Calgary C4 Experiences

I noticed that postings have waned as late, and I wondered if many who went down to C4 were suffering from Star Wars overexposure (not me - C4 just made me want MORE!).

So I thought this would be a good chance to share with the others our various experiences from Celebration 4. I'll go first......

On Saturday (May 26th) Dooks, Ryan, Neil and I went a panel called, Star Wars filming locations. Basically, these two guys Gus Lopez and Allinger (can't remeber his first name -sorry!) go around to various film locations where the Star Wars movies have been filmed. They showed us great pictures from Tunisia, to Italy, to England, to Norway, northern and southern California, etc. They talked about finding the locations based on movie references, books written about the films, how many places are accessible and many places still have bits of sets lying around (Luke's homestead is actually a hotel in Tunisia!).

At the end of the panel, they said they'd visited Yuma, California on the Tuesday before the convention to check out the place where the Sarlaac pit scene was shot (they'd been there previously). Lucasfilm had built a huge set with Jabba's sailbarge and the Sarlaac pit for ROTJ. Lopez then pulls out a box, and tells us that they brought pieces of what remained of the sailbarge and the Sarlaac pit. He then gave us pieces to take home!! I was lucky enough to get a fairly good size piece of the Sarlaac Pit and Neil, Dooks and Ryan also got one. It was incredible! Here I held a REAL piece of Star Wars history - 25 years old!!!

It's one of the hightlights of the trip for me

 

CIV was the best week of my life. Everyone who went on the trip is probably sick of hearing this by now, but the absolute best part of the trip for me was meeting a girl...

I had known Jentress from the New England Garrison for about a year just on some forums we both frequent, but on the Thursday at CIV I met her in person. I saw a familiar looking female Mandalorian walking down the hall, and called out to her. She recognized me, we chatted for a bit, and parted, looking forward to seeing each other at the 501st Mixer later that night. I texted Jordan to tell him I met Jen (he's also on one of the same forums), and that I though she was gorgeous. When I was at the mixer later that night, he texted me back telling me to give her a kiss for him. Real smooth Jordy. But thank you for getting me started. So, when I saw Jen I managed to ramble something like "Jordanjusttextedme, thisisfromhim." And I kissed her on the cheek, and sat back down at my table. Later on, I pulled her onto the dance floor, and showed her a few moves.

The night went on, and we chatted a bit, then the Badlands crew wanted to head to Casey's Irish Pub. So they went ahead, and I waited for Jen, her friend Beth, Thomas Spanos (the 501st LMO), and some random dude named Ed. We started walking, and I had a reasonable idea of where to go given Angela's description, but Ed insisted it was a different direction. Long story short, we got lost, found the set from the season finale of Heroes with the twisting red stairs, went back to the hotel, took a cab to Casey's, which ended up being a block from where we had stopped when I was leading the way. So I made Ed buy a beer for whoever in Badlands wanted it since he got us lost.

After a while, Matt Wood (the voice of General Grievous) showed up. He had met Jen at Dragon*Con and had a crush on her, so he was trying to flirt with her a bit. Or a lot. Anyways, Jen, Matt and I left Casey's together, Matt went walking towards the Omni, and I walked Jen back to the Westin. When we got there, there was lots of kissing, then she went up the elevator and I went back to the Figueroa.

I'm skipping a whole lot of stuff here, since the story literally takes an hour and a half to tell, so if anyone feels like hearing more, we can have lunch. Anyways, over the course of the weekend, we hung out together everyday, had so much fun together, and realized we were what each other was looking for. We're crazy about each other. It was the hardest thing in the world to say goodbye. But now she's my girlfriend, and we're going to Dragon*Con together. I can't wait for those 85 days until I get to see her again to pass.

 

Now how can anyone reply after that experience?

 

Well it could have been worse. He could have announced it on live TV. Oh yeah he did.
JK Shawn.

My favorite experience at C4 was watching The Clone Wars Trailer with Dooks, & Yrol. As Yrol made he way to get seats in Celebration theater, Dook & myself went to the Exhibit hall to grab the exclusives on that day from the Hasbro booth & a few other stops. Well at 10:20 we made our way back to the theater only to be turned away saying they were full and we would have to wait for the next show. Knowing full well there was 2 seats inside with our names on it and we were not going to miss this panel. We found a crew member and I told him we were in the theater and we couldn't help we had to duck out to use the washroom as were had been in line outside since 6-7 AM. He didn't believe us. So we got on the radio and Yrol is like where are you guys. I think that convinced the guy and he actually escorted us in cause he still wasn't to sure about if we were pulling his leg or not. Once inside we sat down with about a minute to spare and the panel began. Listening to Dave Filoni and Cathrine Winder talk about setting up Lucas Animation and seeing the still and tour of the Ranch with what they were trying to 0pull off was amazing. I think most of us were pretty satisfied with the direction they were headed, and we would gladly wait for 2008 to roll around. Then can the Q&A portion of the panel. The last question a guy stood up and said that he didn't come all the way across the USA to see a few stills and asked if they actually had anything real for us. Well after a few humming and hawing, Dave & Cathrine explained that they had just finished showing episode 9 to George and he loved it. Then Dave explained to GL that he was doing this panel and he couldn't go empty handed to C4. So GL agreed for him to do a 2 minute trailer. SO Dave and another guy stayed up to all hours the week before C4 to get it done. The next 2 minutes was spent with goose bumps and tears of Joy. OMG is all we could say. The Dave asked us if we caught everything and said that we should show it again. AWESOME was all that came to mind. I think the crowd outside was pumped as we all left the theater cheering like little kids about the 2 minutes of pure SW joy.


My next favorite experience was at the hotel in the lounge. As we were drinking some really strong Rum & Cokes. YNB!!!!!

You guys are all awesome.

R.

 

Meeting Dave Dorman - my favorite Star Wars artist. I got 4 signed lithographs, a 2 of those personalized -> hopefully they arrive safely in the next week or so.

Some other key words for me:

-escalator
-"iced tea" -> Neal loves to tell this story
-iced tea take 2 -> thanks Neal! that stuff was actually not too bad!
-General Grevious live interview
-"suspicious package"
-last 'home' every night (that's VERY bizzare for me, as I'm usually first)

Overall, nothing massively awesome. I was WAY TOO worried about having a bad 'fan-boy' moment, or 20, so I was quite...ummmm.....introvert. That's why I wanted (and tried) so hard to hang out with "Alpha Team". Can I consider myself one of that team, code 13-31?

 

Here are all my blog posts on Celebration

http://slashboing.blogspot.com/search/label/Celebration%204

Boom.

 

One of the coolest experiences I had was walking up to the Dave Dorman booth and signing his print for him while a whole bunch of people watched 'cuz they were standing in line to have him sign theirs. Dorman had asked all 501st members to come and sign the 501st print he did. Another was organizing the induction for another Star Wars artist into the Legion. And....being on "stage" at the 501st Mixer with Darth daVer and speaking about the induction of Shane Turgeon as a Friend of the Legion. Ummmm....of course the panel about denizen costuming I was on and the mobile skits I was involved with were pretty freakin' cool too! I loved meeting everyone at the 501st booth each day. But all in all....it was the coolest to spend time with my good friends who even though you are all only 3 hours away....I don't get to see you nearly enough. Thanks for the great memories, everyone!

 

There was so much good stuff... chatting w/ David Prowse was awesome, my plot to steal Anakins speeder, meeting tons of people from all over the places and just talking Star Wars. Oh, and I was in love w/ the life sized Jabba. I think I went and saw it about 10 times a day. And just stared. And Carrie Fisher! She was great, and so funny! And i'll never forget the looks on George's face as we walked around. Yes, it was 5 days I'll alweays remember. Ughhh the Original pantry, anyone else eat there? The only good thing i had there was the Ice cream. For breakfast.

 

So time to reflect on the greatest 6 days of Star Wars and the amazing time that I had in the city of angels some maybe from the moons of Iyaygo (sorry not too sure how to spell that). Major highlights for me are too many to list from the flight down, to meeting Anthony Daniels, the exclusive attack run, swan party, meeting people from all over the world, Clone Wars trailer, Irvin Kirshner, Evening with Carrie Fisher, YNB, and hanging with my roommates just to name a few.

I had no problems with anything in the way this convention was run as it was pretty smooth in my opinion. This is the best convention period in my opinion and will be the only one that I attend regularly especially since it covered all the things I like the most which is Star Wars.

Dragon-Con, Comic-Con, Wizard Worlds, are every year and only focus on what?s hot at the moment a Celebration is exactly that a Celebration of all things Star Wars and what more could you ask for.

STAR WARS IS FOREVER!!!!!!

Hail to the King.

 

All in all it was a good time. Very fun at all times and you couldn't room with a better bunch than Scot C, Dave W and Ryan M. We managed to work the Convension for about 12-14 hours and got to see alot of stuff. We found our little watering hole in the form of a Pub Named Casy's Irish Pub. Every night that it was open we were there to pretty much closing, when I wasnt walking either too tired myself or walking people home for security reasons. Got to meet the whole crew from the Virginia Garrison and party with them for pretty much the whole time we were there. One of them actually got hired on by Lucasfilm I believe for Indi4 doing Art for the film.
Oh, I have to say thank you Ryan for Video taping me while I was SLEEPING and SNORING, Scot for your dancing past the camera and Dave for then posting it on www.youtube.com I will get you all


Roger

 

NP buddy.!

 

Just ask Ryan, Yrol and Neil about my snoring sir. I'm sure they've informed everyone but KTLA in California about how I moan and make various sounds in my sleep.

I'm still working on my livejournal posts this week, but work has fallen into my lap like a ton of bricks and I've yet to find a spare moment that feels right to relate the whole story. Nonetheless, a favored incident comes to mind:

Saturday morning I slept in until about 7am, and by the time I was up and ready to roll out everyone else had departed for their places in line. I hopped the shuttlebus, knapsack on my back, hat on my head to block out the harsh glare of the California sun. I made my way into the line and ended up across the street and up the stairs, by I believe the West Hall, where the porta-potties were being kept.

The line was full of pleasant, affable folks. I struck up a conversation with a local couple who'd brought their son (resplendent in Jedi robes that looked pretty good on him and a Mace Windu MR lightsaber), who were members of the LA chapter of the 501st. We talked about this, that, the other thing, making the usual jokes that Star Wars just ain't Star Wars without a huge frickin' line. . .when the following occured.

Making their way down the line, just meandering about in no hurry, were a pair of guys dressed in really well done Endor Commando gear. As they made their way down the line, the boy's mother nudged him and said " There you go, you should go chop them up. "

To which the boy, with the exasperated sigh of a child who wearies of explaining things to parents who should really know better, said simply " Those are good guys. I'm a Jedi. Jedi don't fight good guys. "

At which point I leaned in, pointing at the kid and looking at the other people in line grinning at his comment and remarked " This kid knows what time it is! "

I love Star Wars. Still.

~StacyD.

 

Ah, yes........the iced tea incident of 07 will be forever be ingrained in my mind And the escalator - have those scars healed yet, Kris??

Another favourite moment of mine, was meeting Steve Sansweet, head of Fan Relations and owner of the largest Star Wars collections in the world.

The two Ryans and I went to check out the Fan Club Lounge on Friday. I had brought an extra Tosche Station T-shirt to give to Steve, if perchance we bumped into him. I didn't really think it would happen (especially on the first day!), but thought I'd just carry the shirt around with me wherever I went, just in case.
As we were resting our weary feet in the lounge, suddenly Dooks (who has the eyes of an eagle!) leans over and says, 'Steve Sansweet is over there.' 'Where??!' I exclaimed?? And there he was just chatting with some fans, having just walked in.
We decided this was the perfect moment to give him the shirt. We headed over to say our hellos. He's a super nice guy and it was just awesome to meet such an avid fan and collector. We shook hands, told him where we were from, and said we had a shirt for him. He graciously accepted it. I mentioned to him, that I remember a large wooden C-3PO in his collection (pictured in one of the many visits to Rancho Obi-Wan on starwars.com) because it was apparently from Canada, and carved using a chain-saw. He said that's what the store owner he purchased it from in Georgia had told him, but that he wasn't really sure where in Canada it was from. I mentioned that I thought it was this fellow from BC (whose place I've driven by many times on the way to Vancouver and has a display of chainsaw carved items in front of his home). He said it would be nice to have an R2 companion piece to go with C-3PO. He attempted to shuffle through his heavy bag, was having a bit of a problem and then just decided to use Manson as a human coat rack He slung his bag over Ryan's arm and said, 'I could use you all day, just to hold my bag!'. I know for a fact that Ryan would've done it!! He then fished out one if his business cards, handed it to me and said, 'If you find any information on this guy who does the chainsaw pieces, would you email me the info??' I was like, Hell ya!! Dooks then pimped Steve a Red5 card and also got one of his cards in return.

I'll be driving to BC to look up this guy and hopefully get him in contact with Steve so he can add another piece to his vast collection.

We bumped into him several other times during the convention (he sat not far from us during the Clone Wars panel and was just as excited as we were when we got to see the trailer). Each time he was super friendly, and chatted with us.

Another great experience at C4

 

Well, my worst fear has come true.

I got my Celebration 4 signed and personalized art in the mail today. Somewhere along the line (either in USPS or Canada Post hands), someone decided to stomp on it, and totally crushed about 1/3 of the tube.

Yup, my $350 worth of ART, is now worth less than a single $5 poster (not that I ever planned to sell any of them). My Malcom Tween is the worst - looks like it was pulled from the garbage. My 2 cutaway's are pretty damn bad. And my Dave Dorman art looks like ****.

EVERY piece has about 4-8 HARD creases in it. Not the soft ones that can be gently worked out. These are most definitely permanent. The colour is even coming of from several pieces at the damage points.

I'm hopeful that a couple pictures might be salvageable enough for (public) display, and with weak enough lighting, hide the damage.

For now, I'm placing them all flat in a poster frame, to at least unroll them.

Eventually, I may see if I can order copies/replacements, though I doubt I can get them personalized again, maybe not even signed.

This post does in NO WAY, show how pissed off I am.

Pissed off and sad. I have 'dreamt' about meeting Dave Dorman, and getting some signed and even personalized art from him.......and now.............75% of each of 4 DD pieces......ruined.

At this rate........CIV is turning to NOT have been worth the money and time.

 

Should of carried your poster tubes on the plane only way to be safe and sorry for your loss.

 

I would have, if I didn't have 2 carry-on's already

 

Aie yi yi. . .I'm sorry to hear that Chris. That well and truly sucks.

 

It was really a sensory overload for me. It was a surreal experience to be in amongst 30 years of history and being able to share it with thousands of others that were as passionate as me. There were so many things there that were cool. The Vader helmet art show, the archives, the R2 Builders club, the costumes, meeting Seth Green at the store, the exhibition hall, the Kotobukiya folks...I bought so much stuff, I had to bring home a huge cardboard box to hold it all. My autograph collection is getting pretty big now, but still not as big as Jay's...lol.

Still, I managed to get a lot of pics.

 

well C4 crew. I finally managed to get G4 TV's Star Wars at 30 and Star Wars The Legacy Revealed onto DVD last night. After 5 hours of video converting and authoring its on a DVD so let me know who wants and I'll bring it to next meeting. No fancy case for this one just a disk.

The G4 Star Wars at 30 was shot live from the convention on the Saturday.I must say watching it take me right back there. And Olivia Munn in her Slave Leia costume is not to shabby either.

I haven't had a chance to watch the Legary Revealed yet but just skimmed it and it looks pretty interesting.

 

That sucks to hear about your artwork Kris. But look on the brightside: at least you know I had a great time down there.

I'd love to have one of the DVD's Ryan.

 

I'd love to have a DVD Ryan - just let me know how much I owe you

Kris - sorry that your stuff got ruined. Did you have insurance at all? I would've sent home the dirty clothes and carried the important stuff with me - especially if it's as fragile as art. It's too bad the post office had to ruin your experience, but at least you'll have the memory of meeting Dave Dorman with you always.

Guess those of us who sent stuff back and got them in good order were lucky....

 

Ryan I'll take a dvd if possible.

 

Picked up my lightsabers from the post office today. Yes, Saturday. Customs decided to open and "inspect" them, and even played with them, as one was switched on. Fortunately, I unplugged both power packs before shipping them. The hilts and blades are quite beat up, as the customs people just rammed them back in the tube, against each other. It'll take some repair and clean-up work, but at least they have arrived, and I wasn't charged any custom's fees.

 

Sorry the hear about the trouble Kris!!
For me, it is the memories... too many to list... it was a great experience!!

Ryan, please set me up with a DVD, and let me know if you're happy with a replacement blank, or what costs you're looking for

Here's a fond memory:
Dooks meeting Anthony Daniels

 

Count me in for a DVD too Ryan.

Sorry to hear about your 'sabers Chris. Ack. . .

I've posted part two of my CIV experiences over at my lj: http://defender75.livejournal.com/. Check it out if you like.

~StacyD