WormholeRiders

Hello GateCon Fans!

First up on stage was Stargate Atlantis’ Dr. Beckett, Mr. Paul McGillion.  I decided to get the preliminaries out of the way, by yelling, “Are you married yet?” He smiled and replied that the wedding is in September, “if she will still have me.” Apparently, the bachelor party had already been taken care of. Good old Paul had been run through the mill with several sporting events which had left him with bruised ribs. Now there’s a man who really wants to get married.

When asked what Paul’s favourite episode was, he mentioned that the pilot was pretty cool. He enjoyed the interaction his character had with Joe Flanigan’s character at the ancient chair. But if he had to name a great episode for him, it was, “Poisoning The Well”, an episode in the first season.  “Martin Wood directed it,” Paul added, “when you get a chance, talk to Damian Kindler who wrote it. We talked about the retrovirus, then, we talked about my Scottish accent. It was the first time I got to use my acting chops and the first episode when I wasn’t a recurring character”.

Paul said that his favourite movie is Avatar. He saw it in London in 3D. He also spoke about an incident he remembered working with Gary Jones, who played Walter Harriman. Gary was sitting in his usual spot as the gate technician. The scene was running long, and he was falling asleep. Then there is a “ping, ping” noise on the glass of the control room. The noise wakes him up. It’s the director, a big guy named Mario, tossing pennies at the glass.

Paul was also asked about how hard it is to be a doctor on Atlantis. “Very hard,” Paul said, “but being a medical doctor in real life is the hardest. I was okay. Lots of people come up to me and cure things. And I do. I cure everything.” Paul’s remark was followed by laughter from the audience. Peter Flemming, who had played Agent Barrett came into the room and stood at the door to listen. Paul noticed him, then stated, “You’re wearing the same blue shirt as yesterday.” Peter countered, “I got ketchup on my shirt at 3:00AM so I had to wear this one”, to which Paul stated, “No, it’s because you’re hung over.”

Later in the day, Garry Chalk (Col. Chekov), Peter Flemming, Dylan Neal and Andee Frizzel were asked what else they wanted to do for a career choice. Garry stated that he was a bouncer at the Biltmore when he was much younger, but he wanted to be an English Literature teacher. Peter Flemming said that he was unemployed and living at home until he was 25, when his mother kicked him out of the house.

He saw Tom Cruise and decided that he wanted to act for a career. “I was scared as hell when I started,” he said. Dylan Neil began as a furniture builder and illustrator. He not only decided to become an actor, he said, he also married one. He said his wife is currently writing a script and he will be producing it. “We live a gypsy life as actors”, Dylan added. “Any freelance artist is taking an incredible gamble with their lives – they are the most courageous people you’ll ever meet”.

Andee Frizell said that she became an actor because she wanted people to pay attention to her. She taught English in orphanages in South America for a while, but her real passion has always been acting, and yoga. Bruce Woloshyn recalled long days and nights of Stargate VFX while Barry Campbell discussed Stargate Continuum!

Frank Cassini began his career behind the camera, but after doing that for a while, he decided that he’d rather be in front of the camera. He went to New York to do theatre, but eventually returned to Vancouver to continue acting. Right now he is writing and producing a horror film as well as starring in a Canadian production “The Bridge” now playing the in the USA on CBS.

After a break, Erick Avari, Dan Payne, Jeremy Rector, and Steve Bacic were asked, what are you doing now?  Erick said he is working on a documentary. Dan Payne is keeping busy looking after his 18 month old son. He can already do a, “one timer in hockey”. I was not sure what that meant, so I asked him later. Dan told me, “it’s when a player receives a teammate’s pass then fires an immediate slapshot toward the net”. Look out Sydney Crosby.

Dan Payne (pictured below) also just finished working on a movie of the week with Faye Dunaway. Jeremy Rector is concentrating on his four month girlfriend. He was quick to add that his girlfriend isn’t four months old, the relationship is four months old. He also did an episode of Eureka. Steve Bacic was involved in the last half of the season of “Big Love”. He said, “they don’t give me scripts; they give me scenes, so I go onto set not knowing what is going on, which is normal for me.”

A question was asked about what the actors thought when they got their Stargate role. Did they know that the show would be big? Cliff Simon answered first, “I read for a special character, but it was in the future. I didn’t know from week to week when I’d be working next. It’s up to the fans if they like the character. Cliff Simon stated “I was fortunate that Ba’al was popular.” J.R. Bourne stated that he had read for an evil Tok’ra, but got Martouf. Dean Ayelsworth (pictured above) ended up with an established character, Anubis. He said he didn’t know anything about the character because he was only familiar with the movie.

Erick Avari was auditioning for Kasouf in the MGM Stargate movie. “My character only had a couple of lines. I was told most of it would be improve. I was first in to read after lunch. The casting director was eating a candy bar. I watched him eat until he became self conscious and he offered me a piece. I acted as I did in the movie, and that’s how I got the part.” Steve Bacic answered the question with the shortest response by saying, “I can’t remember how I got my role.”

During the convention, the actors spent most of their time either visiting with their fans, signing autographs, or hanging out with each other. Cliff Simon did some sight-seeing. He told me that he and his wife took a plane ride along the Queen Charlotte Islands. They were looking for whales, but didn’t see any. Several other actors like Dean Ayelsworth, Peter Flemming, Gary Chalk and Erick Avari had lunch or dinner with the fans, enjoying the opportunity to get to know them better.

Most of the actors like Colin Cunningham and Dan Payne (pictured above) made themselves available to the fans as much as possible and really seemed to enjoy themselves. Gatecon is very relaxed and lots of fun for both the fans and the actors. Although this Gatecon was promoted to be the last one, everyone had such a good time that the organizers were asked many times to continue to bring Gatecon back.

Let’s hope they do.

ArticGoddess1 (Patricia Bertrand)

Today VanCon was absolutely crazy! In a very good way, of course.

The name VanCon is not really the official name of the convention. It is more of a fan name used on Twitter with the hash tag for tracking the tweets. The official name is really Creation Entertainments “Vancouver Stargate 2010 Convention“. All my and WHR’s thanks to the great team of people at Creation. They are awesomesauce!

Sleep has been something missing the last few days! But this is the way things go at a major convention in the hometown of Bridge Studios, the production facilities of  Stargate. There is just so much to do and see and with being Press Credentialed by Creation, the days are extra long with writing of reports and uploading photos for my news reports and video interview with fan who share their thoughts about VanCon. This was one of the fun parts as WHR interviewed fans each day about their experience at Creation Entertainments Vancouver 2010 Stargate convention. I include a few below and thank WR_Systems and his cat Adria (lol) for digitally editing and re-mastering the video for your viewing pleasure.

I also attended a no minimum bid auction which is a very popular event as fans get great bargains on cool geeky Stargate stuff. Lots of fun too as some items are very rare and in demand by Stargate fans all over the world!

I started the day working on WHR reports and conference calls and missed Wraith Queen Andee Frizzell, so my first panel was Colin Cunningham. Major Davis on Stargate SG-1. I’ll be working on a detailed report of Colin’s and James Bamford’s panels. They both talked about their upcoming roles and anecdotes about their work in the entertainment industry.

Colin told a few stories about unlikely people recognizing him. It seems a certain ER actor is a fan of Stargate. James mostly talked about training the different actors how to do certain stunts. Both were incredibly interesting and very funny! I think it might be a rule on the show that you have to be hilarious to join the cast. Just a theory.

After the panels I met up with my friend Brianna (pictured above with Colin) and we chatted with a few fellow convention attendees. I ended up going to dinner with one of them and heard some fascinating stories. One of the things I love most about these conventions is that everyone is so amazingly friendly. I love sci-fi fans for that reason. It’s always like hanging out with long-lost friends, even though you’ve generally just met the people. I’ve found it with Scapers, as well as Gaters at VanCon. I love it.

The James Bamford panel was great. you may have read my tweets? This guy in darn handsome and funny! Included below are a few of the many pictures I took of the his appearance at VanCon.

The Creation Entertainment Cabaret was fantastic. Dan Shea was the host, and in case I didn’t make it clear yesterday, he is a riot! I was pretty much gasping for air I was laughing so hard, and I know I wasn’t alone in this.

Colin Cunningham showed off his mentalist abilities. First, Colin put thread in his mouth and pulled it out his ear – I barely opened my eyes during that – and then he called up audience volunteers. Then Colon had a kid put a nail underneath a cup (one of five), then had a girl – who, by the way, was my friend, Brianna – mix around the cups.

He called up one more volunteer to mix them up again. He brought Brianna back up on the stage and held her hand over one of the cups. He asked her whether the spike was under that one (she replied that it wasn’t) and when she said she was sure, he slammed her hand down on it.

Of course, it was not the one with the spike. He did this twice more, and for the fourth, he slammed down his own hand. He revealed the fifth to be the one with the spike underneath.

James Bamford gave a stunt demonstration. He introduced a few stunt people and had them demonstrate a fight. He then brought out the stunt doubles for Joe Flanigan and Rachel Luttrell. Sorry I did not get pictures of that. They demonstrated some different moves with the sticks. I never really thought about how hard it must be to use the sticks before, but after that, I definitely have a new respect for them! They also used a butter knife to demonstrate twelve ways of disarming a knife attacker. I love that most of them ended with the attacker being stabbed.

Finally, it came time for the Creation Entertainment Karaoke Party. For this, I mostly hung out with other fans and chatted about loads of Stargate convention stuff, like how great it was.

Brianna went up and sang a couple of songs, as well. As well, I got a few pictures with Colin Cunningham before he left for the night. I gave him my card and introduced myself. He was incredibly nice – not that I was expecting differently. He’s a really cool guy. Also, not to spoil anything, but a certain someone did a dance to Time of My Life, and I may have (definitely did) get it on video. WHR wil post that as a stand-alone report SOON!. You’re welcome.

Lastly for my Day Two recap report, James Bamford was at the also at the Karaoke and he is a fantastic singer as I mentioned in my tweets. All the fans thought he was a wonderful performer! Thanks James!

Essentially, that was my Friday at Creation Entertainments Vancouver Stargate 2010 in a nutshell. I will have detailed reports after I SURVIVE VanCon!

More to come tomorrow! Next up: Michael Shanks, Joe Flanigan and David Hewlett, the last two to be on stage together!. I can barely contain my excitement! Stay tuned for more!

ValaBlack

Well folks, we’ve reached the end of the Dragon*Con convention at last.

On Monday, the final day of a truly epic convention, the crowd thinned as people had to go back to home and work. Attendance was still good at the final Stargate panel though, filling over half the seats. While RadioStar ran off with Spacegypsy1 to film the last Farscape panel, I set up shop to cover this panel to the best of my ability.

I must apologize for the change in quality of the last 20 minutes of this panel, and the video’s shakiness. Over the course of the weekend I discovered that my tripod was actually making jerky moves instead of smooth ones. For the last 20 minutes I was forced to change cameras.

Since my tripod only had one attachment plate it proved difficult to swap cameras while filming. I waited for a question to be asked and was finally able to complete the switch. I think you’ll find that it is totally worth watching! Enjoy!

Play It Grand

It’s time for the second-smallest but completely inspired panel of the Dragon*Con weekend. Seriously, whoever thought of having a panel just for Gary Jones and Colin Cunningham, I could kiss them. It gave Colin and Gary a chance to really take center-stage, while on the bigger panels they seemed to get lost.

This panel also had a much smaller audience, mainly due to the size of the conference room it was in. This was a good thing though. It let us really interact with Colin and Gary, asking questions, shouting comments, and just getting nice and cozy. Gary and Colin were hilarious! You can tell they are good friends.

Enjoy!