Edmonton FilmCon 5, Updates and Opportunities

The tale of FilmCon.

I almost didn't make the flight because I didn't have my birth certificate on me. They pull me aside and tell me I need to relinquish my US residency in order to travel without it. So I signed this form and off I go. But I can always get it back if I want, I just file another form and I'm good to go.

So I get here and met Kyle for the first time. Great guy, very into the whole thing. Eric (the coordinator) is just bursting and animated as always. He did the marketing campaigns for Star Wars and he's already been dropping some useful tips on screenshots, previews and other nifty things we should do.

This place looks amazing. I can't believe I forgot to bring my camera, well and the business cards too but that's pretty secondary. The Halls that are hosting these talks are amazing.

Some guy did the most stunning Artwork of the key characters of Star Wars and Eric had them printed on 3 foot by 6 foot banners. Oh my freakin god.

They're going to be auctioned off at the charity auction. The most impressive ones IMO are the Han, Luke, Ben Kenobi, and Vader. If anyone in this fanforce wants me to bid on one for them, I will gladly do so. Just inform me of what you would like your maximum bid to be and I can bid on your behalf. Eric will allow me to arrange payment afterwards with the winner.

They're not posters, they are cloth banners with the most impressive artwork of the characters I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot. They're one of a kind original works. I'm going to see if I can get a FilmCon 5 banner as well. They have the logo printed on a red and black banner with the image of Vader on it.

Luke, Leia, Han, The Emperor, Padme, General Greivous, Darth Vader, Obi Wan Kenobi.

Post here with your max bids and character of choice if you're interested.

Anyways, gotta get some prep work done for tomorrow. Updates to come. Oh yeah I gotta buy a cheese hat. No one goes to Wisconsin without buying a cheese hat. It's like going to Italy and not sampling the wine.

 

Have fun man-o. Have a drink for me!

 

no one told us we were supposed to buy a cheese hat when we were there

 

Yeah, no kidding. Would have been nice to know

Though I like that every place that sells stuff also sells cheese.

My favorite was "Liquor & Cheese > next left"

 

LOL, You guys didn't have room for them anyway.

 

After talking to Eric, I have a crapload more ideas for hilarious outtakes and goofball stuff we can do for the DVD.

Also I've been talking to this guy who's in charge of Federation Toys and he just decided to give me a Captain Antilles figure for free. He's also good buddies with basically all the people who played secondary Jedi in Episode 2. It's such a small world in this SW community of ours I tell you.

Apparently the same guy who owns theforce.net, and a couple other sites also owns half of Master Replicas and Lucas owns the other half. Business stuff I didn't know. Well you learn something new every day.

 

way to network buddy,

Glad your having fun and I shoulda known you'd forget your cam or something, lol see I'm always late but I bring everything

Way to go on the figure

 

The first panel went great.

There was a smooth flow, there was a lot of good audience reaction and interaction. Jimmy and Kyle were awesome.

Then at the opening ceremonies, they pulled me up on stage with the likes of Erik Tiemens, one of the conceptual design artists from Episode 3 who appears on the DVD special features and Andrew Nelson who has worked for ILM on Star Wars, and Jurassic Park for the longest time. We're all up there as featured guests and I'm just loving the whole thing.

I also have been talking to the guy who designed those amazing banners. I might get him to make some for SOTR. He expressed great interest in doing some original stuff so it's quite possible that we could have Antilles, Aliska and Jimmy as Han, enormous painted artwork banners. I'll make sure I get pictures posted on the site and here. You guys have to see these things. They make the artwork of Celebration 3 look like 3rd grade monstrosities.

Anyways, more to come.

 

Right on bro, been kinda dull without ya here and Im intrested to hear what you were able to do

 

Well the entire Con was a huge success. I made a lot of new contacts and good friends. Catching up with Jim Siokos was a blast and we came away with a lot of great new ideas.

I got to meet Andrew Nelson who worked for ILM for many years. Both panels were a huge success and very well received by all in attendance. It was very good to get such encouraging responses from everyone there and even Andrew said I had inspired him. I've also been getting some extraordinary emails as well.

I will be attending this Con in one way or another every year for as long as Eric is around to make it happen.

 

Mark!

If possible, you should bring DVDs of your film to the next FilmCon or one after that. I know nearly everyone will want one or two of them. I was quite pleased at how the film would fill the gap a bit between films.

Oh, and I have the Grievous banner sitting at home. It was my favorite out of all of them. Eric got his favorite too (Emperor Palpy). I can't believe how good they are. Bryan signed mine, and when I got home, I unrolled it and thought "Oh No! The signature is gone!", but it turned out that it was just how I had it sitting in the light. I'm glad Byan agreed to do your film banners. He's an awesome artist.

Back to you, though. You guys are working so fast and hard on your film that it amazes me. I remember seeing you at a previous FilmCon. I think it was a script writing panel. Anyway, I find it incredible that you are so far along already. Again, Amazing!

Keep up the great work. I know it will turn out terrific. I look forward to seeing it.

 

Thank you for the enthusiasm. I just may bring several DVD's to FilmCon 7 which will end up being about 10 months after we plan to release it officially here in Canada. I have however recieved a lot of great interest from people all over the midwest interested in helping with the promotion and screening of it in the Quad Cities and Madison as well.

That's still a long way off and we have to make the movie first but I'm glad to see that everyone is so excited.