Our day at Comic Con

Last Friday, we got up at 5am, assembled the troops, and began the not-that-long caravan down to San Diego for the largest convention in the history of ever. There were plenty of indicators of Comic Con's massiveness on the way down. Our hotel in Escondido -- a good twenty miles north of San Diego, the closest hotel Don could find -- was a crappy two-star EconoLodge with a bathroom only slightly wider than my car and a mattress with slightly less give than particle board. Those rooms went for $300 a night. Ridiculous? Yes. But anything closer to the convention had sold out months ago. We were lucky to find this place.

Then there was actually getting to the convention. If the lodging situation was bad, the parking was worse. Comic Con put out a list of all the nearby (and not so nearby) park-and-rides, and even with all those options the routes were jammed. We drove to Qualcomm Stadium, some twenty minutes away, to park, and then rode the red line train for a half-hour to the convention center. And when the convention center loomed into sight, and we saw the masses of costumed fans baking in the ninety-degree heat, the size of the convention really dawned on us.

The hall itself was larger than any convention hall I'd ever seen. All the dividing walls had been taken out, leaving an open space from Exhibit Hall A to Exhibit Hall H. Almost sixty aisles of vendors and exhibitors packed the hall. To give you a sense of it, we were told that if you walked from one end of the hall to another, slaloming up and down every aisle, you would walk over three miles. Not that you could walk through the hall without getting stuck in a fan jam. Each aisle had at least four breaks in it to allow for foot traffic. And the foot traffic... Nearly every intersection I passed through was either completely clogged or slowed to a trickle. Nobody could move faster than a languid meander. I felt my long dormant offensive lineman instincts kicking in, had to fight the urge to plow through the crowd shoulder-first . I've never seen foot traffic that dense in my life. I assume it's what the New York subway is like, but with less movement and more Batmans (Batmen?).

A lot of celebrity sightings. We saw Stephen Baldwin giving an interview outside the hall. Moments later, we ran into our favorite con-friend, Dean Haglund, during a lull in the crowd. I bought my copy of The Guild season one, and got most of the cast to sign it -- not Felicia Day, though, who was busy with Dr. Horrible panels all day. (On a side note, the line to the Joss Whedon seminar was wrapped around the exhibit hall, down the hall, out the door, and along the wall outside. No chance of getting into that one. Damn it. One of these days I'll write about how many times I've narrowly missed seeing Joss. Not that he's my hero or anything. Or that I wear a "What Would Joss Do?" bracelet. Or that I keep a shoebox full of his nail clippings.) Also ran into David Gerrold, sci-fi author and writer of the most popular Star Trek of all time, The Trouble with Tribbles -- hadn't seen him since he guest taught a Writing for TV class for D.C. Fontana at AFI. He was his usual curt, sarcastic, and brilliant self.

When the exhibit hall finally closed, the Dead Gentlemen zipped on over to the Marriott to prep for the screening. We passed under this rather amusing sign directing us to the ballrooms, and had to pose for a picture.

"DG," right there to welcome us. An omen? A portent?

A sign of good fortune to come? (Answer: No.)

.

The screening itself went as well as we could have hoped. We started with a good crowd, about 75 people, at least half of whom had no idea who we were or what the movie was about. But the crowd didn't stay that size. Folks kept trickling in. The door to the hall kept opening. By the time the film was over, an additional 100 people had ambled in to join the crowd. And by their response, they loved it -- they laughed long and hard, in all the right places, and gave us a grand sitting ovation when the credits rolled. It was the perfect crowd to screen to, and a great way for us to cristen our Comic Con experience.

After the screening, about fifteen of us -- members and friends of DG, and friends of friends of DG -- gathered for a very late dinner at 9pm. This was the first down time I'd had all day -- I'd been up since five -- and I found myself falling asleep at the table. We left two hours later, and two hours after that finally got back to our hotel rooms. We briefly flirted with the idea of going back to the con on Saturday, but nixed it in the morning. And a good thing, too. Saturday set the new con record -- 140,000 people, the biggest crowd ever, 15,000 more than last year's record. So I'd say we got out good when we did.

All in all, our one day at Comic Con was an exhausting and exhilirating experience, overwhelming and disorienting. Frankly, I can't believe I didn't get a migraine from all the over-stimulation. But I'm glad to have done it, and will be glad to do it next year. Because you can't really be in fandom until you've made the Comic Con journey.

Wifey showing off her guns at the screening.

Jamie Chambers (Margaret Weis Productions) poses with Cindy and Wifey.

Jen Page -- star of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising
and the cover girl for the poster -- outflexes me. Again.

An unexpected party.

Dorkness Rising at Comic Con

This coming Friday, July 25, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising will be screening at Comic Con in San Diego.

The amazing thing about this screening -- we've never been to Comic Con before, let alone screened there -- is that they contacted us. It seems the guy who programs their film screenings has been a fan of Dead Gentlemen since The Gamers first came out on VHS. So we're getting to show our movie a couple weeks before its DVD premiere at the largest convention in fandom (Comic Con had over 125,000 attendees in 2007). And we're getting probably the best screening time as well -- 7:00 pm on Friday night.

Here's some highlights from the press release. The full version is on the Dead Gentlemen website:

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising to be Screened at San Diego Comic-Con

July 22, 2008 (TACOMA, Wash.) - Dead Gentlemen Productions announced today that their film The Gamers: Dorkness Rising will be screened at Comic-Con in San Diego, and make its DVD premiere in three weeks at Gen Con in Indianapolis. The DVD will be sold exclusively by Paizo Publishing at Gen Con, and is provided by the film’s domestic distributor, Anthem Pictures.

“Comic-Con is the ultimate convention in the US to reach our larger target audience,” said Dead Gentlemen’s Executive Director, Don Early. “We wanted to participate in Comic-Con, but our release date put us past their window. I thought we’d missed our chance. But then I got a call from the head of the films department at Comic Con. I was shocked and amazed!”

“I have been a fan of Dead Gentlemen for years,” said Joshua Glaser from Comic-Con Films Department International. “When I read that their long-awaited film, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising, was going to be released on DVD at Gen Con this year, I knew I had to try and get a screening at Comic Con.”

“The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is already one of the best selling products of all time on paizo.com and it’s not even released yet,” said Paizo’s Director of Marketing, Joshua J. Frost. “We have a full Dorkness Rising signing schedule planned for our booth at Gen Con, including appearances from many of the actors as well as members of the production team. Stop by our booth, buy yourself a copy, and get it signed!”

“Anthem has put together a fantastic DVD,” says Matt Vancil,
writer/director of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. “The fans have been supremely patient — they’ve been waiting for this for five years. Plus, a screening at Comic Con? The over-caffeinated heart of the empire of fandom? Holy wow! All is well with the universe.”

“It’s rare to find a gem of title like Dorkness in today’s marketplace,” says Chuck Adelman, president of Anthem Pictures. “The RPG audience is massive and a major driving force behind independent films. Being a gamer myself, it’s a great feeling to distribute a title that we feel will really capture a new generation of gamers and appeal to the mature RPG-gamers across the board.”

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising will screen at Comic-Con in San Diego on Friday, July 25th, 7pm at the Marriott in Marina Ballroom D. DVD sales premiere exclusively at Paizo Publishing’s booth #2221 at Gen Con on August 14, 2008, and then hit retailers on August 19, 2008.

We don't have a booth or anything, so we'll be walking the exhibit hall floor, reconnecting with friends and annoying celebrities, until the screening hall opens at 6:00 pm. Here's our schedule:

The Marriott, Marina Ballroom D, Friday July 25
6:00 pm -- Q & A with the Dead Gentlemen
7:00 pm -- The Gamers: Dorkness Rising screening
2:50 am -- The Gamers screening (yes, we'll be up that late)

Lots of awesome is starting to stack up. In a week, the Hopjockey team will be pitching to two networks, and there's significant movement on ALIVE. Keep your fingers crossed.

Poolwalkers in my lane

So I finally found a branch of my gym that has a lap pool. And what a delightful surprise the new location was. The gym where I had been working out was right in the middle of a strip mall -- it shared space with a nail salon, UPS store, a couple of restaurants, and there was never, ever any parking. The inside of the gym was just as cramped and smelled of rust and suffering. The other branch, on the other hand is its own building, with plenty of parking space. There are more rooms for more activities, a much larger (and cleaner) locker room, and many amenities I wasn't expecting -- like multiple saunas, and a 22-person capacity hot tub right by the pool, and a freakin' juice bar. It's a little out of the way, but so much more worth it.

That's not to say it's perfect. I have to share my lap lane every day, which I don't mind. If I'm sharing it with a swimmer. What I do mind is that most of of the people who use the pool are poolwalkers. If you don't know what I'm talking about, the name kind of explains it: People who walk slowly along the bottom of the pool, in shoes or sandals, wading and waddling from one end to another. And -- not to generalize -- they're all old, slow, mountainously fat, and in my way. The aquatic March of the Potato People.

Have you ever been to the hippo display at the zoo? And gone down to the under-the-water section, and watched the hippos bobbing lazily across the water? It's kind of like that, but with less hippo shit.

I didn't know poolwaking was popular. Or that it's a viable form of exercise. What I do know is there are more of them on any given day than there are swimmers. They lay claim to half the pool -- it's actually cordoned off for them -- but even so, they always intrude into the swimming lanes. Always. Lanes that say "lap swim only." So my options are to swim in the fast lane -- keeping an eye out for faster swimmers torpedoing at me from the opposite direction -- or swim in the poolwalker-infested intermediate lanes and risk smashing head-on into Stay Puft.

Like this, but under water.

All in all, though, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Though when I'm done with my swim -- 44 laps, what I'm told is a mile -- I do share the giant communal hot tub with them. Usually I'm the only swimmer in there... the rest are poolwalkers, fresh off their "workout." I climb out once the water smeels too much like canola oil and back hair.

On the non bitchy/whiny side, I got to help Matt DeMille move in yesterday... four doors down the hall! A big welcome to my fellow Northwesterner and, in a scant two-and-a-half years, alumn.

New business cards

Figured my cards could use an update for the upcoming con season. Many thanks to Cindi Rice, photoshop sorceress, for the design. The design I chose was, of course, the least favorite of the ones she came up with. Shows how well we work together, I guess.

Dorkness has risen!

Finally, at long last, after five years of toil and setbacks and magic and everything that could possibly delay its release, The Gamers: Dorkness Rising has reached the distributors. The folks at Anthem Pictures picked up our movie at the end of May. We're all pretty excited at Dead Gentlemen, seeing as how distribution has been the ultimate goal for this project since I poo-pooed the idea of a Gamers sequel back in 2003. Here's the press release in case you missed it.

Here's an example of how long this project has been going on: We started filming -- not pre-production, which is a whole other story, but the actual filming -- in January of 2005. Since then, Wifey and I moved to Los Angeles and I went to grad school at the AFI. Yes, between when we wrapped shooting and when the film finally comes out, I've gotten a Masters from film school.

Another bit of Gamers-related awesome: Dorkness' amazingly talented production designer, Matt DeMille, will be attending the AFI in the fall. He'll also be living in our apartment building, just four doors down the hall. Congrats, fellow Matt. You have more than a name for film.

DVDs of The Gamers: Dorkness Rising will be for sale on August 14 at Gen Con. We'll be at the Paizo booth pimping the movie. We'll also be at Comic con -- we'll be screening both The Gamers and Dorkness, though we don't have times yet. I'll post screening times when I have them.

Many thanks to Anthem Pictures for picking up our flim; to John Frank and Cindi at Epic Level for shepherding us through post-production (at enormous personal expense); to and all the Dead Gentlemen, for your friendship, support, and film craft; and to our literally dozens of fans worldwide. You have all been very patient, overly so.

I can't wait to do this again, as long as we tighten down the whole films-to-years ratio.

A week away

Sunday I returned home from an extended trip that was actually three little trips jammed together with no elbow room. Yesterday I succumbed to the mandatory post-trip migraine, and spent most of the day with a pillow over my eyes and Bean lying on my chest, back, side, or face -- whichever surface was up . In case you don't know, Bean is the six-pound cat with the two-ton attitude who thinks she rules the apartment. It's best to just let her keep thinking that.

Bean, the destroyer of worlds.

The first leg of the trip took us and two other couples to Solvang, a little piece of Denmark along the California Coast. We chowed down on aebelskivers, bought too much wine and too many stuffed olives. I got a terrible sunburn, which is to be expected. I always get sunburned. I could burn under a 60 watt bulb. I bought a sun hat, though a bit after the fact.

Less than a day after we ground back to Los Angeles, and with not nearly enough sleep, I left Bean in charge and hopped a plane to Seattle. There was a lot to cram into not nearly enough hours. The main reason for the trip, what made it write-offable, was the premiere of The Dark Horse at the Seattle International Film Festival. The film was written and directed by one of my closest friends, the lovely and talented Cornelia Moore, and edited by another BFF, the less lovely though equally talented Ben Dobyns, a fellow Dead Gentleman.

It rained the entire time I was in Washington, and I loved it. There's a thickness to the atmosphere of the northwest, a fullness to it -- rain, mist, clouds that begin as fog and hide the mountains from view -- that you just can't get in So Cal. Add to that the novelty of there being green belts between cities, of random greenness in undeveloped places. Here, nothing is green that isn't planned to be so, that isn't irrigated, and the empty patches are gray and brown and yellow. You can see that when you fly out of the place. In Washington, the emptiness is full of growing things, of overgrowing, overflowing green. I miss it terribly. I wasn't born there, but the northwest is my home. And if I'm lucky, it's where I'll leave my bones.

I got in late Monday night with just enough time for Mom to humiliate me at pool . I chalked my multiple losses up to fatigue. I got a good night's sleep, and she wiped the floor with me the next day. I have the most amazing ability at pool to scratch from anywhere on the table. And my tactic of making Mom laugh so hard at my ineptitude failed to throw her off her game. So I stole her car and drove to Seattle.

I had lunch with Corrie's producer, a big wheel in the Seattle film scene, and pitched a few ideas he seemed to like. I reconnected with my folks at the Seattle Bach Choir rehearsal that night. It's a choir, one of many, that my Dad conducts. They're preparing for their tour of Europe. The bastards. Three years after we move to L.A., they're touring internationally. I sat in the pews as they ran through the program, and watched my father -- a wizard with a choir -- weave their voices together. And I got a bit misty. I miss choral singing. I miss watching my father conduct.

Wednesday was the premiere. I crowded into the sold-out SIFF cinema with five hundred other people to see The Dark Horse. The movie itself -- shot entirely in Washington with much of the production on Orcas Island -- was marvelous, entertaining and surprisingly emotional. Corrie set up three Hollywood endings, and went with none of them. I'm not going to give any spoilers, but the way it ends is not triumphant, but bittersweet; the problems confronting the family aren't so much solved as repositioned; and though the characters change in satisfying ways, life isn't candy for them when the movie ends. The lights came up to enthusiastic applause, and I could only just sit there and think "Wow, she's gonna make more movies." And if the response from the crowd was any indicator, she certainly will.

On Thursday, there was just enough time for Mom to destroy the last lingering traces of my self-esteem at pool before I had to fly back to L.A. I got off the plane in Burbank, crossed the street, and picked up a rental car for Leg Three of this extended trip -- my cousin's wedding, about sixty miles outside of San Francisco.

Wifey and departed at 3:30 AM for the seven-hour drive. We arrived to find that there was a problem with our hotel room. Rather, there was a problem with my aunt and uncle's hotel room. We were going to share a room with them, but when they arrived, they found themselves in a one-bedroom -- not what they'd reserved. So by the time we got there, the concierge informed us that they were giving us our own room, completely free of charge. I suspect my firebrand of an aunt was involved. We accepted, and spent the next six hours face-down on a king sized bed. (Incidentally, I sometimes find it hard to sleep without a small cat standing on my back or face.)

The wedding itself was simple and sweet. And hot. I would have gotten another sunburn if not for my awesome anti-sun hat. After the ceremony, we danced long into the night. Wifey showed members of the wedding party how to dance to 80s bubble-gum pop. I spilt my pants while doing the limbo. It was a great party. I got to spend time with aunts and uncles I never see.

We took the 101 back to L.A., even though the route was longer, and passed by Solvang where the extended trip began a week before. We reluctantly gave back the rental car and picked up our old 2001 Taurus from the shop. The wiper fluid dispenser still doesn't work.

It's nice to be home. I won't be going anywhere for a while, since Bean's forbidden me to leave the apartment. So it's back to the grind, which basically is waiting for production company execs to get back from vacation and give us an effing verdict on our pitches. The waiting is long, boring, and doesn't pay -- but hey, at least I get to work from home.

The Proclaimers at the El Rey

On Friday night, the wife and I went to see my favoritest band in the history of ever, The Proclaimers. They're in the middle of a worldwide tour for their new album, "Life With You." Now, I'm not really the rock-concert going type -- the number of surgeries I've had is greater than the number of concerts I've been to -- but when I found out those twins from Scotland were playing the El Rey, attendance was mandatory.

For those of you who don't know, the Proclaimers are a Scottish band. Their biggest hit in the US was 1988's "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," but they're huge in the UK and just released their seventh album (not counting compilations). The setup for the band sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit -- identical twin Scotsmen who look like Buddy Holly and sing in a brogue so think you can't understand what they're saying half the time.

But that's one of the things that makes the band great. They sing in their dialect; they're not going to mask it. They even did a song about it, "Throw the 'R' Away." And if you listen to their songs, you'll know why -- a good portion of them are about Scottish pride and independence. Add in the other common themes in their music -- love and loss; travel; getting married, fighting while married, and loving being married; and drinking -- and rockabilly and country influences, and you've got a nutshell idea of what the Proclaimers are about.

That's Charlie Reid on the left (guitar, vocals) and Craig Reid on the right (vocals). I think. No, wait. That's Craig on the ... or is it ... ? Shit.

The concert itself was spectacular. We were right up against the stage, maybe three bodies back. It's rare that a band sounds as good live as on their CDs. The Proclaimers, I dare say it, rocked the El Rey. They did many of the cuts from their new album and all of their classics. My favorite song, "There's a Touch," was third on their playlist. They did all their biggest hits, with a full band: "Letter from America," "I'm On My Way," and the obligatory "I'm Gonna Be." For an encore, they did a three-song set that they capped with their cover of "King of the Road." And the crowd -- not huge, but fully stoked -- was composed of hardcore fans. They knew every song, and sang along. And I'd never met another American Proclaimers fan. All in all, a fantastic evening, and a fabulous performance. It's Monday, and my ears have finally stopped ringing.