”/”A Song Of
Ice And Fire”, and what I thought about Jon Snow’s parentage. You can read all
about my theory here.
It doesn’t contain any spoilers that I’m aware of; it’s just speculation and
guesswork on my part. Emma seemed really interested in my theory and said that
it would be a very cool way to end the show. Emma signed my 8x10” art print and
also signed an 8x10” for Robyn (see what a good boyfriend I am?!).
George
Hertzberg – That big, friendly, loveable guy! As I’d spent quite a bit of
time talking to George at the meet and greet the night before, I felt totally
at ease around George. Not that I felt tense around James or Emma, but both of
those guys are such childhood heroes of mine, that I couldn’t help but be a
little tense, even if I didn’t show it. If I ever had the opportunity to choose
my own father in life, it would be Alexis Denisof or George Hertzberg. He comes
across as the most loving father in the world and you can really sense how
blessed he feels at having a wonderful family. I asked George if he found it
hard to initially know how to play Adam, as Adam is essentially three
characters in one. Adam has robot functionalities, yet is also part demon and
part human as well. He’s a totally unique character in the Buffyverse. George’s
voice is higher than Adam’s too. George would spend 3-4 hours per day in the
makeup chair in order to play Adam. I would have gone out of my mind having to sit still for that long. How Jeff
Ricketts, that ball of energy, ever sat still enough to be put in the Spider Demon
makeup, I’ll never know. If you ever have the opportunity to meet Jeff at a
convention, please try to ply him with an energy drink. The result would be
beyond ridiculous. George signed my 8x10” art print, and it was off to
Jonathan’s autograph table before sitting down with Jeff and letting the fun
begin.
Jonathan
Woodward - There are no words to
describe Jonathan Woodward. There simply aren’t. Jonathan brought a big book of
stickers with him to the autograph session, so he could put one on everyone’s
autograph. We talked for a while, we joked around, I reiterated our plans to
drink scotch in the bar later, and a fun time was had. Jonathan signed my 8x10”
art print, and I was the first person of
the day to receive a stick out of the infamous Jonathan Woodward sticker book.
It was a skeletal-looking undead biker, which Jonathan stuck on the back of my
art print and captioned it “SHANE ON YOU”...it was his attempt at being funny,
I believe. A name pun, Jonathan, how original! What was my response, you ask?
“PUN-BELIEVABLE!”. That’s right, I can give as good as I get.
After all this excitement, it was time to sit down at the autograph table with Jeff and Toni for the next 2.5 hours. Now, there’s not a great deal to say about this time of the convention because everything was so amazing. Over the course of the next couple of hours, I met a couple of hundred conventioneers. I spoke to everyone, interacted with everyone, bounced off of Jeff, and generally had the most stupendous time in the world. What I loved about Jeff at “Hallowhedon” last year, is that he spent a lot of time with everyone. A lot of time. Plus, he would customise practically every autograph to the person in front of him. The same can certainly be said for the “Vampire Ball” weekend. I don’t think he used the same quote, phrase, or sentence more than three times over the entire weekend! I don’t recall what started it, but Jeff ended up writing around twenty poems over the next two hours. I mean, 14-20 lines long, taking up an entire A4 page. They even had different themes! One was a country song, one was Shakespearian...but each poem related to the person that was in front of him. He used their name in the poem, he used their personality in the poem, and he gave them something truly unique that nobody else will ever have. Toni is from Essex, so she has that wonderful Essex accent. Therefore, Jeff made use of this accent and would get her to read out a lot of the phrases and poems that he was writing. Everybody that came over to the autograph table was awesome, friendly, excited, enjoying the weekend, and their enthusiasm in turn made me even more enthusiastic. To each and every one of you that I interacted with at the autograph table that day, thank you. Two and a half hours flew by because of your excitement and willingness to goof around with Jeff.
After all this excitement, it was time to sit down at the autograph table with Jeff and Toni for the next 2.5 hours. Now, there’s not a great deal to say about this time of the convention because everything was so amazing. Over the course of the next couple of hours, I met a couple of hundred conventioneers. I spoke to everyone, interacted with everyone, bounced off of Jeff, and generally had the most stupendous time in the world. What I loved about Jeff at “Hallowhedon” last year, is that he spent a lot of time with everyone. A lot of time. Plus, he would customise practically every autograph to the person in front of him. The same can certainly be said for the “Vampire Ball” weekend. I don’t think he used the same quote, phrase, or sentence more than three times over the entire weekend! I don’t recall what started it, but Jeff ended up writing around twenty poems over the next two hours. I mean, 14-20 lines long, taking up an entire A4 page. They even had different themes! One was a country song, one was Shakespearian...but each poem related to the person that was in front of him. He used their name in the poem, he used their personality in the poem, and he gave them something truly unique that nobody else will ever have. Toni is from Essex, so she has that wonderful Essex accent. Therefore, Jeff made use of this accent and would get her to read out a lot of the phrases and poems that he was writing. Everybody that came over to the autograph table was awesome, friendly, excited, enjoying the weekend, and their enthusiasm in turn made me even more enthusiastic. To each and every one of you that I interacted with at the autograph table that day, thank you. Two and a half hours flew by because of your excitement and willingness to goof around with Jeff.
By the time
the autograph session was finished, it was 7:30pm. This gave us half an hour to
go and chill in the green room before Jeff, George, Jonathan, and Dayne had to
judge the costume competition. I’m not going to tell you what was said in the
green room because I feel it would be highly unprofessional. This is the time
of the weekend where the guests could relax, switch off, unwind, and chill out.
This is the time of the weekend where they could say what they wanted and feel
absolutely free to do so. What happens in the green room stays in the green
room. However, with that being said, I will give you one little snippet from
each day. On this particular day, George was showing myself and Jeff some
photos of his wife and three beautiful little boys, and was explaining to us
what his home life is like on a daily basis. In turn, Jeff was telling George
all about his two little boys. It was a really nice bonding session between the
three of us (and one other Starfury event staff whose name escapes me). I
talked about my parents, what it was like growing up without a father, and my
tribute tattoo to my deceased friend Luke, and in turn they shared some
detailed about their own families and lives.
When George
and Jeff went into the main hall to judge the competition with Jonathan and
Dayne, I joined my friends Becca, Alison, and Mark at the tables that were
surrounding the dance floor where the competition would be taking place. The
costume competition was exactly what it sounds like. Various convention
attendees dressed up as various characters (Spike, Disney princesses, etc.),
did a lap around the dance floor, and the four judges deliberated on how good
they were (without sharing it with the rest of us). The costumes were all fantastic. From little four-year-old
Tommy with his fart gun, to the group of pro-Twilight protestors, to Mary
Poppins, to the female vampire Spike...everyone was phenomenal. One of my
personal favourite highlights was watching Luke, dressed as Edward Cullen
(glitter and all), chasing Sean Harry around the dance floor, while Sean tried
to escape his evil, glittery clutches. Good times. The judges deliberated, came
back out 20 minutes later, and declared the winners...while Jonathan Woodward
stole little Tommy’s fart gun and started playing it into a microphone. There’s
always one...
The day’s
festivities drew to a close just before 9pm. By this point, I was tired and I
felt a little rough, so I rested in my hotel room for an hour before rejoining
the Vampire Ball Masquerade party. Saturday night was one of my favourite parts
of the weekend for numerous reasons, but here are some of the highlights...
·
Sitting around a table at the bar with Jeff
Ricketts, Jonathan Woodward, and a group of my friends, drinking whisky shots
and scotch shots (Jeff doesn’t drink alcohol, so he was drinking something
else). Between myself and Jonathan, we finished the bottle of scotch. Would
Jonathan allow me to drink shots of my 10-year-old Aberlour scotch at first? Oh, no, no! He told me that for every
year the scotch had been around, you had to keep it in your mouth for another
second, swilling it and enjoying the flavour. Therefore, we were swilling the
scotch around in our mouths for ten seconds before drinking the shot.
·
Jonathan borrowed a bow and arrow from one of
the convention guests. This particular bow and arrow fired marshmallows.
Jonathan proceeded to start firing at all of us, before setting his sights on
other people in the bar/lounge area. He would hide behind a pillar, then jump
out and fire a marshmallow at somebody.
·
Jonathan showed me a tattoo on his right
forearm, which looked like it could be a vagina, or possibly a woman. It turns
out that it’s a sculpture that his grandfather made of a naked woman diving
into a swimming pool. Also, while we were lingering around the bar, Cecilia came over to sit with us. Cecilia's costume for the night included some fake blood around her face. Jonathan, in his infinite wisdom, had a thought pop into his head and he wanted to turn that thought into a reality. He aimed his camera at Cecilia and Jeff, asked Jeff to smile, and THIS is the result. It looks like Jeff has just beaten Cecilia to a pulp and is loving every minute of it!...
·
My friend Paige has a gift when she’s been
drinking (and sometimes even when she hasn’t been). If she’s had a few drinks
and you so much as mention Sarah Michelle Gellar’s name...she starts crying.
I’m dead serious. Her eyes will get all shiny and watery and tears will start
flowing. Jeff overheard this conversation and between the two of us we decided
to test this while she was sober at the autograph table the next morning. Jeff,
very unsubtly, turns to me when Paige
arrives and starts talking about how great it was to work with Sarah Michelle
Gellar...Paige’s eyes brim with tears instantly. Such an interesting party
trick! I asked Paige why this happens and she simply said “Sarah Michelle
Gellar is too beautiful”. Fair enough.
·
Claritsa had a liiiiiiiittle too much
to drink on Saturday night. By 1am, she was asleep in the bar area of the
Hilton. Jonathan turned to me and asked if I have a ring on me. I gave him my
Claddagh ring and he walked over to Claritsa and pretended to propose to
her...while she was still fast asleep. Halfway through this photo taking
funsies, Claritsa woke up and looked at me, while Jonathan was still crouched
down behind her chair. She fell asleep again without so much as turning around.
Kudos to Tanya for taking these glorious pictures.
·
An hour later, Claritsa needed to visit the
bathroom due to an excess of alcohol consumption. Gabs took her to the toilet,
while I went looking for Paige so that Gabs would have some help in getting
Claritsa out of the bathroom when needed (I went in to help and was swiftly
booted out by the Hilton cleaning lady). Within five minutes, I’d found Paige,
we returned to the bathroom (I stood outside), and Claritsa and Gabs were gone!
We went to Claritsa’s room, not there. We went to Gabs and Paige’s room, not
there. It took us half an hour to
track them down in the end. The person who pointed us in the right direction?
Jeff Ricketts. We bumped into him in the lobby and he told us that Claritsa was
just around the corner. In one of the more memorable, hilarious moments of the
night, myself and Paige bumped into George Hertzberg just leaving the bar.
Paige, who was a little drunk herself by this point, turns to George and says,
“I was sooo gonna get laid tonight,
but then the girl went and threw up!”. George took a second to figure out what
he’d just heard, turned to me, raised one eyebrow, grinned, and said, “shall I
even ask?”. I said “it’s best not to” before wishing him goodnight.
Such a fun
party night!
I woke up
Sunday morning, battling a slight hangover, and trying to function off of such
little sleep over the past couple of days. Luckily for me, my only photo of the
day was Jonathan Woodward in vampire makeup, which wasn’t taking place until
1pm. All I had to do before then was to go to the Dayne Johnson/Jonathan
Woodward makeup panel from 11am-1pm, where Dayne would be putting Jonathan in
the makeup on stage, ready for the photoshoot. Holden Webster reborn, eleven
years later! However, before that happened, I bumped into Jeff and went with
him to the green room, as he had a 10am photo shoot with James Marsters, Emma
Caulfield, and George Hertzberg. Upon arriving in the green room, I sat down at
a table with James Marsters, his P.A., and Jeff. Jeff quickly left to talk to
George, James’ P.A. disappeared for a moment or two to get a drink, and Emma
Caulfield came and sat down with me and James. Suddenly, I had this moment in
my head where I thought, “hold shit, I’m sat at a table with James Marsters and Emma Caulfield, IN THE
GREEN ROOM”. Then, I had a second thought, “HOLY SHIT, I’M SAT AT A TABLE WITH JAMES MARSTERS AND EMMA CAULFIELD, I
BETTER NOT FANBOY OR SAY ANYTHING STUPID!”. What a surreal experience.
Again, what happens in the green room stays in the green room, but that was one
of my favourite moments of the weekend.
Highlights
from the Dayne/Jonathan makeup extravaganza :-
·
I don’t recall what prompted this, but Jonathan
started to translate a girl in the audience that asked him a question in
Italian. Jonathan, of course, translated it as something dirty and was telling
the girl that you can get antibiotics for that now and it’s rare that someone
loses their nose to syphilis.
· Jonathan shaved his face Sunday morning in preparation of the prosthetic and makeup that Dayne would be applying. He said that doing this was ‘nothing’ because for his role on “Firefly”, he had to shave his body from head to toe.
· Jonathan talked about how a role on one episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” changed his life. So much so that he’s been able to come to conventions in England on a consist basis for over a decade.
· When Jonathan first met Joss Whedon, Joss was wearing a cowboy hat, and the first words out of Joss’ mouth after “hello” were that his balls really ached that day. Charming man, no?
· Jonathan is mostly retired from acting now and has spent the past few years working on radio in Maine.
· Jonathan shaved his face Sunday morning in preparation of the prosthetic and makeup that Dayne would be applying. He said that doing this was ‘nothing’ because for his role on “Firefly”, he had to shave his body from head to toe.
· Jonathan talked about how a role on one episode of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” changed his life. So much so that he’s been able to come to conventions in England on a consist basis for over a decade.
· When Jonathan first met Joss Whedon, Joss was wearing a cowboy hat, and the first words out of Joss’ mouth after “hello” were that his balls really ached that day. Charming man, no?
· Jonathan is mostly retired from acting now and has spent the past few years working on radio in Maine.
·
Jonathan was asked a question. A question that
would later be asked to Jeff and George as well...“if you woke up as a girl for
the day, what would you do?”. Jonathan would inspect the girl’s bathrooms
because they’re way nicer than the men’s bathrooms. After seeing the ladies’
bathroom in the Hilton lounge the night before, I can say with certainty that
Jonathan wasn’t lying. It’s like a frickin’ lounge area in there! Meanwhile,
ours smell of piss and B.O.
·
Jonathan told us that his grandfather is the one
who taught him how to make paper hats out of anything (hence the giant
chocolate wrapped on Friday night).
·
“If you could be a vampire or a werewolf, which
one would you be and why?” – Jonathan said vampire because werewolves are too
hairy.
·
You need to bear in mind that while all of this
hilarity was ensuing, Dayne was trying to get Jonathan to sit still so he could
apply his prosthetics and makeup.
·
Jonathan’s first UK convention was a Starfury
one a decade ago called “White Room”. Due to nerves, Jonathan had some
whisky...and some more whisky...and some more whisky. He woke up the next
morning for his 6am photoshoot (I think he was exaggerating that time) and
realised that he had the smell of whisky coming out of his pores. As did David
Benham, who was to be his studio photo buddy that day. To try to counteract
their feelings of roughness, they had a little hair of the dog (more alcohol),
which only made the problem worse. Jonathan’s solution? To give all the
attendees of the photo session that were overage a shot of whisky to cover up
the smell of their own and to anoint their foreheads with a little whisky as
well.
·
Jonathan is known around Starfury events for his
wild antics. These include the cock-mic and Skyping an event (when he had to
pull out) from his bath tub.
·
He mentioned that Dominic Keating has “junk the
size of Texas” and then burst into song about it.
·
“What would you write on your gravestone to sum
up your life?”...somebody yelled from the audience that Dayne would write “he’s
finally still!”. Perfect way to end the two-hour session of jokes, goofs, and
makeup tips.
I headed
over to the photo session area, where I bumped in to a now-moving-again
Claritsa and we queued up for our studio photo with Jonathan Woodward in full vampire makeup. It’s so weird to see that hideous face in
front of you and then have that face be smiley and playful. One of the more
surreal experiences of my life. There are many photos from that session that
look absolutely badass, including my own, but there is one that defines the
experience in every conceivable way. That defines the weekend, you could say. It involves vampires, alcohol, partying,
interacting with celebrities, and general badassery...
Yes, that’s
real whisky. Yes, she was tipsy by the end. Yes, she was wet by the end...I
mean from the alcohol spilling!
After
leaving Jonathan’s vampire photo session, it was time to head back to the main
talk hall for Jeff and George’s talk. What I love about this talk is that it
started with a quiet audience. Everyone was hungover, shy, and exhausted.
However, by the end of the hour, Jeff and George had won everyone over
entirely. They had great chemistry together. Highlights! :-
·
Jeff’s first psychicery (I think I just made
that word up...) of the day was to get people in the audience to name
characters from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, “Angel”, and “Firefly”. George
would write them down on a piece of paper (at one point Jeff said “you’ll have
to spell ‘Kaylee’ for George, he’s from Texas. Buuuuurn), and they would go
into a bag that someone in the audience allowed them to use. Then, Jeff plucked
someone out of the audience to pull a name out of the bag. While the lovely
lady from the audience was choosing a name out of the bag, Jeff was writing
down what name she was going to choose on a gigantic
post-it note (seriously, it was humongous). The name ‘Kaylee’ was pulled
out, and Jeff turned his massive post-it note around to reveal the name
‘Kaylee’. Ooooh, ESP for the win! When someone from the audience asked if they
could see the other names in the bag, Jeff said “sure!...After the show”.
·
One of Jeff’s most bizarre moments was being on
stage in New York City, partaking in a play where he had to shit out Hitler. I
kid you not. During the play, he would pull down his trousers, and poop out
Hitler, which would start the next section of the play. Yep.
·
“If you could be any fruit or vegetable, what
one would you be?”...George would be a cherry tomato. It was a very specific type of tomato that George
wanted to be. Jeff would be a banana. The reason for Jeff’s choice is that he
feels the Austrian people mistreat bananas. While most of the world will open
the banana, roll down the skin, eat a bit, roll down the skin a bit more, eat a
bit more, etc., the Austrians will remove the banana entirely from its skin and
then hold the squishy banana in their hand while they eat it.
·
At Hallowhedon last year, Jeff made three
friends from Essex...Tammy (she’s the girl in the photo with vampire Jonathan),
Tanya (she took the photos of Jonathan proposing to drunken Claritsa), and
Clare. On the rare occasion when nobody’s hand was up to ask a question, Jeff
would randomly point someone out in the audience and say “I see that person
wants to ask a question”, and they’d have to come up with one on the spot.
Everything was going swimmingly until Jeff made one mistake...he point to
Clare. Now, what you need to understand is that these Essex girls are born from
sarcasm and sass. So, when Jeff was trying to use his ESP to find out things
about Clare, things got hilarious...
Jeff:
“Have you ever been to a gynaecological before (his words)?”
Clare:
“Noooooooo.”
Jeff:
“I’m sensing that you’re a woman.”
Clare
(in the driest voice ever): “Yes. Wow, God, how do you do it?”
So.
Frickin’. Funny. Jeff was on stage like “I’m crashing hard, guys, I’m crashing
hard”. Another highlight from this section is that George had been massaging
the shoulders of everyone that had volunteered to go on stage or that Jeff had
pointed out in the audience to ask a question. When George started massaging
Clare, she said “I think I’ll wait a minute, thanks” because she wanted to be
massaged more.
·
Jeff talked about trying to do stand-up comedy
in New York City. He came on stage for his first ever stand-up routine and he
was immediately heckled with a very loud, aggressive “get off! Get off!”. Jeff
took offence to this comment as he hadn’t even started his routine yet...then
he looked down and realised that he was standing on someone’s hand.
·
“If your life was a newspaper headline right
now, what would it be?”...Jeff’s would be “Get off! Get off!”, while George took
a more beautiful stance on the question. George’s answer was “Faithful
Learner”. Since becoming a father, George’s entire life has changed. He
believes he’s here on Earth to raise his children and support his family.
Having a family gave George an epiphany moment and everything has changed for
him since that day.
·
Jeff and George were asked the same question
that Dayne and Jonathan were earlier in the day...“if you woke up as a woman
for the day, what would you do?”...George’s answer - instantly after the
question was asked – was, “I wouldn’t get out of bed”. Good work, George.
·
Jeff was asked if he could be on any current
television show in the UK, which one would it be. Jeff’s response was, due to
the Essex girls, TOWIE (“The Only Way Is Essex”). The only problem was that
Jeff pronounced “TOWIE” as “TOE-Y”.
·
Finally,
Jeff asked the audience if they knew how to tell an American in Europe.
People shouted out the usual stereotypes...accent, cowboy hat, cowboy boots,
etc. Jeff’s response was that all you have to do is look at their socks.
American almost always wear white socks, whereas the rest of Europe seem to be
more colourful. George suddenly exposed his foot to the audience, but his sock
was navy! Traitor! However, he did put the sock back into a cowboy boot, so the
startling revelation was kind of diminished.
Two talks
down for Jeff over the weekend, and two very successful ones. They were
engaging, interesting, entertaining, and completely off the wall. I took such
pride in watching him on stage because over the past year, Jeff has become a
friend to me. He’s not only someone I work with, he’s a friend. Watching your
friend do what they do best and have everyone in the audience cheering and
laughing is something special to behold. After Jeff and George’s talk, it was
time for the final talk of the weekend...James and Emma. If you polled the
audience at the opening ceremony on which talk they were looking forward to
most, it would have been this one. Getting to see a leading actor from “Buffy
The Vampire Slayer” on stage is a rare, memorable moment in time. Getting to
see two together is something that
happens very infrequently in the UK. Shockingly infrequently. Highlights! :-
·
James mentioned that having bright blonde hair
made it hard to hide in public at a time before he knew how to deal with being
recognised. Therefore, he used to hide in alleyways and doorways sometimes back
in the early days of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” because he didn’t know how to
deal with fame.
·
James is a big Batman fan because Batman can die
easier than Superman. Batman can be shot or stabbed, which means that you
always have to fear for Batman’s life, whereas Superman is indestructible
except for kryptonite, which makes for a repetitive reading.
·
James dislikes inherited wealth and feels that
people shouldn’t be able to pass down their riches after they die. Each person
should have to earn what they have.
·
During the party for the 100th
episode of “Angel”, James went over to one of the Directors from The WB and
thanked them for allowing “Angel” to be on the air. The Director turned to
James and jested “you should be, with the amount of money it costs to make an
episode!”
·
If James was going to get a tattoo of any famous
person, it would be Dr. Martin Luther King. Emma said that she’d never get a
tattoo of a person.
·
Emma’s favourite chocolate is Toblerone, while
James (who also loves Toblerone) chose chocolate mint M’n’M’s...or anything
chocolate mint.
·
Tony Head taught James everything he knows about
film/TV acting. James comes from a theatre background, where the audience (and
camera) are a lot further away. Therefore, adjusting to the camera being right
in front of your face and being able to pick up every little facial expression
took a while to adjust to. Even if James wasn’t in a scene, he would sit on set
and watch Tony Head act because Tony Head is so good.
·
“What songs do you like to sing in the
shower?”...James usually makes up his own songs in the shower (some of these
become “Ghost Of The Robot” songs), while Emma has recently been singing Taylor
Swift, especially “Shake If Off”, which was booed surprisingly loudly by most
of the audience.
·
James was asked what it was like working on
“Angel” and he joked that David Boreanaz is a hard worker, and slightly cranky.
James mentioned that after arriving on “Angel”, they told him they would make
any changes he required to accommodate him (trailer, etc.). The only thing that
James changed was the coffee. Before James arrived, the coffee was from a
kettle type appliance, which meant that it tasted foul if left for a couple of
hours. The first thing James did was get it changed to a coffee machine with
the little circular coffee pouches because it tastes much nicer, and Hollywood is built on caffeine, as you need to have
energy for 14, 15, 16 hours at a time. All of the cast came up to him
afterwards and thanked him. That was the only change he made behind the scenes
on “Angel”.
·
James and Emma were asked the same question that
Jeff and George were earlier...“if your life was a newspaper headline right
now, what would it say?”. James’ response was “he’s not dead yet”, while Emma’s
was “she follows the rain”, because, of course, Emma has been chasing the rain
because of the drought in California, but the rain only seems to arrive as
she’s leaving an area. It happened with Birmingham too. The rain arrived on
Monday, as she was leaving. James joked that “she follows the rain” sounds like
a Taylor Swift song.
·
James explained to all of us what the
constitution was founded for in America and how he feels it’s been corrupted
over time. It was designed to protect the non-wealthy from tyranny, but now
that has morphed into corporate tyranny.
·
The guy holding the microphone, who was going
into the audience for people who wanted to ask questions, fell over. The
audience all started roaring with laughter. James’ response was “only in
England” (would people laugh before offering help), while Emma said “awww, I
missed it?! People falling over is my favourite thing in the world!”.
·
The costume department on “Buffy The Vampire
Slayer” very subtly offered James Spike’s leather jacket from the show. There
were only two coats ever used for Spike on “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. One for
James and one for his stunt-double. James turned them down because the costume
department don’t own the jacket, so it would be like theft. A few months later,
it sold for $250,000 and James has hated himself ever since.
·
Speaking of the leather jacket, James used to
offer it to Sarah when they were shooting on cold nights. James used to refuse
to let the show clean the jacket because he felt that Spike isn’t the type of
character to clean his leather jacket. He’s dirty! He lives in a crypt! He’s a
vampire! So, on the few occasions they went against his wishes and cleaned the
jacket, he would take it outside and roll around the dirt in it.
·
James talked about what it was like to do
audiobook work and Emma said that she’d love
to do some audiobook readings. Something like a trashy romance novel (the
example she used was Jane Austen).
·
While working on “Torchwood” (Doctor Who’s
spinoff show...re-arrange the letters), James asked Russell T. Davies if
Captain John Hart would ever get to appear on “Doctor Who”. Russell said there
was no chance, no way, not ever, because John Hart was too naughty. It was
never going to happen. Fast-forward six years, and Captain John Hart is briefly
shown on screen in Doctor Who’s “Time Heist” from season eight, when some of
the most notorious criminals in the galaxy were shown in quick succession.
James then happily declared that “I WON!”.
·
If James could be a superhero from The Avengers,
he would be Wolverine (Wolverine is in The Avengers in the comics). Emma couldn’t think of a single member of The
Avengers and eventually settled for Wonder Woman (DC Comics). Emma said “I’m
sorry! Yesterday I told you I’ve never seen “Doctor Who”, today I can’t name an
Avenger! You must hate me so much!”
·
Both James and Emma chose Buffy over Faith, and
both gave the reason “because she’s Buffy”, while both admitting that they love
the character of Faith too.
·
Spike loved
working on “Angel” season five because he felt that Spike was Angel’s
mirror image. He was what Angel could become. It’s such a rarity for a main
character to arrive on a show just to
mess with the leading hero, that James couldn’t help but love every minute
of it.
·
Almost all of the cemetery scenes on “Buffy The
Vampire Slayer” are filmed in the parking lot next to the warehouses they
usually film in. During the first season of the show, most of the cemeteries
are legitimate cemeteries, but Sarah has a massive phobia of cemeteries. The
scene in “Nightmares”, where Buffy is buried alive (real grave, real cemetery)
was one of the worst experiences of Sarah’s life. Therefore, they quickly
switched to a fake one on the parking lot because it was more convenient for
filming and much easier on Sarah.
·
The neighbours around the house that was used as
the Summers’ house (the externals are a real house) grew to hate “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” because
they were always filming at night and making noise.
·
Downtown Sunnydale (the cinema, The Magic Box,
the hardware store...basically the main strip of Sunnydale’s downtown) was
slowly built up over time behind the warehouses where they filmed. Emma and
James said it was awesome to watch it grow from a couple of fake stores into an
actual realistic looking downtown as the seasons passed by.
·
Emma would go full-frontal nude if it meant she
could be in “Game Of Thrones”. She later changed this answer to topless only.
This conversation led to one of the most interesting parts of the panel. James
said he hasn’t done a topless scene since “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” (can
someone verify this?) because he hated doing topless or naked scenes. It’s too
much hassle, too much drama, and James has grown sick of seeing nudity or
simulated sex scenes on TV since the 80’s boom. When TV companies realised they
could get away with it in the 80’s, suddenly every single show had nudity, so
James quickly became bored. He said that it’s now more cutting edge to have no
nudity than it is to have nudity, which was the original reason why television
shows started doing it. James went into full rant mode about this! He said that
edgy is great, challenging is great, deep stories which make you think are
great, but nudity is just a cheap, pointless trick 99% of the time. You don’t
learn any nude acting in drama school and there’s a reason for that. Emma
agreed with James on every point and James received a loud round of applause
after he finished talking about this topic.
·
Someone in the audience asked James if he knew
that Bianca Lawson was the actress behind Eva Gardiner in “Witches of East
End”, as they both appeared in the same episode. James had no idea that it was Bianca Lawson, who he worked with on “Buffy The
Vampire Slayer”, as she played Kendra. James thought that the actress behind
Eva was “like, sixteen years old!” (she’s 35). He didn’t actually have a scene
with her on Witches, so he was using that as an excuse, even though he watched
the episode when it aired. Emma asked “who was Kendra?” and James was all “SHE WAS THE BLACK SLAYER!”. So funny to
watch James lose his mind over trivia facts. He ended his answer with “damn,
black don’t crack”.
·
A young girl in the audience, I believe she was twelve
or thirteen years old, asked James and Emma this question...“who would you take
with you to watch the universe die at the end of time?”...wow, deep. James said
that he was loving this convention because half of the questions he was being
asked, he’d never heard before. Usually at conventions it’s the same 100
questions time after time, so he’s basically memorised the answers by this
point. James and Emma were blown away that
such a deep question was coming from somebody so young. James’ answer was
George Bush or Dick Cheney because he could explain to them that it was
probably their fault. Buuuurn. I believe that Emma was too traumatised to think
about the end of the universe.
·
Someone asked who would win in a fight...Spike
or Anyanka? James said they’d probably just have sex instead of fight.
·
James prefers playing villains because you get
to do so much more with the character...you just have to be prepared to lose
that final fight at the end of the film. Comparingly, Emma likes rooting for
villains. The example she used was Hannibal Lecter, and James suddenly turned
to her, exasperated, and said “YOU ROOTED
FOR HANNIBAL LECTER?! WHAT IS THE
MATTER WITH YOU?!”.
·
James isn’t one of those people that hates the
Twilight franchise because while his son grew to love books because of Harry
Potter, his daughter grew to love books because of Twilight. While he’s never
read the books himself, he does appreciate them encouraging people to read.
Those of you that are sat there thinking “James doesn’t have a daughter!”, he’s
the legal guardian of his niece and he considers her his daughter.
·
Emma watched the first few seasons of “True
Blood”, but quickly gave up on the show.
·
Arguably the biggest laugh and cheer of the
session came from James Marsters. When asked who would win in a fight, the characters
from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” or the characters from “True Blood”, James said
that Buffy would win by demoralising them with superior dialogue.
·
James’ favourite Star Trek series is the
original one, while Emma’s favourite is The New Generation. This led to a
genuine debate on stage between Emma and James. James said that the original
show shook up the status quo more and did more to push the social issues that
were happening in the world at the time. Emma agreed with that, but argued that
The Next Generation has better acting and stories. Someone from the audience
yelled out that we may find out who would win that Spike vs. Anyanka fight
soon.
·
Emma would love to see or play a female
equivalent of Breaking Bad’s Walter White because the character is so
fascinating.
·
Emma said that nursery rhymes are actually
pretty fucked up if you’re paying attention...Humpty Dumpty split his head open
and could never be put back together again, Hansel and Gretel escaped one
fucked up situation, just to land into an even
more fucked up one.
·
“If you had to choose between keeping all of
your old memories, but never being able to create new ones, or losing all of
your old memories, but being able to create new ones, which would you
choose?”...again, James and Emma were shocked by the weight of this question.
James ultimately chose to make new memories because he’s already forgotten half
of his old ones anyway. Plus, what is life without the ability to create new
memories? Emma decided to keep her old ones, but was starting to get swayed by
James’ reasoning towards the end.
·
Someone asked the classic “cavemen vs.
astronauts” question from Angel’s “A Hole In The World”, and James chose
cavemen, while Emma chose astronauts. The person who asked the question
stipulated that the astronauts did not have
weapons. James said that the best part of that scene from an improvised
perspective was actually cut from the show. At one point, Spike was telling
Angel that the astronauts would be too small to defeat the cavemen because the
astronauts would have to be tiny to fit into the shuttle pods.
·
Finally, James said that Spike was a happy
accident. He was supposed to die at the end of season two’s “What’s My Line”,
but was kept around because Spike was so popular. At first, Joss hated keeping Spike because he didn’t
want to be the type of show where you loved and rooted for the vampires. At the
beginning of every season, Joss would talk to James and say that they’d planned
the entire season arc, planned every character arc...except for Spike. They
could never figure out what to do with Spike. Spike was always the missing
piece of the puzzle. This actually worked to Spike and James’ advantage because
it meant that Spike was experimented with so much.
After James
and Emma’s talk drew to a close, it was time to meet up with Jeff and enter the
autograph hall for our three-hour session. Before doors opened, I quickly ran
around and got James’ autograph again and got Emma to autograph our studio
photo together. I thanked them both for coming (in case I didn’t see them
again), and told James I’d see him in January in Paris. The main difference
between Saturday’s autograph session and Sunday’s autograph session is that a
Jeff Ricketts vs. Jonathan Woodward feud was born. All weekend these two crazy
characters were bouncing off of each other, but it reached boiling point here.
Jonathan was before Jeff in the autograph sequence this time around, so
Jonathan would occasionally write something on an autograph for Jeff to read.
This lead to a series of shouts across the room, random singing across the
room, and general horsesassery (I think I made up another word...). At one
point, Jonathan wrote an essay to someone on the back of an A4 poster and told
them to get Jeff to read it. Jeff grabbed a second A4 poster (from the same
family of people) and responded to Jonathan on it, which was then taken by the
family back to Jonathan. It was so, so, so funny. I think the attendees got a
big kick out of the feud, as it gave them something to laugh at and join in with
while they were queuing.
Earlier in
the day, I was talking to my friend Emma (A.K.A. Bunny) about Jeff. Emma was
complaining about the lack of Star Trek 8x10s available for Jeff. You can’t
find them anywhere online, you can’t find them at any convention, and she
really wanted a Star Trek 8x10 to get signed. Just before Emma arrived at our
table, I mentioned this to Jeff and he told me that he actually went to a
convention over a decade previously and they had Star Trek 8x10s. In fact, he happens to have the remaining ones
that weren’t sold at the convention. Even better, he had 20 of them with him in
his suitcase upstairs. I asked Jeff if he’d be okay to sign one for Emma later
as a surprise and he said that he’d happily do it. Sadly, by the time we finished
in the autograph hall, Emma had left the convention because she had to catch a
train home. However, I have it at my house ready to give Emma at LFCCW in two
weeks (she’s aware of it by this point and seemed very excited!).
Sorry, Jeff,
but I have to tell this story...
All weekend
Jeff was phenomenal at the autograph table. Really friendly, really chatty,
completely customised autographs, writing essays, messing around with
Jonathan...there was only one time all weekend where Jeff’s cool persona hit a speed bump. At the
convention, there was a young female from France called “France”. Yep, it was
her name too. So, when Jeff found out that she was French and called “France”,
he made a little joke out of it. He turned to Toni and said to France, “this is
my friend Uzbekistan”, before turning to me and saying, “this is my friend
Turkey”. Now, in that situation, you’d expect to get a giggle from the person,
right? To have a bit of banter and have some fun. France’s response was ice cold. She looked as though she was
going to burst into tears and punch Jeff in the face in equal measures. Jeff
quickly realised that he’d somehow offended her and tried to back-pedal. While
he was back-pedalling and trying to explain to France that “France” is a lovely
name, Toni caught my eye and we had to swiftly look away from each other before
bursting into hysterics. The most challenging part of my weekend wasn’t trying
not to fanboy in front of James Marsters in the end; it was trying not to burst
into tears of laughter with Toni in front of Jeff and France. Jeff kept digging
himself a deeper and deeper hole by telling France that his surname, Ricketts,
is a disease in American. My brain was screaming “stop talking, Jeff, stop
talking!”. Eventually, Jeff mercifully moved on and started writing the
autograph. What did he write, you ask? “France is a lovely, lovely name!”.
Shoot me, shoot me now.
Jeff spent
so much time talking to everyone at the autograph table and having a great
time, that he actually overran by 30 minutes or so (an hour overall, 30 minutes
after the 2nd to last guest left). If you were at “Vampire Ball” and
you were wondering why the trailers before the closing ceremony were so long,
it was because everyone was waiting for Jeff to finish up at the autograph
table. Oops. To be fair, that’s one of the reasons why people love Jeff! He
spends as much time as he possibly can with every single person. He wanted to
get to know you and have a little fun. It’s why a number of people have stayed
in contact with him over the past year. He’s as much a friend as he is a guest
at these conventions! Now, for one last green room snippet...when Toni, Jeff,
and myself got to the green room, everyone was sat around waiting for Jeff.
James was resting his head on a table, with his arms splayed in front of him.
I’m not sure if it was exhaustion or sickness, but he was clearly having a
rough time. For those of you unaware, James was a little sick over the weekend
and it progressively got a little worse as the weekend wore on. However, he was
on the stage 5 minutes later in the closing ceremony acting like the most
healthy, energetic person in the world. Huge respect to James Marsters for
being able to turn it on when he needs to. It was very impressive to witness
firsthand.
After the closing ceremony was over and the weekend had drawn to a close, a group of us met up between the talk hall and the green room to say goodbye. James and Emma had very early flights the next morning, so they needed to dash off to go to bed. I wasn’t expecting James or Emma to say goodbye to me. They’re two big stars! They’re the headliners, the main eventers! However, James came over, shook my hand, said it was nice to meet me, and said he’d see me in January. While Emma came over, stroked my arm, and said goodbye. THESE ARE THE THINGS DREAMS ARE MADE OF, PEOPLE! I thanked Sean Harry for allowing me to come as a guest to the event, before going to the green room with Jeff, George, and Jonathan.
After the closing ceremony was over and the weekend had drawn to a close, a group of us met up between the talk hall and the green room to say goodbye. James and Emma had very early flights the next morning, so they needed to dash off to go to bed. I wasn’t expecting James or Emma to say goodbye to me. They’re two big stars! They’re the headliners, the main eventers! However, James came over, shook my hand, said it was nice to meet me, and said he’d see me in January. While Emma came over, stroked my arm, and said goodbye. THESE ARE THE THINGS DREAMS ARE MADE OF, PEOPLE! I thanked Sean Harry for allowing me to come as a guest to the event, before going to the green room with Jeff, George, and Jonathan.
George,
Jonathan, Jeff, myself, Toni, Simon (Toni’s husband and George’s assistant for
the weekend), Niamh (who I will talk about in a minute), Tammy, Tanya, Clare
(the Essex three), and Natalie (another friend that Jeff made last year)
arranged to go to Titash (I kid you not) for a nice Balti curry to close out
the weekend. Yet again, this was one of the highlights of the weekend. I only
wish I could tell you what we talked about...which I cannot. Most of the
conversations were not for the ears of children. Towards the end of the meal
and on the way back in the taxi, Niamh, Jeff, and myself got into a friendly
heated debate about Shakespeare, which stemmed from our conversation about
Joss’ version of “Much Ado About Nothing”. The reason why I’m mentioning this
is because Niamh will be talking to Jeff on her podcast over the next couple of
weeks, and I would strongly encourage that you check it out because it’s going
to be terrific. Niamh’s podcast is located here - http://www.culturallyfixated.podbean.com.
Go, go. Listen, listen. While you wait, she has three podcasts with
“Dollhouse” and “Much Ado About Nothing”
alumni, Reed Diamond, amongst other awesomeness.
We returned
to the hotel and I started my goodbye tour. I couldn’t stay on the Sunday night
because I had to drive home and start work at 5am...ouch. It was already 1am by
this point...double ouch. I said goodbye to my friends, goodbye to the guests
that remained, thanked Jeff an inordinate amount of times and arranged to Skype
with him later in the week, and I thanked Sean Harry again on my way out of the
hotel. So, that’s my weekend, guys.
“Vampire
Ball 6” will take place at the Renaissance Hotel, Heathrow, London, from the 20th-22nd
of November 2015. If you’ve been before, you know it’s going to be awesome. If
you’ve never been, what are you waiting for?! BOOK TICKETS! Even without a
guest announcement yet, you know Sean Harry is going to put on the best
convention of the year. Do yourself a favour and book tickets. Regular tickets
are £95 for the weekend, while gold tickets are £160. The website is located here. Go, go, go! Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
If you were
at “Vampire Ball” and want to share you experiences, pictures, or memories,
please leave a comment below! I love reading
about everyone else’s weekend too! If you weren’t there, but you’ve met James,
Emma, or another one of the guests before, please leave your experiences below
too! If you’ve never met anyone, but just want to comment, I love that too.
If you’ve
made it to the end of this review, I commend you. It’s my longest ever review
of anything. More than “Hallowhedon”, more than “Restless”...this review is 26
A4-pages, excluding pictures. It’s
practically a small book by this point.
FINALLY! I
want to thank Becca Moriarty for allowing me to use a great deal of her photos
from the convention. All of those photos you’ve seen of people on stage are all from Becca. She’s a phenomenal
photographer, and please go and check out her cosplay page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/LeagueOfExtraordinaryCosplayers) and her website (http://leagueofextraordinarycosplayers.com)!
I’d also
like to thank Tammy Shepherd for allowing me to use her photo with a vampiric
Jonathan Woodward.
Lastly, I’d
like to thank every single person I met over the weekend of “Vampire Ball 5”.
From the crew, to the attendees, to old friends, to new friends, to James
Marsters, to Emma Caulfield, to George Hertzberg, to Dayne Johnson, to Jonathan
Woodward, to Jeff Ricketts, to Sean Harry. Thank you all so much for giving me one of the best weekends of my life. I hope
to see you all there next year too.
FINAL SCORE: 10/10
I loved this review! Oh gosh, I'd love to meet Jonathan Woodward sometime, and Emma Caulfield tooooo :D I've had the pleasure of meeting Jeff Rickets and reading about his antics just filled me with smiles and memories. I really agree with the things you said about James Marsters being such a pro! I met him at a convention where 3 days prior he had injured his back on set, so he could only stand or lie down, but he showed up! He took photos! He signed autographs and he took his time for everyone :) He was laid out on a table with a bunch of pillows propped under him while he signed autographs and was just an absolute delight despite his injury, massive respect for that man!
ReplyDeleteSounds like it was a terrific convention and it's really gotten me in the mood for my next one. See you at Hallowhedon Shangel! :)
Read to the end. Great to read the bits I missed, I'd been ill a week or so before the con so chilled out a bit more than usual rather than the frantic 'try to get everything done without any sleep' that I've done in the past. Thanks for writing a fab review.
ReplyDeleteHiya - I saw you around at the con (and complimented you at Jeff's table on the Sat, cos dude, you looked fabulous all weekend!), awesome review! My looooooong lj write up is here (http://angelkitty101.livejournal.com/518613.html) it is tres James heavy tho :-)
ReplyDeleteIt was an awesome con, I went to VB3 in 2012 after a succession of very disappointing cons, and Sean gave me back my faith in weekend cons. His are the only ones I'll go to, because they are so SO good, and the atmosphere is so welcoming and chilled. Steve and Mark (James manager and friend) remarked on how relaxed the con was, which is awesome! Along with James saying it was one of the best cons in the world :-)
So glad you had fun! See you at the next one, possibly :-)
Thank you for this wonderful report! Really enjoyed reading it. Brought back so many lovely memories from the weekend! It really was a great convention but of course with Starfury that's pretty much given. All the guests were just awesome and had so much fun. Of course paying the price now in the form of suffering from lack of sleep and starting con-flu but that's just to be expected.
ReplyDeleteIt was a great pleasure of seeing Jonathan, Jeff, George, Dayne and James again as well as meeting Emma. They were pretty much a perfect line-up for a convention.
So thanks again for this report. Reminded me of some of the questions I asked and now even got the answers since I missed some of them. And nice to have a picture of me on stage with Jeff and George :)
I love your review. I didn't ever really know what went on at these sorts of things, and because of you now I know, and want to go to one. Besides if there was a chance I could meet you at one, that would be just as exciting for me.
ReplyDeleteOn that note, I have no idea how you keep your composure and don't totally fanboy out. I have a feeling I'd be hopeless at that. I am usually a cool cucumber, but in the presence of such awesomeness, I'd make a fool of myself.
As always, thank you for taking the time to share it all with us. We beyond appreciate all of the hard work you do for the fandom. You rock!
I wish I was there. Sounds like you had a great time :)
ReplyDeleteSo excited to hear that Emma’s favorite shows are 3 in my top 10 as well (x-files, TNG and Voyager) and that James is an Star trek original fan that’s awesome!! Spike and Anya are my top 2 favorite characters from Buffy. thanks for the article
ReplyDeleteWow Shane, that was an amazing read!! It made me feel like I was there. The guests all sounded amazing and it sounds like it was such a great time! Jeff sounds like an amazing guy - but oh poor France. Poor Jeff. What an awkward time! So glad I can read your reviews because we get nothing like this here.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Thank you! It was a fun read and I envy you. Hope you chose remembering your new memories because this is one fine memory that should be relived often. I will read this again when it isn't 12:30pm but I loved it the first time. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteWell, my comment from yesterday disappeared :(
ReplyDeleteShane, this is a great review!! Not surprising coming from you, but I'm always amazed! Reading it was like being right there with you!!