BotCon '01 Journal and Notes

2001/07/13
----------
 2:13 PM
   o in room at Marriott
   o spent a little time with WiiGii! ppl, waiting for Matt to
     return from lunch
   o flight went smoothly, other fans on the plane
   o I am really really hungry.
 5:19 PM
   o world's slowest McDonald's
   o chat with group
   o small enterage goes to the mall to get Xiphos a shirt
   o Silverbolt is missing from the program cover
   o LV says Tengu says there's no Hasbro panel... just one really
     cool guy who saved the convention and the line.

2001/07/14
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 Morning randomness
   o wake up very tired
   o dealer room opening delayed by credit card machine problems
   o some nice deals.  BigBad has huge prescence.
   o buy Tigerhawk for $25
   o pre-order Sharon's next fanzine
   o enter Hydra's raffle
 G1 voice actor panel, ~10 AM
   o Michael Bell, Gregg Berger, John Stephenson
   o someone brings Michael Bell a gift; he says he doesn't want it
     if it's a dildo.
   o Bell's very funny
   o Stephenson says Wally Burr sends his greetings
   o you can relaly hear Stephenson's and Bell's characters in
     their regular voices
   o Bell refers to "voiceheimers", forgetting what certain voices
     sounded like.  Stephenson says he needs reference tapes to recreate
     some old characters.
   o Burr worked them hard
   o Burr was a tank commander 4 days after D-Day
   o Bell says Welles' session was recorded alone
   o Burr tried to give Welles a line reading... "You're not going to
     give me a line reading, are you...?" Welles asked.
   o Bell thinks it's weird that celebrities are doing animtion voices.
   o the "how to become a voice actor" question:
    - Bell says a funny voice is like a 12-inch penis: it's no good
      unless it gets hard.  study acting, end of story.
    - Stephenson broke in with Joe Barbera (of Hanna-Barbera). says
      you need a "granite nucleus of acting ability"
   o Bell would rather direct the other two than himself, "...or
     Peter.  Or Frank, who is silly.  Or Chris, who was sillier."
   o Stephenson: the heart and fun are being taken out of the V.O.
     industry
   o Bell: "It's not Taco Bell"; they miss group taping sessions.
   o Berger understudies for Sideshow Bob.
   o Berger on Canada: sometimes auditions and such are done here,
     and then the tapes get sent elsewhere to inspire the other actors.
   o the actors are each wearing colors prominant in their TF characters -- 
     B&W, yellow, blue, by complete coincidence
   o a 3-voices maximum per paycheck rule came from old radio actors
     when animation started
 Midday randomness
   o extended food wanderings... nothing is open, or even in existence,
     aside from the slow McDonalds.
   o we get icies from a random street vendor. this area of the city seems
     almost deserted.  must be a weekend thing.
   o JTF fan panel was a letdown.  cool stuff, but unfinished presentation.
   o head to McD's for ATM and food (finally)
   o eat with Jameel and Eric Pronko
   o head to the BW VA panel with them and Malin
 BW voice actors panel
   o when pressured by a fan's question, Chalk says they thought the BM
     characters weren't true to themselves.
   o McNeil says they wished something would happen (in BM)
   o McNeil: Dinobot knew he would die six episodes before the fact, but
     Scott refused to accept it even during taping of "Code of Hero"
   o "I like playing the character Optimus, because he's just like me.
     He's a big monkey."
   o McNeil looks like Stan Bush this year.
   o retelling of "the Coke incident".
   o so many requests for characters saying weird things... arrrgh. the
     actors manage to make most of them at least sort of entertaining.
 Randomness
   o go through art room, Trent's video s excellent
   o Fred's Workshop has a great pool-playing diorama
   o I buy my remaining exclusive stuff
   o I get 3 Act III PVCs from Wizzywig.  One of them is battle-damage
     OP, which somebody says sells for up to $90 on eBay.
   o go to CGI fan panel.  low-key, but fun.
 8 PM
   o mass exodus to Arby's for dinner.
   o no toy concept art to be found in parking lot.
   o wait in line for trivia game, Tengu has been pressured into playing.
 evening
   o trivia game is fun, but too easy, and people are not successful.
   o after comes the DiCola concert. it's fun, kinda funny. I sit with
     Bobbi and Brax.
   o hang with Suspsy, Bobbi, Phil Thorne, in panel room.
   o hang with Walky in lobby.
   o elevator travel, group congregates, is drinking, eventually leaves
     for walk.
   o I reintroduce myself to Tim Finn, hang with he and Griffin
   o Phil, Jameel join, Bobbi later. discuss lives, convention friends, etc.
   o bedtime

2001/07/15
----------
 10 AM
   o considered going to the movie, but felt really tired.
   o browsed dealer room ~9:30, went into MST panel.
   o do a lot more shopping.
   o Tengu says creator's panel moved up to 1:30
   o hungry... cash running low.
 G1 Creator's Panel
   o Simon Furman and Paul Davids (production coordinator on cartoon)
   o D: TF was early in his career. worked on a series of young Star
     Wars novels involving the droids, using TF robot work as an "in"
   o D: UFO interest, worked on a book/movie about Roswell
   o D: wrote, produced, directed movie "Starry Night"
   o F: new website to replace wildfur
   o D: Prod. Coordinator on about 80 episodes
   o D: made cartoons in his dorm room at Princeton, seeing "Yellow
     Submarine" caused him to switch from pre-med to animation.
   o D: won awards and recognition from "Famous Monsters of Hollywood"
     magazine when he was as young as 12
   o D: implies season 2 and movie started planning at the same time.
   o D: Nelson Shin, VERY IMPORTANT, started out in lightsaber fx
   o D: came in on S2when Gerald Muller had to switch to the movie.
   o F: When he started, he did lettercol, editing, etc., as well as writing
   o F: Wildman's first art for TF wasn't liked, but he fixed it, and
     followed up with the first part of Time Wars
   o D: convinced story editor Bryce Malik to let him write, too, did 4 eps
   o D: 1986 was the biggest TF production year
   o D: worked on a World's Fair presentation about TFs
   o D: show was edited on Moviolas, this was before Avid film editors
   o D: Nelson Shin owned AKOM, aniimated ~40-50% of the episodes.
   o D: Toei did more in S1, Akom later when Toei was on TF:TM
   o D: Phillapenes companies did a few
   o D: story outline ~8-10 pages, split up into three acts, split into beats
   o D: script follows, several drafts by writer, touchups by story editor
   o D: Burr deserves equal credit with Shin
   o D: attended every VA recording session under his watch, representing
     Marvel Productions
   o D: each WEEK, 2 or 3 shows were sent to the animators, and 2 or 3 were
     received back from them
   o D: Buzz Dixon wrote Joe and TF, may have dumped them together in the
     stories as a joke
   o F: Titan Books is planning to do more, may take a while to do
     collections of UK-only stories
   o F: loves crime fiction, never read much sci-fi
   o D: S4 was pulled... there were some episodes shot for the US that
     were not shown here...?
   o D: "I don't know how that happened" on learning they completely missed
     mentioning the Matrix in S2. sounds like he may have misunderstood
     the question, though?
   o D: upset that OP was to die in the movie
   o D: most TF production mateials stayed overseas
   o D: sometimes scenes were dropped due to mistakes they didn't have time
     to fix.  some of the post-movie eps that had background bumpers at
     the end had them because so much had to be cut.
   o F: introduced Death's Head in one-page stories two weeks before he
     showed in TF so they (Marvel UK) could own him instead of Hasbro
   o D: Cosmic Rust was inspired by AIDS; Grimlock's New Brain by Charlie
     in "Flowers for Algernon"
   o D: Marvel did physical pre and post production, Sunbow did shape and
     direction of the series
   o D: www.starrynightmovie.com
 BotCon organizer's panel
   o about same number of toys made as last year
   o Wreckers comic is convention only
   o Primeval Dawn will be continued in the fall (part of BotCon Beyond?)
   o relationship with Hasbro growing, allowed them to use old characters
   o packaging artwork from Mainframe costs ~$1000 each, dinner portraits
     $3000 to render/model/create
   o Welker is very private and doesn't like to do personal appearances
   o licensing problems with the G1 music.  *four* corporations.  3H isn't
     the right group to sort it out and do it.
   o Glen says "maybe" about exclusive molds in the future.
   o about 50% of the people this year were new to attending.  has been
     higher at times in the past.
   o when Hasbro's Cincy office closed, upper levels in RI didn't know 
     what to do with BotCon
   o Tigatron came in a week and a half before the show, Arcee on Monday
     night (show started Friday night)
   o *all* the merchandise arrived in the last four weeks.
   o Hasbro panel cancellation, Glen says it was basically scheduling
   o Tigatron, stolen, went up on eBay and *3H* bought it back themselves
     to get the auction offline quickly
   o putting things up before the 'con ruins not just the surprise for
     the fans, but 3H's experience of sharing them with us.
   o they always lose money on the comic, so they packed it in with the
     toy to try to cut their losses
   o pre reg number 1145, ~650-700 walk-ins
   o 3H's database of fans now has about 5000 people in it.