London Film and Comic Con

[roguem]

Both Camelia and I were under the weather, she's got the flu and I've got my period. It's hit me pretty hard this time, and resulted in an asthma attack on friday + 2 close calls.

Anyways, I managed to drag myself to the London Film and Comic Con.

Day 1.

It was a stressful morning, the tickets I ordered last week still hadn't arrived. I called around and found out that the money hadn't been withdrawn from my account, so I figured; "Fuck it! I'll see if they've got some when we get there."
Eventually we made our way to Wimbledon. When we arrived we spent some time looking for the venue. It's sad, they should have better directions. After a while we found it, Camelia turned and went back to the house before we arrived at the door, she wasn't feeling well. I went on even though I felt like shit.
When I came in I had a look around, it was much more roomy than the Collectormania venue. They had a lot of interesting stuff in the booths, I ended up buying the trading cards for "X-Men". I already have the ones for "X2", so I thought I might as well buy the ones for "X-Men" as well. Only cost me £3, and there were actually some pictures I hadn't seen before.
I went down to the part of the venue where the guests were seated, got a queue ticket for John Noble (Denethor), figured I could decide if I wanted to use it when it was my turn. I got a peek of him and Andy Serkis from the sidelines anyway.
After a while I started feeling a bit shitty, so I went to the seating area. I just relaxed and sent text messages with Isen, she was watching "Faculty" and reading.
After a while I got sick of sitting around, and after two near-asthma attacks I figured it might be an idea to get up my strength, so I went to hunt for some food. Ended up at McDonald's, they kind of screwed up my order, but I didn't care, didn't cost me anything ekstra anyway.
When I got back I took another look around, there was a lot of stuff I would love to buy, but I need my money for more practical things. :) The decision on wheter or not to meet John Noble had been made for me. He had fallen ill while siginig, and left for the day.

Talk 1.

Eventually I found my place in the queue for the LOTR talk, had to wait a while before they let us in. When we finally were let in we had to wait a little more. Finally Andy Serkis, Bruce Hopkins, Thomas Robins and John Rhys-Davies arrived. It was a good interview. Across the hall the second talk with Billy Boyd, Sala Baker +++ was going on and we kept hearing the screams and roaring applause from that talk. That resulted in Andy giving us a sign to scream at the top of our lungs to show off. This happened several times during the talk, John kept holding his hands over his ears every time we did it... at least we know his hearing's alright. :P  I think that the rabid-fangirls would give the ringwraiths a run for their money when it comes to screaming.
I was filming the talk, but after about 25 minutes one of the employees came and told me to shut it of, because it wasn't allowed. What the fuck is up with that?? Seriously, they were filming it for a live web-cast, so I cant really understand why we couldn't film it. Stupid crap. I put the camera in my bag, and kept thinking I that I should have brought my minidisk with me. I eventually turned the camera back on and left it in my bag in the hopes that I would at least be able to record the sound. :)
Eventually the talk ended, but that wasn't the end of the show. Andy had some things to auction off, to make money for MS. He jumped on top of the table and held an auction with his Gollum voice, it was hilarious. The first item was a signed picture that went for about £50, then there was a carved Gollum picture that Andy had signed, think it went for about £120. Then he auctioned off two Gollums statuettes that he had signed, they went for about £300. As the bids went higher Andy started singing "You're the one that I want" in his Gollum voice, that was great, but I wanted to kick myself for not bringing my Minidisk. It was really funny, lastly he auctioned off a kiss from Thomas Robins I think that went for a little over £100. The winner got 3 kisses for the price of one though.

 

Day 2 - Talk 2.
Just went up for the talk. I was just having a quiet morning in, as I was really tired from the previous day. Decided to make things ready for the talk the same evening, when I had a look at the ticket it said that the talk would start at 16:00, not 19:00 like I thought. I jumped the next tube and was on my merry way. When I got there people were already queuing, so I just sat down and the waiting started. After they changed the queue line up three times, and kept us waiting over the time, we were finally let in.
Eventually Billy Boyd, Bob Anderson, John Noble and Sala Baker entered. I think everybody was tired, both the audience and the guests. It was a calm talk. We could hear screams coming from the other talk, Billy and Sala encouraged us to scream at the to of our lungs to show off a few times.
This time we got the message up front that video recordings weren't allowed. I am pissed at this, but I recorded it on my Minidisk so hopefully I got something out of it. :)
Some things I found out from the talk:
- The extended cut of "Return of the King" will be 4 hours and 10 minutes according to John Noble.
- Bob Anderson wanted to clarify that Viggo Mortensen is ONE of the best pupils he's ever had, not THE best.
- Billy might be doing a musical. (YAY! I'm sure as hell going!)
- Dom and Billy's script will hopefully be done by next month.
When we left the premises we had to pass Andy's talk, and he was doing another auction, I just had a little peek before I went back to the house.

 

All in all, the London Film and Comic Con is a better venue with regards to space and the possibility to see various things, but I prefer the talk venues at Collectormania. Another negative thing about the Con is that it's allowed to smoke inside, and that doesn't really help my health. On the plus side, it's much easier getting to Wembley than Milton Keyes.
As for future events... I'm actually getting a little bored with it all. I know, it's sick! I think I might sit out the next one, and just see if they can get new people, they have been focusing very much on Lord of the Rings. Don't get me wrong, I love them for it, but I would like something else as well *cough*x-men*cough*. Hehe. Now, I'll just have to see who'll be coming to CM5, so far they've got Brad Dourif and Craig Parker. Still not sure if I'm going, have to see who else is coming.