Or, the Doctor Who Convention, as taken from notes in my journal.
1. We showed up for 9.00 opening and got a ticket to the 9.30 Special Effects showing with Danny Hargreaves, the main SFX guy. He was adorable and far too cheery about explosions at half nine in the morning, but it made an excellent start to the day. Best moments of the panel include: a small boy dressed as the Eleventh Doctor being picked to go onstage and help show off how they shoot Cybermen without actually hurting the guys in costume; and when Danny Hargreaves accidentally let a spoiler slip and turned bright red and stuttered and stumbled and laughed nervously.
2. Meet the Cast panel: my favorite, because it included Steven Moffat (the writer/head honcho of both Doctor Who and Sherlock), Matt Smith (Eleven), Karen Gillan (Amy, one of the two
companions) and Arthur Darvill (Rory, Amy's husband and the other companion), as well as Caroline [insert last name here], one of the producers.
Excellent moments include:
+ Matt entering the stage with a big ballet-like jump (a jete), nearly running over the table and spinning around to uncoordinatedly find his seat. He really is like Eleven; he's so fidgety, never sitting still, always playing with this or that. And he's adorable with kids.
+ Moff saying "[the trio] have excellent chemistry"--and Matt rejoining with "In the bedroom..." to the hysterical laughter of nearly everyone.
+ Karen Gillan saying "Macbeth" and then covering her mouth and going, "Can I say that, since we're in a theatre?" (She's adorable and in my first play with the HRSC, I was called out for saying the name Macbeth while we were onstage. It's a superstition with a long history; very interesting.)
+ The amount of cheering and swooning that went up for Arthur Darvill when they showed a clip of his character in his most badass of moments. \
+ Hearing Steven Moffat speak and his sarcasm. His quotes and comments often don't come across right in text; interviews don't explain the way he speaks and so I've never really liked his interviews. He always comes across as a bit of a jerk, to be honest. And he is, in his sarcasm, but it's sharp and quick and not really condescending, but like with my dad and his friends, if you say something stupid, prepare to get mocked for it. You can see where Moffat is a good writer and good with words and he often had the whole place in stitches; my dad was in tears for a good chunk of the panel.
3. Meet the Creators: Behind the Scenes of the episode The Girl Who Waited.
+ The writer was awesome, but I felt kind of bad for him. When he went to go pitch his idea, they cut it down a lot because they'd already done a lot of the elements in other episodes.
+ The prosthetics/make-up guy, who we saw later on, was really cool.
+ The guy who created the Handbots, the robots, and one of the girls who was in the Handbot suit. Also very cool to see how the design was conceived then made reality and then put into practice.
4. Prosthetics session: learned more about chemistry in that one hour session on how to make prosthetics than in my entire class in grade 11.
+ they made a hand cast of some guy--poured in the resin which we could watch turn from the colour it was to white. SO COOL.
+ And then they covered a woman's face in purple-blue goop and left it on then did a similar thing they did with the hand cast. Still really really cool.
5. Props and costumes room: pretty much everything I'd seen at the DW Experience...with the exception of one of the scarier monsters from last series being an actor in a costume. And it came to life. And followed people around the room. SUPER SCARY. I legitimately felt my heart start pounding and I grabbed my dad's arm to hide behind him. Argh.
6. DW Uncut: Caroline, casting director, location guy, director and cinematographer. (Sounds like the set up to a really long and complicated bad joke...)
+ Lots in store for the 50th anniversary episode which will be airing next year. So excited!
+ Ep 5 will see the return of the weeping angels, will be shot in NY, and will be Amy and Rory's heartbreaking exit. Moff says there will be a death; a proper one. I have my own suspicions and they're making me sad already.
+ Showed us the sneak peek trailer of eps 1-3, episode 3 is a Western, shot in the old areas where spaghetti Westerns were shot in southern Spain. Ben Browder!
+ A resounding no from the panel on the rumours that Benedict Cumberbatch will be in DW. Sigh. A girl can keep dreaming....
Then skipping very quickly to the next day....You guys don't have a burning desire to hear about Cardiff Castle, right? I mean, it was really cool and all, but this is a Doctor Who post and so I will skip to Monday night, when we went for a tour of the TARDIS set...
Which was seriously amazing and not nearly long enough. They gave us half an hour to walk around, take our pictures at the doors, and play with all the bits and bobs on the console (including the phone and the Blue Boringers! And the pinball...which I ended up getting stuck at the top...) and then we had to leave. I could've spent hours and hours just playing in the TARDIS. It was magical.
I often watch tv shows on two levels: the emotional story aspect and the clinical actor aspect. (Not that I'm ever clinical, as in detached, in watching my shows.) I respond to the story and can cry at an emotional scene, but I'm also thinking in the back of my mind, oh, that was a great shot or that music was amazing or thinking about how to actors call up the emotion on their faces, in their eyes, to convey it realistically. It was the same on the set. I knew it was a set, I was really excited to see it all, I liked seeing how it all fit together and who put the bits and bobs on the console; but I also felt...I don't know, like I was in the TARDIS itself. Like any minute Eleven would come bounding down those stairs, talking a mile a minute, Amy chattering in one ear and River in the other and they'd whisk me away to wherever and whenever I wanted to go. Which is the very definition of magical for me.
In short, it was a lovely weekend and a fantastic cap to the con. Pictures, sans set tour, here.
*Did I already use this title for the DW Experience? Oh well. I like the quote; it comes from somewhere on the internet because the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) always wore converse, my preferred sneaker brand.
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