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elfinblaze) wrote2013-06-23 01:37 pm
elfinblaze) wrote2013-06-23 01:37 pm
Entry tags:
Supanova
I decided to go to Supanova on Saturday after all, which is so much bigger and slicker than it was the last time I went several years ago. There's more exhibitors, more people, bigger stars, bigger budgets, more reach... I remember when the precursor, Comic Fest, was just a handful of rooms at Centrepoint, more than a decade ago. Now Supanova fills the dome and two halls at Olympic Park, and it was still crowded! There were whole trains from Lidcome full of Hogwarts students, anime characters, Browncoats, Ghost Busters, Doctors, and TARDISes. I also saw one Dalton Academy Warbler, surprisingly no Klingons, and only one Darth Vader using the force to choke someone. If you search for "supanova" on tumblr there are lots of cosplay pictures there (example).
Most people going these days are students, but there were plenty of children and older people too, so it was a nice mix. I'd say about 40% of the people attending came in costume, even though the weather turned from sunny to miserable at about 10am. I mainly feel sorry for the zombies who would have had to shuffle home with all that amazing make-up running.
I mainly went to see Eve Myles (Gwen from Torchwood) although I skipped on getting her autograph because the autograph line snaked through two rooms, mostly thanks to Carrie Fisher's attendance! I did go to the discussion panel though.
To everyone's surprise Kai Owen (Rhys from Torchwood) turned up for her talk too! So the two of them had each other to feed off and bounce off. It was very funny. Points from the discussion:
- They entered through a rift... in the curtains. Eve stuck her leg out first and then pole-danced with the curtain support. Then somersaulted onto the stage. She's very lively and entertaining, and on stage she and Kai acted like best friends... or an old married couple.
- Kai started singing into the microphone almost as soon as it was in his hand. Eve: "Never give a Welshman a microphone and not expect him to sing."
- Someone apologised for it being so cold for their trip to Australia, to which they replied placidly, "We're Welsh."
- Eve described the Torchwood actors as the naughty, after nine o'clock bunch. "There's the Doctor Who bunch... the nice, clean cut... and then there's us."
- They talked about the other cast members a lot. Eve still tears up remembering how Tosh, Owen, and Ianto died, because it meant losing a member of the Torchwood family. Gareth David Lloyd apparently likes to say that he, "went out with an alien fart."
- They expected Rhys to get killed off.
Kai: "Being close to Gwen, it'd be obvious..."
Eve: "I've been trying."
Kai: "Because he's so..."
Eve: *muttering* "I'm going to kill him."
Kai: "Uh..."
Eve: *muttering* "He's going to die."
Kai: "Um..."
Eve: *muttering* "I'm going to shoot him."
Kai: "Shut up!"
*they glare at each other*
They had playing up the old married couple act down pat. They teased each other and clearly had a lot of fun together. It was brilliant and very, very funny.
- They really do work well together, even without speaking. At one point they discovered the projector screen behind them and pointed out: "There's someone behind us!" Then they proceeded to try and catch whoever was behind them looking at them, but the interesting thing was they turned in the same directions at the same time, without speaking about it first. Another time Eve mentioned "the handsome man to my right." She then turned to look left. Kai turned right. So they ended up facing away from each other. Kai: "Is Barrowman here too?!"
They just seem to know exactly how to play with each other, how the other person is going to react, and their chemistry is pretty obvious.
- They mentioned playing pranks on set, like one time filling John Barrowman's boots with meat. (Cooked, not raw.) Kai Owen still cracks up remembering that.
- They talked about the wedding episode. Eve loved finding out she was playing pregnant: "that says 'pie' to me." She loves her food. They joked that they were drunk filming that episode because they had so much fun with it. John Barrowman apparently kept cracking Eve up when she was supposed to kiss him, with the Nostrovite false teeth, etc. Eve: "And he was even wearing pants!"
- Eve reckons all the guys just loved getting their kit off on screen (Kai agreed), but John Barrowman especially. Even if it was not on screen.
- There was lots of John Barrowman mentions. Kai: "He smells and he's not a nice man."
- There was LOTS of naked Barrowman.
- Mainly jokes.
- I think.
- One time, John hid in Eve's trailer, intending to jump out and scare her when she arrived. But she was held up for forty minutes, and by the time she arrived he was all cramped from crouching that long. His "boo" ended up as more of a groan. Eve: "Yeah, well done. Get out. [pause] Put some clothes on. [pause] Not mine." It was very funny.
- They also talked about James Marsters. Kai: "He's an awful man and he's seventy-three years old." Eve said she was a big Buffy fan and that when she found out he was going to be playing Captain John Hart... well, she mimed fainting on stage. "I couldn't speak for an hour. Which is quite a long time for me."
- Eve really loves her food. She mentioned that Miracle Day had a bigger budget and better food on set. She loved it. She claimes her wardrobe assistant casually mentioned shapewear to her. "I don't care. Give it to me. As long as I can eat." She really is a very funny lady.
- As far as Torchwood is concerned, there are no plans for more right now, but both of them would love to go back and do another series. They say write to the BBC demanding more.
It was very entertaining and my favourite part of the day. Absolutely worth it. I'm so glad I got to see that and it's something I'm going to remember for a long time.
The second thing I went to see was the writer's seminar, "Creating Kick-Ass Characters", with Trudi Canavan, Kylie Chan, Traci Harding, Jana Oliver, Colin Taber, and Steve Worland (who got the biggest cheer, mainly because he's also written for Farscape). Jana Oliver was the only American on the panel. Before the seminar, I'd heard of Trudi Canavan, Kylie Chan, and Traci Harding (all Australian fantasy writers), but I'd only read Trudi Canavan.
I didn't write down everything that was said word-for-word, but I did take copious notes. Even more than I did in some of my university lectures.
Not a very good picture, but from left: Trudi Canavan, Jana Oliver, Kylie Chan, Colin Taber, Traci Harding, and Steve Worland.
Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series started off with the question, "Why do Royals have the most fun? And why do boys have the most fun?" Which makes a lot of sense considering I had trouble reading the first book for that very reason (I was made uncomfortable by the too-many-men-in-positions-of-power point, but I'm glad I powered through to books 2 and 3). For her, what makes characters "kick-assarse" (I don't know why they used American spelling for the panel name) is determination and sticking to what's right.
Jana Oliver, next in line on the desk, said that for her, when it comes to characters, frailty is important and characters learning from experiences. She likes characters who can "save their own butts", who don't constantly need saving, or need saving from themselves. She's not interested in characters who are too stupid to live (TSTL, as she calls it). So she likes characters who are imperfect, but smart enough to learn to take care of things themselves.
Kylie Chan added that for her, it's important that characters have perseverance, that they continue to push through things.
Colin Taber likes unusual situations and how you can show characters working through them, and rising to face the challenges that come with those situations. Which sounds similar to Jana Oliver's point, where the process of learning to overcome is the important factor.
Traci Harding is fascinated by characters not pursuing the quest for power or romance or anything like that, but the quest for their own spirituality. Traci Harding is younger than I expected. Considering how many books she's written I always thought she'd be older, so that was a bit of a shock.
Stever Worland starts writing by asking, "What is the problem/fault in this character and how do they overcome it?" He explores both parts of that question by having them interact with other characters, so even if he doesn't know the answer to the first part when he starts writing, it will come to him as his character is interacting and conflicting with other characters.
Traci Harding then added off that last point that it didn't always have to be conflict. She finds it more rewarding to have her characters work together. That doesn't mean they always agree on everything, they can disagree but still work together. She just doesn't like to focus on the negatives, on the terrible. She likes to lighten up situations for characters by joking, because that's what she does too. When she's faced with a bad situation, she starts cracking jokes.
On villains:
Steve Worland: Villains are the other side of the coin to the hero so they will often have more in common with the hero than any other character. I interpret that to mean that for him villains are the dark side of the hero. He said that you have to empathise with the "bad guy" too, but sometimes it's tough to get inside the villain's head, especially if they react very differently to how he does. He has to ask himself, "What would a terrible person do in this situation?"
Traci Harding: She says you really have to sit in something like a psychiatric session with your characters, and even more so with the villains. "Take them down to the pub and get them drunk to get them talking to you. 'Ah, so that's why you kick puppies.'" In the end, after all the time spent with them, she always grows to love her villains too much to kill them off.
Jana Oliver: Agreed with Traci. She said you have to interrogate your characters. Then she added that not all villains are bad and not all heroes are good.
Trudi Canavan: Agreed with that last point. She's sometimes found that her intended villain didn't end up being the villain by the end of the story. And in one case she wrote a hero, borrowed her friend's name for said hero, and then discovered that the character was actually her villain. She had to apologise to her friend for that. In general though, she doesn't show the villains point of view in her books. She doesn't want to show the reader what the villain is thinking and feeling (although she'll know in her own head), only because she wants to keep that motivation a mystery until the big reveal later.
Traci Harding: Characters are like imaginary friends.
Kylie Chan was a surprise too. I imagined her younger and Chinese, given the surname. Stupid assumption to make, on my part, I know. She's not Chinese, she's just done a lot of research to make sure she gets everything right about the martial arts fantasy that she writes. She's had comments from Chinese people saying, "thank you for telling this story, thank you for doing the research, my grandmother won't tell me about our history, etc." At which point one Chinese person in the seminar room started nodding enthusiastically, which Kylie noticed. She's also had comments from non-Chinese people telling her everything she's got wrong in great detail.
Colin Taber laughed and agreed that he'd had comments from archaeologists on his general fiction. "At least they can tell I've done my research." That's why he likes fantasy, because there's less research because you're less likely to get something wrong.
My favourite comment from the panel though was from Trudi Canavan. She shared this gem:
Trudi Canavan's Three Rules of Worldbuilding:
1. Always obey the laws of physics. It makes the fantastic in the book more believable.
2. If you do break the laws of physics, give a fantasy explanation. (So someone walking on the ceiling is possible with magic.)
3. Some things, people will just accept. She gave the examples that a winged horse will probably fly, without you adding something like an anti-gravity saddle, and a dragon breathes fire without you explaining how it evolved that way.
Also, Trudi's definition of a kick-arse character is Hermione Granger, which just gave her a hundred more points in my book.
So that was interesting. I'd sit in on every conversation among writers if I could.
Regardez! The crowd on the main floor.
I was going to finish the day by watching the Quidditch, but then it was raining and I didn't want to be any more cold and wet. So after a few more circuits of the stands I managed to tear myself away from my friendly surrounds of colourful weirdos and head back out into the drab world outside.
I got home exhausted and with a cold, but I'm very glad I went yesterday because the weather is supposed to get even worse today. Even though it was crowded as hell it was good to be surrounded by interesting people who felt familiar even if I didn't actually know anyone else there. ^_^ And just getting to sit in on that talk with Eve Myles was worth the cost of admission.
Most people going these days are students, but there were plenty of children and older people too, so it was a nice mix. I'd say about 40% of the people attending came in costume, even though the weather turned from sunny to miserable at about 10am. I mainly feel sorry for the zombies who would have had to shuffle home with all that amazing make-up running.
I mainly went to see Eve Myles (Gwen from Torchwood) although I skipped on getting her autograph because the autograph line snaked through two rooms, mostly thanks to Carrie Fisher's attendance! I did go to the discussion panel though.
To everyone's surprise Kai Owen (Rhys from Torchwood) turned up for her talk too! So the two of them had each other to feed off and bounce off. It was very funny. Points from the discussion:
- They entered through a rift... in the curtains. Eve stuck her leg out first and then pole-danced with the curtain support. Then somersaulted onto the stage. She's very lively and entertaining, and on stage she and Kai acted like best friends... or an old married couple.
- Kai started singing into the microphone almost as soon as it was in his hand. Eve: "Never give a Welshman a microphone and not expect him to sing."
- Someone apologised for it being so cold for their trip to Australia, to which they replied placidly, "We're Welsh."
- Eve described the Torchwood actors as the naughty, after nine o'clock bunch. "There's the Doctor Who bunch... the nice, clean cut... and then there's us."
- They talked about the other cast members a lot. Eve still tears up remembering how Tosh, Owen, and Ianto died, because it meant losing a member of the Torchwood family. Gareth David Lloyd apparently likes to say that he, "went out with an alien fart."
- They expected Rhys to get killed off.
Kai: "Being close to Gwen, it'd be obvious..."
Eve: "I've been trying."
Kai: "Because he's so..."
Eve: *muttering* "I'm going to kill him."
Kai: "Uh..."
Eve: *muttering* "He's going to die."
Kai: "Um..."
Eve: *muttering* "I'm going to shoot him."
Kai: "Shut up!"
*they glare at each other*
They had playing up the old married couple act down pat. They teased each other and clearly had a lot of fun together. It was brilliant and very, very funny.
- They really do work well together, even without speaking. At one point they discovered the projector screen behind them and pointed out: "There's someone behind us!" Then they proceeded to try and catch whoever was behind them looking at them, but the interesting thing was they turned in the same directions at the same time, without speaking about it first. Another time Eve mentioned "the handsome man to my right." She then turned to look left. Kai turned right. So they ended up facing away from each other. Kai: "Is Barrowman here too?!"
They just seem to know exactly how to play with each other, how the other person is going to react, and their chemistry is pretty obvious.
- They mentioned playing pranks on set, like one time filling John Barrowman's boots with meat. (Cooked, not raw.) Kai Owen still cracks up remembering that.
- They talked about the wedding episode. Eve loved finding out she was playing pregnant: "that says 'pie' to me." She loves her food. They joked that they were drunk filming that episode because they had so much fun with it. John Barrowman apparently kept cracking Eve up when she was supposed to kiss him, with the Nostrovite false teeth, etc. Eve: "And he was even wearing pants!"
- Eve reckons all the guys just loved getting their kit off on screen (Kai agreed), but John Barrowman especially. Even if it was not on screen.
- There was lots of John Barrowman mentions. Kai: "He smells and he's not a nice man."
- There was LOTS of naked Barrowman.
- Mainly jokes.
- I think.
- One time, John hid in Eve's trailer, intending to jump out and scare her when she arrived. But she was held up for forty minutes, and by the time she arrived he was all cramped from crouching that long. His "boo" ended up as more of a groan. Eve: "Yeah, well done. Get out. [pause] Put some clothes on. [pause] Not mine." It was very funny.
- They also talked about James Marsters. Kai: "He's an awful man and he's seventy-three years old." Eve said she was a big Buffy fan and that when she found out he was going to be playing Captain John Hart... well, she mimed fainting on stage. "I couldn't speak for an hour. Which is quite a long time for me."
- Eve really loves her food. She mentioned that Miracle Day had a bigger budget and better food on set. She loved it. She claimes her wardrobe assistant casually mentioned shapewear to her. "I don't care. Give it to me. As long as I can eat." She really is a very funny lady.
- As far as Torchwood is concerned, there are no plans for more right now, but both of them would love to go back and do another series. They say write to the BBC demanding more.
It was very entertaining and my favourite part of the day. Absolutely worth it. I'm so glad I got to see that and it's something I'm going to remember for a long time.
The second thing I went to see was the writer's seminar, "Creating Kick-Ass Characters", with Trudi Canavan, Kylie Chan, Traci Harding, Jana Oliver, Colin Taber, and Steve Worland (who got the biggest cheer, mainly because he's also written for Farscape). Jana Oliver was the only American on the panel. Before the seminar, I'd heard of Trudi Canavan, Kylie Chan, and Traci Harding (all Australian fantasy writers), but I'd only read Trudi Canavan.
I didn't write down everything that was said word-for-word, but I did take copious notes. Even more than I did in some of my university lectures.
Not a very good picture, but from left: Trudi Canavan, Jana Oliver, Kylie Chan, Colin Taber, Traci Harding, and Steve Worland.
Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series started off with the question, "Why do Royals have the most fun? And why do boys have the most fun?" Which makes a lot of sense considering I had trouble reading the first book for that very reason (I was made uncomfortable by the too-many-men-in-positions-of-power point, but I'm glad I powered through to books 2 and 3). For her, what makes characters "kick-
Jana Oliver, next in line on the desk, said that for her, when it comes to characters, frailty is important and characters learning from experiences. She likes characters who can "save their own butts", who don't constantly need saving, or need saving from themselves. She's not interested in characters who are too stupid to live (TSTL, as she calls it). So she likes characters who are imperfect, but smart enough to learn to take care of things themselves.
Kylie Chan added that for her, it's important that characters have perseverance, that they continue to push through things.
Colin Taber likes unusual situations and how you can show characters working through them, and rising to face the challenges that come with those situations. Which sounds similar to Jana Oliver's point, where the process of learning to overcome is the important factor.
Traci Harding is fascinated by characters not pursuing the quest for power or romance or anything like that, but the quest for their own spirituality. Traci Harding is younger than I expected. Considering how many books she's written I always thought she'd be older, so that was a bit of a shock.
Stever Worland starts writing by asking, "What is the problem/fault in this character and how do they overcome it?" He explores both parts of that question by having them interact with other characters, so even if he doesn't know the answer to the first part when he starts writing, it will come to him as his character is interacting and conflicting with other characters.
Traci Harding then added off that last point that it didn't always have to be conflict. She finds it more rewarding to have her characters work together. That doesn't mean they always agree on everything, they can disagree but still work together. She just doesn't like to focus on the negatives, on the terrible. She likes to lighten up situations for characters by joking, because that's what she does too. When she's faced with a bad situation, she starts cracking jokes.
On villains:
Steve Worland: Villains are the other side of the coin to the hero so they will often have more in common with the hero than any other character. I interpret that to mean that for him villains are the dark side of the hero. He said that you have to empathise with the "bad guy" too, but sometimes it's tough to get inside the villain's head, especially if they react very differently to how he does. He has to ask himself, "What would a terrible person do in this situation?"
Traci Harding: She says you really have to sit in something like a psychiatric session with your characters, and even more so with the villains. "Take them down to the pub and get them drunk to get them talking to you. 'Ah, so that's why you kick puppies.'" In the end, after all the time spent with them, she always grows to love her villains too much to kill them off.
Jana Oliver: Agreed with Traci. She said you have to interrogate your characters. Then she added that not all villains are bad and not all heroes are good.
Trudi Canavan: Agreed with that last point. She's sometimes found that her intended villain didn't end up being the villain by the end of the story. And in one case she wrote a hero, borrowed her friend's name for said hero, and then discovered that the character was actually her villain. She had to apologise to her friend for that. In general though, she doesn't show the villains point of view in her books. She doesn't want to show the reader what the villain is thinking and feeling (although she'll know in her own head), only because she wants to keep that motivation a mystery until the big reveal later.
Traci Harding: Characters are like imaginary friends.
Kylie Chan was a surprise too. I imagined her younger and Chinese, given the surname. Stupid assumption to make, on my part, I know. She's not Chinese, she's just done a lot of research to make sure she gets everything right about the martial arts fantasy that she writes. She's had comments from Chinese people saying, "thank you for telling this story, thank you for doing the research, my grandmother won't tell me about our history, etc." At which point one Chinese person in the seminar room started nodding enthusiastically, which Kylie noticed. She's also had comments from non-Chinese people telling her everything she's got wrong in great detail.
Colin Taber laughed and agreed that he'd had comments from archaeologists on his general fiction. "At least they can tell I've done my research." That's why he likes fantasy, because there's less research because you're less likely to get something wrong.
My favourite comment from the panel though was from Trudi Canavan. She shared this gem:
Trudi Canavan's Three Rules of Worldbuilding:
1. Always obey the laws of physics. It makes the fantastic in the book more believable.
2. If you do break the laws of physics, give a fantasy explanation. (So someone walking on the ceiling is possible with magic.)
3. Some things, people will just accept. She gave the examples that a winged horse will probably fly, without you adding something like an anti-gravity saddle, and a dragon breathes fire without you explaining how it evolved that way.
Also, Trudi's definition of a kick-arse character is Hermione Granger, which just gave her a hundred more points in my book.
So that was interesting. I'd sit in on every conversation among writers if I could.
Regardez! The crowd on the main floor.
I was going to finish the day by watching the Quidditch, but then it was raining and I didn't want to be any more cold and wet. So after a few more circuits of the stands I managed to tear myself away from my friendly surrounds of colourful weirdos and head back out into the drab world outside.
I got home exhausted and with a cold, but I'm very glad I went yesterday because the weather is supposed to get even worse today. Even though it was crowded as hell it was good to be surrounded by interesting people who felt familiar even if I didn't actually know anyone else there. ^_^ And just getting to sit in on that talk with Eve Myles was worth the cost of admission.
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