Steve-o Stonebraker's OTFCC 2003 Notes Version 2 This is a record of all the notes I took at OTFCC 2003. The items are in roughly chronological order. The TF information and the travelogue information are pretty well separated, so it should be easy to find that parts that matter to you. Thursday -------- o wake ~7:30 am o check Target for Unicron on way to Walky and Ron's apartment o head out a little after 9 am o graham and I talk about StarCOM, "Adventures of the Little Koala" o stop at meijer for gas, food, Razorclaw o billboard reads: Free Chicken! Exit 136, 100 Gallon Minimum. ??? o much of ride is slow and hot, especially when we get near chicago o arrive around 5 local time o there's some boring standing around, then some of us head to McD's: me, Walky, LV, Trix, Wang, Chip o upon return, lots of sitting around o take Ron to get his stuff from my room o more sitting o Glen heresay from Swift: - Hasbro approval on many items didn't come... comic will be just 8 preview pages, no t-shirt, Walky's coloring book can't be bound into a "real" book because it's not DW-ish enough. - long Hasbro presentation at dinner, big 8-person team - next year's hotel exclusive is Ultra, free for one night only, some sort of (limited) availability at cost for 2nd unit o Skir heresay from Dlin: - running scenes were written mainly as talking heads, animated as running to be more visually interesting - he wanted Silverbolt to really flip out more when he got free of Megatron's control - organics stuff was at some level and to some extent mandated to him o retire just after midnight, chat a while, get to sleep. uneasy sleep. wake early, fitful, get up ~8. Friday ------ o head downstairs, intending to sit around o find that Walky, LV, and Trix are now staff. Chip says a schedule is posted for the prereg checkin to go 8 AM - noon. Walky tells Glen and gets instructions, but sadly doesn't really understand who to find or where to find them. o we decide to go scout the area in Rob's car, then new people glom onto us, and we split into two vehicles. then we see Walky again, chat with him some more, more people glom, and we eventually leave. Rob, me, Thy, Windy, and Doug Kern. o breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. discover Denny's, Wendy's, Subway, D.Q. o return and sit around on level 2. people start lining up for checkin at 11 AM, two hours early. (not us.) at quarter to one, Kilby calls. he's at the bus terminal. Rob and I figure out how to get there, we're supposed to meet him *next* to the terminal so we can park free. his directions weren't good though, and he ends up walking all over the place and along a long fence before I catch up. o while we were waiting, Dal called from the airport, so we drop off Brian and go to the airport. but, we don't know where to find him. just "baggage claim 5". we initially guess international terminal since he's coming from Canada and it's terminal number 5. it takes forever, and we accidentally drove out of the airport once, then finally we get there and I run in to look for him. and find out we're wrong. I go back out to find rob, to learn he had to park. we decide to try the other terminals. while in 3, he calls again, but doesn't know what terminal he's in. he gives his airline though, so we ride the tram back to the garage, pay, and drive to dal's terminal. I run in, find him, and we wait for rob to come around again. then, finally, we go. drop dal off, rob and I get lunch at McDonald's at ~2:30. o I check in from Graham's line, go to get my Sunstreaker, and am told I don't get one!! Staff start looking for Glen to straighten it out. No one can find him! Finally he chances by, says I can take one, yay! o I return to the lobby. Indeed, there is no comic, just a preview. o After sitting a while, I go upstairs where people are playing Soul Calibur 2. Friday night dinner ------------------- o 1460 preregs this year! o Stuff Hasbro wanted to do at the dinner but couldn't get worked out: screening some Unicron Battles, screenshots of the Japanese G1 video game o They were going to show a "sizzle" for Energon, but will do it tomorrow instead. o The "twin sister" exclusives have a remolded head. o Glen made a Seeker PVC set. Wanted to last year, but finally got to it. o Coloring difficulties are blamed for the delay on the Universe comic. o A HOC Sunstorm is available as an incentive for prereg'ing for the 2004 OTFCC sometime this weekend. o Dinner swag: - a print of the cover to the GENESIS art book - plates with Don Figueroa War Within art (Autobots Grimlock, Ironhide Prowl, and Prime; or Decepticons Devastator, Starscream, and Megatron) o Club for 2004 has free reign on Takara's Mega SCF figures, which will be called "Legends of Cybertron" instead of Heroes of Cybertron. o LOC Skywarp will be the club-membership incentive. o Glen will be doing focus groups for the club and convention. o The above-mentioned plates are late because of safety-testing. Friday, post-dinner ------------------- o Reactions to the dinner seem to vary, but are lukewarm overall. o Stand in line for exclusives pickup. o Phil will get to play music with Vince at the end of the MSTF! o I go to the room to drop off stuff and change, call my friend Jessica who lives in Chicago to arrange a visit. o Come down, things are mostly dull. Susp wedgies Particle Man. Graham is grumpy, Jenni's hoarse. o Back to room for sleep. My Sunstreaker launchers match. Saturday -------- o Roomies get up well before 7... 6-6:30, to go wait for dealer room. I sleep. o Get up 7:40, shower, poop, primp. Come down ~8:10 expecting to walk right in, and find giant line sitting still. Grr. o Will find breakfastish items. o Eat, then wander around dealer room. Got some books! No coloring books around this year, though. o MSTF was great, although the room is awful. Low ceiling means the screen can't be elevated, plus there are random pillars obstructing the view. Also, we had to move to the back of the room because of people with gold passes. Hasbro panel ------------ o Michelle Fields (marketing), Aaron Archer (designer), Jerry Jivoin (exclusives), Eric Siebenaler (designer). Statements are previxed with the speaker's first initial. o M: This fall, the last 13 episodes will be subtitled with "The Unicron Battles" o A: The Armada beasts were needed to fill out the line because of high sales. He likes the idea of them being the "four horsemen" of Unicron. o A: Universe brings back older toys, set in the far future as the "final" Unicron battle. He sucks them from the past and absorbs energon from the battles. o M: The "Universe" CD has a minicomic with animation, other interactive stuff. It is kid-aimed, and they will do one each year. o ?: A Skywarp version of BM Jetstorm for Feb 2004? Something about a Machine Wars Starscream (?) o M: Reissies... Inferno, Hoist, Tracks, Smokescreen, Grapple. They are upping the quantities from last year. o A: They are looking into Headmasters, Powermasters, Pretenders for reissue. Some US-first reissues are possible, but they will mostly be following Takara. No current plans for Soundwave. He restates that G1 Megatron will not be released in the US, in any colors. o A: The story for Energon... - Continues from Armada, but is set 10 years later. No kids. - Autobots: combine for greater power, have a small force. - Decepticons: now "amped by hyper-power". - Omnicons, good guys, high energon tolerance - Earth, Cybertron, and other new places. o M: Animation style is cel-shaded CGI. Show starts late Jan or early Feb. They show some transformation sequences, she says they are tests only, that the final version will look better. o M: "Endless combinations" with the Autobot combining gimmick. o A: "Skyfire" didn't clear legal, so "Skyblast". o A: The combining is called powerlinking. Mini-Cons will continue, no gimmick activation, but, the figures will have pegs. There will be at least some new-mold Mini-Cons. o A: Green energon is Decepticon, red for Autobots, yellow is "pure". o A: Starscream is an "energon ghost". o A: There is at least one female TF in the series. o 20th Anniversary Prime stuff: - die cast parts - comes with axe, matrix, gun megatron, regular gun - no trailer - communications screen flips out on arm - starts as TRU exclusive in Feb, ~$75. o Alternators stuff: - licensed vehicles, 1/24 scale. - Smokescreen, $20. - All retailers. - Sideswipe, a Dodge Viper, is next. Jan/Feb. o Other stuff: - PS2 game for Armada/Energon! Second quarter of 2004. - Video Now! episodes of Armada. - Shows a pic of a BW "spark figure". Only one production version at Hasbro. - Aaron's office, crazy full of TFs including "Lava Bath"/"Safety" Megatron. - They don't have the G1 game here, but show the trailer. It is Sony's choice whether to bring the game over, but no current plans for it. o Question and answer portion... - Can't announce specific Alternator licenses. - Will make Alternators as long as they sell. - No plants for releasing the Japanese G1 animes here. - No RPG or CCG plans. - "International marketing groups" decide what's right for each respective territory. - Toys that "fly" need to be built sturdier than ground-based toys because kids are more likely to break them. :) - Armada seems really popular with kids. - Same studios as from Armada will be used for Energon. - Evades a question about Beast Era story depth. - There will be no live-action movie before 2005. Stated carefully so as to not confirm that there is a movie coming at all. - Aaron doesn't like the idea of "chase" figures. Store exclusives are basically the "chases" for the US. - no plans on War Within and GI Joe crossover toys. Energon Starscream has some War Within elements to his design, though. - No story (yet) for Alternators. Voice actors panel ------------------ o Gary Chalk, David Kaye, Gregg Berger. o In finding a character, Gary starts with how they laugh. o Greg looks for "imperfections" in the character design to help him. o Dave and Gary were both told the other was involved in Armada and joined up! o Greg: Latta was a "creative fountain", tempestuous. They wished for Scatman to "hold court" and tell stories. He had kind eyes. o "Slug track": voiceover which is intended to be redubbed later. o Welker pretended air was escaping from his head, plugged hole with his finger. o BW voiceovers were done in a joint session. o Non-ADR work is more fun. o Greg: Welker is "the consummate everything". If late for a 9 AM session, it's because his 6 AM one ran late. Re-tells the "payphone" story. Welker also does the sound of a fly zipping around the room. Apparently it's pretty convincing. o TFTM recordings were done in groups of four or less...? Greg recorded with Judd Nelson a lot. Welles arrived in his own car BEHIND a limo which contained his wheelchair. o Greg's TF and Joe memories run together. o Animators from Mainframe sometimes (always?) videotaped the recording sessions to help with animation. o Gary did 8-hour day sessions for a 1600 page script on some sort of Ripley's Believe It or Not software...? o Greg twice refers to an "octopus microphone" at Burr's studio. o Gary really liked Exo Squad. o David intentionally made his "Barbie" dragon sound like a father-figure version of Megatron. o Greg got his start from Gordon Hunt (Helen's father). He was a director on Exo Squad! Organizer's panel (ie. Glen Panel) ---------------------------------- o Starts off with explanations of "political fahrvergnugen". Planning with the Hartmans got harder and harder, less fun. They tried to patch it, but 2002 was a disappointment. Glen makes a plea to stop sending him hate mail, making it harder to repair the friendship. In the last year, he already had a kid, a divorce, and a cancer scare. o Next year's hotel exclusive: AR Megatron as Megazarak. Mini-Con is still unnamed, may be "Destructicon". Sold at-cost, he will be about 25-30 dollars. o Budiansky will be here next year!!! o Dinner will be a "mystery dinner" using 1984 TF characters. o Toys will have minor remolding. Choosing molds is trickier now that Universe is using some of them. o 10-12 bucks per Mega SCF. o T-shirts: Hasbro didn't approve the initial design, so they bulk-bought one. Raiz did the non-approved shirts, the art will be back next year. o Tentative rotating locations for upcoming conventions: 04 Chicago, 05 Los Angeles, 06 Chicago, 07 Baltimore. o Using more Hasbro-controlled names for exclusives will save $600-$1000 per toy in doing trademark searches. o Still wants to do A3 and Devcon. Probably not the molds we saw earlier in Wreckers, though. o BotCon Europe non-attendance packages will continue, but not the US ones. o May eventually do an all-new mold Mega SCF, but not a transformable toy. o They'll have a better ballroom next year. o It was Dan's idea to switch Sunstreaker in as the hotel exclusive. o Gold passes had been requested repeatedly, so he tried it, but they will drop the practice. o Don't remember what this was referring to anymore, but at one point Glen said: "I'm afraid to try it, because a lot of people get angry." This is emblematic, I think, of much of his experience running the convention. o Hotel exclusives are intended to help make up for the higher cost of staying in the official hotel. o Glen fired his old webmaster. They'll put up the sheet music for the TFTM score at some point. It will also have a running storyline with fan creators, and utilizing Rook. o Says he is "learning to give up responsibilities to other people." He likes choosing the toys himself too much to do it through a contest, but may try that in the future. o Plans more focus groups. o Big Daddy will be done eventually. o The Sunstreaker/Sideswipe toy has a sticker on the door becuase that type of plastic doesn't take paint. o "I've got 'holy poop!' ideas in my head and I've got to get them out." o Maybe a unique Palisades statue for next year's dinner. o Fan Events: scaled down conventions, held twice a year on opposite coasts. exclusives will be split evenly between the two. o May do an art contest entry incentive toy. o Simon is excited about the possibilities in "Universe". o They may try coloring the 1997 comic ("Critical Mass") for next year. o Exhibit next year about the whole exclusive development process. o Hotel exclusive Megazarak goes to the first 680 rooms. o Chose the name OTFCC because it's so direct, like the Joe convention's. Didn't want to try to make a new cute name. o Hasbro knows the new-toy leak is in the warehouses in Asia, but they can't fix it. o Without naming names, he says we should boycott Seibertron.com over their treatment of toy leaks. o Over a thousand dollars were raised in the charity auction. o Probably a *small* number of Fan Event exclusives will be able to be bought from the OTFCC website. o Fan Events... hasn't decided if there will be a prereg for them or not. o Fleer has the trading card license. o Hasbro *wants* people to go to their TF website, so they're making us want to by offering exclusive info there. o 1200 Sunstorms were made, a bit over half are sold. Less response to the prereg drive than he had hoped. o 500 preregs for this year came in the last three weeks before the deadline. o Had about 800 walk-ins. o Food options aren't really part of his location planning. o BotCon/OTFCC Europe will hit the continent: London next, then maybe Germany. o Intentionally put the VA panel Sunday afternoon. He wants there to still be good programming even late in the show. o Last year's inker was a big disappointment. o Some UK B&W strips may be colored for their collected editions.