Two Colonels Walk into a Bar...

So, to continue the Chevron 7.8 write up introducing Garry Chalk and Tom McBeath, quite the double act on stage starting with banter between the two Stargate Colonels about Garry being the hard done by Russian and his voice work. Tom took on the stance that he doesn't get much work in this business as the people selling things don't like his voice to which Garry quipped "not true Tom, I've heard your voice...selling things"

The pair were asked about their favourite moment on SG1without hesitation Garry said " being hacked on by RDA" he went on to talk about a time when he had spent 3 weeks learning a monologue in Russian only for the scene to be cut before filming.  He apparently had some words about this and was able to do the scene, which was later left on the cutting room floor anyway, insert pantomime "ah" from audience.  He also mentioned that he visited the SGA set on a break from filming and sat in a conference room scene in his Col Chekov uniform, everyone was busy setting up and rehearsing the scene and he just snuck in and sat at the table.  As the cameras were about to roll he heard "Hey, you, Mr. Chalk get the fuck off my stage" from the director.

Tom talked about his final scenes as Col Maybourne phoning O'Neill from the Caribbean, actually English Bay Vancouver made to look like the Caribbean.  He was messing around and grabbed an extra, dancing off into the distance with her, which he never thought that they would used but subsequently made the cut. He added that it was at that moment he "found out who Maybourne was."

Tom talked about one of the crew members, Greenberg, who had previously worked on MacGyver who one day asked him why he had never worked on the show to which Tom replied " You son of a bitch, I auditioned 25 times and you never hired me" ah, the fickle world of show business.

Both men agreed that working with RDA was a pleasure although he had habit of ad-libbing which would throw the actors during a scene, Garry mimed checking his script, looking confuzzled  with a "wait, what?" expression. The pair agreed it seemed to be RDA's favourite thing to do and how he got his jollies on set.  Tom stated that whenever he was appearing the director got excited as RDA would "cheer up for a good couple of months" due to the terror in the eyes of the poor actor whenever he changed the lines.

Tom apparently got a little revenge as an episode saw him and RDA trapped on a planet where the characters had a very different approach to fishing.  O'Neill taking the traditional rod and line approach and Maybourne lobbing explosives into the water.  Tom apparently taking much glee in throwing the fish back to RDA, with little care in the precision in aim. Outtakes people, outtakes!

Tom's sister wanted something from the SG1 set, preferably something used by RDA, as a memento and apparently Tom swiped some chewing gum RDA has previously been masticating on and sent it to her, which is both genius and gross.

As previously mentioned Garry's voice work is pretty extensive, he has voice many of my favorite characters from my childhood, and he talked about a series he did in the early 90's Captain Zed & the Zee Zone.  He played the character Captain Flannel and immediately broke into song doing the characters signature tune...and I became 11 again, genius.

And for those who have never seen, or just wiped from the inner moppet memories:

Someone, *coughs*Wendy*coughs*, asked about a now infamous story from Garry about a particularly popular fizzy beverage and his ability to belch on queue.  To gales of laughter and many, many grossed out folk Garry recounted the time he was asked to belch, all in the name of voice acting.  He took a large swig of coke for mass effect, but instead of a perfectly pitched burp Mr. Chalk delivered what he described as a "giant flob of coke foam" complete with an "amniotic sack" which descended from his mouth, hit his script and "yo-yoed back into his mouth" The incident so amazing, the rest of the taping had to be cancelling for the day as the rest of the cast and crew couldn't pick themselves up off the floor for laughing.  As with many of us in the audience.  Coke-gate is apparently on tape somewhere and I'm thinking should be made available immediately on YouTube!

A Bunch of Geeks Walk into a Bar....

Right then, it's that time of year again.  On the guest list, apart from your truly of course, were Tom McBeath, Garry Chalk, Peter Kelamis, Robin Dunne and Amanda Tapping.  A group of civilized, straight laced, serious, non-hammy actors who would never resort to gutter humour to entertain the equally reserved and serious audience...bah, who am I kidding... it's a group of rabid geeks, put into a room with a bunch of slightly unhinged actors where hilarity, quirkiness and just a smidgen of inappropriate innuendo (and by smidgen I mean bucket full) occurs. And so I bring you Chevron 7.8:

First up, the amazing and beautiful Amanda Tapping.  I have much admiration for this lady who was always great to watch as Sam Carter in the Stargate verse and has gone on to do some fantastic work with Sanctuary in a fast dwindling fantasy/Sci-Fi verse on TV.

Strike a pose

Asked about Sanctuary season 5 Amanda admitted she had asked creator and fellow producer Damian Kindler how to answer.  It seems that someone somewhere is kicking their heels about financing the next series and that the studio in which it has been filmed has been sold (this however is not a huge issue as if you are up to date with Sanctuary some major changes at the end of the last series mean a bit of a reset anyway) there was an audible gasp in the audience when Amanda mentioned this and she took the very Magnus calming approach of  "it's ok, it's ok" .  She did go on to say that the series was "not dead yet" even if it is delayed or turned into a movie or mini series.  She hinted that if anyone should want to start a campaign the "address could be found on the internet" and the "logos (of the financiers) could be seen during the end credits"....but we didn't hear that from Amanda so shh.  I for one have really enjoyed the mythology which has been developing over the last few series and love the historical and literary tie-ins with a twist, it's just great escapism.

And of course the cameos are a lot of fun.  Amanda commented that this wasn't the original plan when Sanctuary first started and in fact they had tried to distance themselves from bringing in other Stargate actors.  But of course Canada is a "small community of actors" and they would often think of certain people who would be great to play certain roles.  "Of course we blew up Michael (Shanks)" who now apparently tries to convince Amanda that his character somehow miraculously escaped the explosion so that he can come back.

On her onscreen relationship with Nicola Tesla (Jonathon Young) Amanda mentioned that Jonathon had developed a whole back story for their characters, but she couldn't possible tell us what happened to which some bright spark yelled "it's on the internet".  She also commented about an ad-lib Jonathon made during a scene "Just like Venice" adding "...remember" which threw poor Amanda giving her a slightly puzzled and quizzical expression used in the final take.

Which I would presume looked not unlike this:

On her favourite Stargate moments she talked about having a "wow" moment the first time she walked onto the Stargate set, seeing the Gate itself was an "orchestral and exciting moment" and of course at the end of the series when the cast played out their final scenes, her and Chris Judge apparently shedding a few tears and turning to each other "wow, well that happened"

On Don S. Davis a "Beautiful human being, gracious, a complete goof, a total pro with a wicked sense of humour who is greatly missed"

Amanda has recently filmed a movie called Random Acts of Romance where she played a character who "drinks, swears is sleazy and has sex....with people" adding "not like me at all to be a boozy, swearing slut"

Her favourite Sam moments include: anything with Sam and her father, David DeLuise scenes, noting that it wasn't a relationship that a lot of fans liked (fyi anything which involves a DeLuise is okay with me) but they were a lot of fun, the alternate reality moments where she got to kiss Jack O'Neill because she got to kiss Richard Dean Anderson (at which point most of the female and probably many of the male members of the audience agreed whole heartedly), hanging out with Teryl and the episode Grace.

Someone asked Amanda about the famous 'Macgyver' outtake in which, early in the SG1 series, Amanda and RDA had been filming a scene on a freezing set, it had been a long shoot and and RDA had been sliding on the ice whilst trying to complete the shot.  Amanda delivered the now infamous line "You're Macgyver, McGadget, McGimmick" looked at RDA and thought " I shouldn't have said that" continuing with " now you're McUseless". "Well if you're going to be a pop cultural icon you gotta take it right?" she reasoned perfectly.  She added the she had bumped into RDA later at lunch nervously chiding " we're still friends, right?"

If you haven't seen the clip, and to be honest if you haven't you must've been under a rock for the last few years:

Asked who would win a fight between Freya and Sam over O'Neill, the person asking the question suggesting that the actress who played Freya has commented that it would be her "What are you kidding, what a load of poo, I'd snap her like a twig" at which point Amanda talks about watching scenes filmed between Freya and O'Neill noting that she was "growling like a feral dog" a crew member saying "Amanda, they're acting" Amanda snapping" yeah, but he's my acting partner" switching back to polite Amanda " next time you see her, tell her I said hello" said in the key of Fatal Attraction.

And, by gosh, that was the end of Amanda's talk and where I shall leave things for now, more pictures and fun to come.

Chevron 7.4: The Final Part...Promise

It was my parent's wedding anniversary yesterday...they've been married for...um...well, as long as I've known them, so ages.  They went out for the day...a very cold and wet day I might add, but then that's what you get for getting married in Febuary...and stopped for dinner at a pub in Southampton.  They both went for Game pie, a concoction of various meaty delights...though in this case, after enjoying their meal...dad enquired as to the content...the young waiter listed off Rabbit, Venison, Pheasant and.....Ferret....They skipped dessert.

And on that delightful note I shall continue with the last of my Chevron 7.4 convention report...

I mentioned before that I was new to this particular convention, it cost a little more and was a bit more of a cattle experience when you took part in photo sessions and queued for autographs, it lacked a little in the whole party atmosphere of the Wolf con, but on a whole it was a great experience.  One thing different was that they 'auctioned' guest encounters with each guest on both Saturday and Sunday.  There were two ways to enter: simply write your top bid, ala ebay style, on a piece of paper under the guests name and just before the talk 10 people were chosen from the list or buy raffle tickets for the two remaining places. Already on a very tight budget (I was even surviving on Pop Tarts, crisps and hot cross buns as my food source for the weekend) I ummmed and ahhhed for quite some time until finally deciding on taking a punt on the latter option for two of the guests I most wanted a more intimate experience with....no not like that....jeez!

Clutching my ticket I went to check the board between guest talks and squeezing through the melee of people, elbows may have been used a little, I glanced at the winning raffle numbers, then at my ticket...then back at the winning numbers, then once again at my ticket.  On the third time of reading the three digit number on the scrap of paper in my hand which excactly matched the one on the board I let out a sound which can only be described as 'squee'.....A coveted place at the table with one Mr David Hewlett was mine.

As the twelve disciples sat the messiah entered the room...okay, so I may be exageratting somewhat, but there was an energized and excited atmosphere in the room.....and then, as he sat (in the chair next to mine I might add) David belched 'Never drink a can of coke on stage' he excused himself.

One lady in the room had a McKay voice message which she played and David said how originally the message had just been a advert for Stagate Atlantis but they changed the script, he also commented that it had been tiresome to do as there had been tons of names to read out to personalise the message. 

David is a total film buff and had mentioned 'Brick' in his talk he had been really impressed with the style and young actors, although he was having a bit of a senior moment when it came to their names at which point I helpfully jumped in (it was Lucas Haas and Joseph Gordon Levitt).  I suggested he try and catch 44 Inch Chest if he wanted to see a group of truly talented British actors just doing their thing, he seemed enthused.  He also mentioned a film he loved which involved getting a steamer through a jungle (though in my own senior moment I can't remember the name....Edit it was called Fitzcarraldo by Werner Hertzog...from David on Twitter) logistically he was impressed since the filmmakers had to actually get a streamer through a Jungle, something I get the impression David would quite like to have a go at.

We talked about the books he liked to read, I had asked about The Shining, which he had read recently, and he was suprised that so many people had read it when they were teenagers (or in my case 11) as it scared the crap out of him.  He particularly liked the moving hedges and thinks that's where the idea of Doctor Who's Blink came from.  He rattled off a few titles of other favourites and had a few more senior moments about some of the titles of others, though he has since put up a recommended reading list here and here , huh...I feel some frequent visits to the library coming on.

He chatted about Baz and how 'I didn't do anything for the first year', subtley alluding to the fact that babies don't do an awful lot (eat, sleep, crap...that kind of thing) and apparently he happily observed as the sprog 'peed in his own face.'  He then told a story about a time when Baz was younger and he was holding him.  Babies are floppy when they're little and his head was lolling all over the place, suddenly Baz held his head up and slowly turned to face David...which David demonstrated for his audience...at which point the kid apparently just stared at his father, prompting David to hold out the child to Jane 'Take it back, take it back' prompting a 'Please don't call our son it' from poor Jane as David checked for three sixes on Baz's head.  There is a scene in ADB where Mars gives David a similar 'devil' stare and is apparently a comment on what happened with Baz.

I asked if he managed to swipe anything from the Atlantis set.  He had his eye on a ZPM, but when he had tried to get one they had all disappeared, David has a theory that Flanigan has them since he was sighted on a few occasions hanging out nearby the ZPM's.  He also would've liked one of the banner's of McKay  from the Game which he would've hung in his bathroom at home, now that wouldn't have been at all creepy for those using the bathroom, no, not at all.  He did manage to get one of the control panels for the gate, but as the cast were told the props were needed for the movie they weren't allowed to take anything. (which of course is now unlikely to happen and MGM seem to have been selling off all the props anyhoo...grr)

And too soon it was all over, I'm sure there was much more, I know David mentioned that picking scripts is sometimes more about location and money than quality...case in point 2004's Boa vs. Python...He likes Jellybeans and is a fan of Alan Rickman.  Unfortunately I didn't have my notebook (not sure I would've been allowed to take notes anyway) and so these are just the part's I can actually recall.

David seemed to enjoy himself, he always seems to have plenty to say, keeps your interest, is very funny and is great at interacting with his fans...not too shabby at acting/directing/writing either.

After the talk I was heading back to my seat in the hall ready for Ryan Robbin's final guest talk and to make some notes from the David encounter, when I found the results for the other guest encouter I'd bought a ticket for were up.  Seems like my luck was well and truly in as my ticket matched the winner once again...this time Brian J Smith was going to have to put up with my inssessant babbling for the best part of an hour.

Hmmm, Brian J Smith, I mentioned he's had a close encounter with a non-ugly stick right.  So once again I was fairly excited...in a very British way of course...to be in this talk, also since I'd just been in David Hewlett's I'd missed all of Brian's talk on stage.  Again no notebook, I hadn't even made it as far as my seat in the main hall, so this is once again this is made up of memories and surreal flashbacks.

When Brian sat down and asked if anyone had any questions there was a silence followed by nervous laughter, so I stepped up with a general 'what's your favourite movie?' to kick things off.  He answered with Glory (Matthew Broderick) and said it was a great film about hardship and had a fantastic score, by James Horner if I remember.  He likes listening to film scores and is a fan of classical music aswell as bands like James and King of Leon.

He talked quite a bit about SGU and that he likes the way the characters are 'real people' reacting to the hardships and extreme situations they have been thrust into.  It's not always clear as to who are the heroes and villans and their actions to events have an air of 'how would you deal'.  He did say that he would 'airlock the stones' as he likes the idea of being more cut off from Earth.  I think everyone would agree there, as the stones do appear to be used a fair bit.  I asked what would happen if he wrote an episode and Brain said he's not really creative that way, but he create a desperate situation such as a fire so everyone would have to move to a different part of the ship, since there's much which hasn't been explored, and 'away from the IKEA beds' which got quite a laugh...He admitted that thing appear quite conviently out of those boxes which were brough through the gate 'We need thermal gloves...go check one of the boxes...Oh yeah, there they are'.

He talked about the 'sand' aliens from Air Part 3 and that he was intrigued when the 'dust' took on the appearence of Scott's face, he wondered if there was a significance to that and if there's a skill or sense which his character has which may be explored in the future, that would certainly give things a more interesting dimension in SGU.  Someone asked about alien's in the series and if there was going to be any which Brian said yes.  He talked about a new alien which is going to be scary and is, if I recall correctly, a creation from the FX team from District 9.

I asked about any pranks which had occured on set and Brian regaled a tale involving Robert Carlyle and Louis Ferreira.  Ferreira had set up a mini camera in Carlyle's trailer, it wasn't connected but had the appearence of a working camera.  It took a while for him to find it but when he did poor Robert was a little freaked out wondering who could be filming him. Those in the know kept quiet and naughty Ferreira set up another camera in the make-up van for Robert to find also, making him believe it was the make-up girls secretly filming him.  I assume at some point the jig was up and can only wonder how Robert Carlyle exacted his revenge.

He filmed Poirot during the hiatus from SGU, and originally wasn't going to get up to much during this period, he had a lot of fun filming it. I asked what else he was doing with his spare time and Brian said 'hitting the gym' since he needed to be fit for filming...that'll be for all those sex scenes I guess ;-)

Some bloke in the room started prattling on about the religious conotations of Stargate which got a bit heavy and he also started on about the probability of alien life using actual statistics of planets in the universe and beyond...I just attempted to bring the conversation back to something more Brian related (I wasn't there to hear some bloke's uber geek after all) and asked about what TV he likes to watch....Battlestar Galactica was the answer and that he likes to watch things in box sets rather than in TV so you can cut out adverts....I hear that...Anyway, that's about as much as my brain retained....I thoroughly enjoyed the two guest encounters, both Brian and David were very chatty and seemed comfortable in the small group.....And there it was all done, conventions are a rather intensive experience and expensive too but, bloody hell it's worth every penny.

And for your enjoyment an assortment of pretty pics and con party shinanegans:

Tina & Philippa

Brian, Sharon & Ryan get their party on

Random Jaffa and Ryan on the inflatable bungey

The gang: Sah, David, Tina, Christina and Philippa...and Tina's 'Eye of the Tiger' ala Supernatural

Chevron 7.4: Group Talks

Group guest talks are always good for a laugh, mainly due to the fact that they usually desecend into a certain amount of chaos, such are the larger than life personalities on the stage.  It's a chance for the more unusual, fun and sometimes down right bizarre questions to be asked.  It's a little tough keeping up with the spontaneous waffle which followed, but I tried my best to make notes of the highlights

A fairly regular question of the guests previous job gained quite the ecclectic mix of answers: circus performer from Ryan, bar tender from Brian, putting lipstick on large lipped, post op, women from Suanne (huh?), computer programmer from, none other than, David....now I just wrote the word 'sausage' for Sharon which had a little more to do with her working in a factory and a little less with..well, whatever you're thinking...and Bam Bam, well he 'bought a hair salon at 19' and then 'became a corrections officer' prompting several 'whaaat?' reactions from fellow guests as well as much laughter from the audience 'So, you were done with cutting peoples hair and decided to be a correctional officer?' Ryan said in some confuzzlement. David, having trouble processing the new information from Bam Bam's past, just turned to him and said 'you cut people's hair?...you...cut people's hair'...hehe...cos you know...it's Bam Bam.

In being asked a question about which emotions are difficult to portray Ryan quipped 'Joy, when Bam Bam is hurt', though I'm guessing that was one not so difficult to portray (awwws, for Bam Bam) followed by 'random laughter' as it's apparently tough to laugh on queue....especially after the double digitied take I shouldn't wonder.  Sharon said 'Acting drunk' prompting a surprised 'really?' from Suanne...I'm guessing a rather method approach is adopted by some people in the room.  David said he only has 'four looks' (he didn't give further detail, so I'll leave that for you to figure out the four....I suggest one is panic) he followed his answer with 'being quiet' as the most difficult thing to do.  Brain said generally 'intense scenes were easier than the lighter scenes' and Suanne answered that 'being serious with a bad script' was a tad on the tough side.

Fears was next up and understandably Ryan went with 'death....because your dead', Sharon had a different approach saying that she 'doesn't like standing near the edge of a cliff' at which point I'm guessing most people thought she was going with a fear of heights...there you would be wrong my friend, the reason young Sharon doesn't like the cliff's edge is that she finds it hard to fight the urge to push people off.  At this point in proceedings the rest of the guest shared a slight look of incredulous-ness and Brain, who'd been in the seat next to Sharon, made a bolt for the door.

Bringing things back on track and after returning to his chair, Brain said he's not so keen on flying...suddenly Sharon piped up with a story about their flight to the UK and particularly the pilot, before she could complete the tale Bam Bam cut in and a sort of verbal tet-a-tet erupted between the two, much like when small children are desperate to be the first to tell a parent something exciting...'Our pilot was called Captain Kirk' they eventually blurted simulatneously....which is actually pretty darn cool.

David has a fear of spiders and is in the process of teaching his son not to be scared of spiders, the flaw in his plan is that he finds himself balking at the first sign of movement from the arachnids.  Sharon  is not so fond of birds which she described as 'big, flappy....urgh'...Ryan kindly interjected with ' Pigeons are flying rats' earning an eyeroll from Bam Bam 'Yeah, they're terribly dangerous'....and Bam Bam's greatest fear 'me, disappearing'...natch.

Onto weird auditions, since it's a right of passage for actors to have some kind of cringeworthy experience (Kavan Smith has a doozy, which he kindly shared at Pegasus 4)...Ryan's was while audtioning for a car advert at he was encourage to 'make love to the car', Sharon took part in an audition for a jean commercial where each person was asked to put on the jeans and bend over...Bam Bam quipped 'that's how Joe Flanigan got cast'...hahahaha....ahem, moving on, Suanne Braun was at an audition with Steven Segal and mentally made the connection that he 'looked like my cat....big body...itty bitty head' and had to fight off a fit of giggles which, acting guru, Segal mistook for intensity.  And, while David was at an audition for CSI he was mid flow when a mobile started to ring, he got a little grumpy (David? grumpy?...surely not) with the folk in the room, before realising it was actually his phone that was ringing.  In an attempt to switch it off, in a panic, he instead answered the call and put it on speaker. Jane's voice asked 'Hello darling, how's it going?'....'Um...not very well' ...and no, he didn't get the part.

If they had to pick a reality TV show to appear on it would be:  I'm a Celebrity for Brian so he could 'hang out with Lou', Bam Bam thinks all reality TV 'is garbage' which gained a mighty cheer from much of the audience.  Sharon Taylor would go on the Bachelor to 'talk some sense in those women'.  Ryan likes the idea of appearing on Celebrity Boxing while David would go on Survivor Man but would do it really badly 'How to survive freezing water...oh, he didn't'.

Brain nearly let out a spoiler for SG:U when asked about which Stargate planet they would like to be stranded on saying that they 'go to paradise' in a future episode and turned to Bam Bam asking if he could tell 'has it aired yet?' Bam Bam queried 'no' Brain answered 'then you can't tell' spoil sport, Bam Bam.  Bam Bam had a think, started to answer then realized he was confused with Star Trek.  Sharon Taylor 'One with a Medieval village...oh, wait that's all of them' demonstrating that Sharon had figured out the Stargate writers cunning plan.  David would go to the puppet planet as he liked the idea of a 'puppet McKay'.  Now Ryan said something along the lines of going to a 'warm planet, with all of you' (meaning the audience) and I can't remember what then led to the guy getting out of his chair, crossing the stage and trying to go through the Stargate on the Chevron poster behind him...it was however very funny indeed.

There were a couple of questions which were your typical pappy convention question...something like 'what three foods would you have at a party?' and 'who would you invite to a party?'...and a few others which sounded like dating agency questions at which David quipped 'are these the Twilight convention questions'....very probably David.  I was beginning to suspect that the question's I had taken the time to e-mail pre the con, as per requested by the organisers, had disappeared into Stargate limbo and also there must've been many 'Sarah's' and 'Dan's' in the audience, as most of the questions appeared to be coming from them....Hmmmm.

Anyhoo, I managed to have a word with the guy in control of the mike and just before the talk wrapped up he headed over.  So, with all ears and eyes pointed in my direction I asked the final question of the event, the one which I'd been waiting the whole convention to ask:

'How would you survive a Zombie attack?'

It's fair to say there was a certain amount of laughter and an expression of 'Huh?' on the faces of the guests, but they dutifully answered anyway.  Ryan was first to respond wth 'Hide behind Bam Bam' leading into a 'Who would I hide behind?' from the man himself. David decided he would become the 'Zombie King' and Sharon added that 'if you can't eat 'em join 'em'...If I recall correctly Brain stated he would sing 'Don't Stop Believing' at them, 'badly' and then Bam Bam started to rattle of the rules of surviving a Zombie attack (off of Zombieland the movie) including 'Cardio, travel in a group, check the back seat, double tap....' and 'seatbelts' which was an assist shouted by Tina and Philippa in the crowd as Bam Bam stalled...Now while all this is going on I was still making blog notes, which was seen by Bam Bam.  'Are you writing this down?' he asked, somewhat incredulously, before as quick as you like David said 'Do you have a Zombie problem in your town?'....close David, very close....visit Bognor some time and see for yourself.  I just nodded and laughed as Bam Bam thanked me for the 'great and very relevant question'...And yes there was a tone which I believe may have been sarcasm attached to the statement.

And there wrapped the final guest talk and indeed the convention...but wait...there's more....To Be Concluded...