(report by Calisuri, Blasm and Corvar)
ImagineCon 2000 Gallery
Saturday at ImagineCon lived up to expectations.
The highlight of the day was presenting our exclusive look at the LOTR movies to a packed house of rabid Tolkien fans. The fan reaction to casting was amazing. On the applause meter, Brad Dourif, Elijah Wood, Ian Mckellen and Christopher Lee had the largest response. The rest of the cast also received rounding approval. The location spy reports and images also were well recieved and applauded. Fans were truly blown away at the accuracy and beauty of the Shire.
With the location and cast information behind us, we got to the meat and potatoes of the presentation with an exclusive look at the interent preview (frame by frame) and some other really cool stuff you could ONLY see at this Con.
The most common phrase of the day was:
“Finally they are doing this right!”
Two bigtime Ringer fans, TheBursar (of Barlimans fame) and Sean showed up to help out with our fan table and the presentation. In return for their great work and kindness we gave them our brand new “Top 10 Ways you Know your a Tolkien Fan” shirt. Sean really took a liking to our neighbors EmarthnGuarth. Thanks Guys!
Brandon and Marie at EmarthnGuarth set up their padded weapon live action role-playing outside the convention center and we proceeded to have some really lively skirmishes. Particularly of note was Calisuri’s loss to Marie and TheOneRing.net’s loss to the TideWater Dragon Staff. However, Marie does this stuff for a living, and both TideWater Dragon staff have black belts in Kendo. So the fact that we won one round of the best of three was rather impressive!
(Special note to Marie from Calisuri: Sorry, I just finalized the contract with both sites today. Thats what you get for leaving early!:P)
We also had the privilege to meet special effects guru Terrence Masson formerly of ILM (Indutrial Light and Magic) fame and author of CG101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference. He had some great insight into the visual effects industry and had a quote that I will never hear again in my lifetime: “I just left ILM…for the second time.” Terrence is now working as the Director of Development at Ronin Entertainment.
We also had some great fun with Blasm’s Jar Jar Binks mask. When Darth Vader and a bunch of Storm Troopers showed up near our fan table, Calisuri put the mask on and gave them quite a stir. Well, actually, they seemed a little too ‘serious’ to react to Calisuri’s immature antics! Jar Jar also showed his fighting skill against the EmarthnGuarth folks.
We were lucky enough to catch up to Ed Kramer, Chairman of DragonCon. He seemed excited about what TheOneRing.net will add to DragonCon 2000 this summer (June 28-July 2). He also got an special look at the exclusive content from our presentation. Keep your eyes open for some really amazing stuff at DragonCon this year! We can’t say what specifically, but it sure sounds great!
Saturday night was spent hopping around Con parties. Our official ImagineCon party guide was Kevin. He created a very unique beverage for all to enjoy and was looking to find a name for it. After a few hours, we offered “Nazgul Breath” as an option. Turns out, that is the name he picked! Maybe we can pester Kevin to give us the secret recipe and post it in the fan recipes section.
Besides the DoubleTree messing up ImagineCon’s party floor we had two good hours of fun until the hotel staff came by and closed things down. The majority of attendees then flooded the Quality Inn, who were more then happy to accomadate the party floor.
We had ample time to talk with Jeff Cioletti, director of Millenium’s End: The Fandom Menace, and founder of Far Away Discourse Productions. We had some great discussions on Star Wars mania and fandom in general. Calisuri also purchased a cassette of “Fandom Menace.” (Great movie)
Sunday at ImagineCon was slow since most vendors and booths were packing up for the long trips home. We did manage to show some more fans the LOTR trailer and even sold a few TORn t-shirts!
A special thanks to some friendly faces we met at ImagineCon 2000: Kevin, Dehvyn, Rogue, Hector, Bill the Fox, TheBursar, Sean, The Grahams, Marie and Brandon, Nathan (Sheecky), and anyone else that we never got your name!
We want want to take this opportunity to thank Jon Prescott and the ImagineCon staff for serving up such a great Sci-fi/Fantasy/Horror conference and inviting us to be part of the fun. Hopefully we’ll be invited back next year when the fevor for the movies is overwhelming!
ps – If you met us at the Con and don’t know our emails, here you go:
Calisuri – calisuri@theonering.net
Corvar – corvar@theonering.net
Blasm – blasm@theonering.net
Thanks folks!
ImagineCon 2000 Gallery
