This from the B5 newsgroup:
From: Travers Naran (tnaran@direct.ca)
Subject: JMS Gathering in Vancouver: Summary
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: 2001-05-29 18:36:42 PST
Hi Group!
I'm one of the organizers of the JMS Gathering, and since it maybe a little
while before Sandy Bruckner can get her detailed post out in the Zoccalo, I
thought I'd give a brief run-down of the evening.
We held this Gathering up at Simon Fraser University, which sits atop
Burnaby Mountain which is in a suburb of Vancouver. The room held about 250
people, and we had a close to capacity crowd. Everyone was quite excited
and jazzed to be hearing the Great Maker finally speak in Vancouver,
especially since the Rangers project is the first time he'd ever been to
Vancouver.
I knew something special was up when JMS asked me to tell the door wardens
to let in anyone with the password "Entil'Zha". OK, we reserved a row of
seats under the guise of "organizers & volunteers", and I let the door
wardens in on the secret then left to go meet JMS.
The evening warm-up consisted of an episode of Crusade ("Racing the Night").
>From comments I heard afterwards, some of our list members hadn't seen the
episode (having given up on the first "TNT" episode) and found they quite
liked it. Meanwhile, Johnny Gee and I stood outside by the security office
staring at cars coming up the hill. "That them?" "No." Eventually, we got
a call from them on the cellphone: they were on their way up.
Meanwhile, the episode was finished and our MC, John Francis, had to fill
time for a little bit, I'm not sure what he was doing, but I'm sure someone
else can fill me in. Meanwhile, we met JMS and Ron McCloud, a producer on
LotR, at the security office and ushered JMS to the venue. After helping
Ron find parking, we strolled back to the room and I rushed back stage to
formally meet JMS.
So our MC was warming the crowd up, and then Dennis Kristos got up to relate
an anecdote about meeting a B5 fan in a strange place at Disneyland.
Unfortunately, he forgot that he was supposed to run the music video intro
tape and let JMS come on and introduce himself. Instead he said, "Here's
JMS." A bit of chaos ensued where they began to realise their mistake. We
quickly worked it out and JMS went back stage again telling the audience
"Pretend I was never here." So the music video came on, which encapsulated
the 5 years quite nicely, and at the end of it, JMS came out to a standing
ovation.
He told the audience his usual stories, and then brought out the 5 seasons
bloopers reel. The laughter was deafening. If you haven't seen the 5
seasons blooper reel, I recommend you get yourself to a JMS presentation.
He then took questions from the audience. There was a lot of general
questions like how he liked filming in Vancouver (he liked it well). Then
he said, you know, wouldn't it be neat if he had brought along a trailer for
the new movie. He then pulled out a video cassette in a red box. We popped
it in and saw a wonderful sequence of completed scenes with music. Everyone
was quite jazzed. So he took some more questions, then he said, wouldn't it
be neat if we had scenes from the movie. We played the tape again, and saw
two almost completed scenes (they were missing post-production). Trust me,
the new Drazi phrase of the future will be "I lift heavy things."
After that, he took a few more questions, then he said (paraphrased), "You
know what would be better than having the trailer and the scenes is if we
had the cast." He then asked the audience if the password Entil'Zha meant
anything to them, and the back row got up and came down. Almost the entire
cast of the new movie came down for a huge ovation from the audience. They
each introduced themselves and took questions from the audience. They're
all Canadian, and almost all of them are native Vancouver locals. They were
all excited to be involved in this.
Then, we escorted everyone up to the autograph tables and even the new cast
wanted to do autographs. We got them all settled in with water and Coke
(for Joe), and then the line-up began. What was really amazing is how the
audience embraced the new cast. Everyone wanted their autographs and wanted
to talk to them. You could see everyone was thrilled to meet them, and the
cast were excited that the fans were thrilled to meet them. I got my three
JMS comics signed by him, although he had no comment about me providing his
epitath.
After that, we took a group photo of the organizers, the cast and JMS and we
all went home.
I just wanted to make special mention of Ron McCloud. He's a producer on
the movie, local guy if I recall correctly. A really, really nice guy. He
was completely unobtrusive, no one made a fuss over him and he wasn't
bothered at all that he wasn't being directly included in the attention. I
made a special effort to introduce him to the organizers and he said he was
genuinely impressed with our warmth and friendliness. Just thought I'd at
least mention him. He does more than just drive JMS around (or is producer
a fancy word for delivery boy now?).
Details of questions/answers, movie clips, etc. will be available in the
Zoccalo via Sandy Bruckner.
We just want to publicly thank JMS and the cast of LotR for making this
evening truely special. We hope we can do this again.
--
-----
Travers Naran, F/T Programmer & P/T Meddler in Time & Space
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada, Earth, Milky Way, etc.
"Stand Back! I'm a programmer!"
Visit the SFTV Science Blunders Hall of Infamy!
<http://www.geocities.com/naran500/>
------------------
vakie
From: Travers Naran (tnaran@direct.ca)
Subject: JMS Gathering in Vancouver: Summary
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: 2001-05-29 18:36:42 PST
Hi Group!
I'm one of the organizers of the JMS Gathering, and since it maybe a little
while before Sandy Bruckner can get her detailed post out in the Zoccalo, I
thought I'd give a brief run-down of the evening.
We held this Gathering up at Simon Fraser University, which sits atop
Burnaby Mountain which is in a suburb of Vancouver. The room held about 250
people, and we had a close to capacity crowd. Everyone was quite excited
and jazzed to be hearing the Great Maker finally speak in Vancouver,
especially since the Rangers project is the first time he'd ever been to
Vancouver.
I knew something special was up when JMS asked me to tell the door wardens
to let in anyone with the password "Entil'Zha". OK, we reserved a row of
seats under the guise of "organizers & volunteers", and I let the door
wardens in on the secret then left to go meet JMS.
The evening warm-up consisted of an episode of Crusade ("Racing the Night").
>From comments I heard afterwards, some of our list members hadn't seen the
episode (having given up on the first "TNT" episode) and found they quite
liked it. Meanwhile, Johnny Gee and I stood outside by the security office
staring at cars coming up the hill. "That them?" "No." Eventually, we got
a call from them on the cellphone: they were on their way up.
Meanwhile, the episode was finished and our MC, John Francis, had to fill
time for a little bit, I'm not sure what he was doing, but I'm sure someone
else can fill me in. Meanwhile, we met JMS and Ron McCloud, a producer on
LotR, at the security office and ushered JMS to the venue. After helping
Ron find parking, we strolled back to the room and I rushed back stage to
formally meet JMS.
So our MC was warming the crowd up, and then Dennis Kristos got up to relate
an anecdote about meeting a B5 fan in a strange place at Disneyland.
Unfortunately, he forgot that he was supposed to run the music video intro
tape and let JMS come on and introduce himself. Instead he said, "Here's
JMS." A bit of chaos ensued where they began to realise their mistake. We
quickly worked it out and JMS went back stage again telling the audience
"Pretend I was never here." So the music video came on, which encapsulated
the 5 years quite nicely, and at the end of it, JMS came out to a standing
ovation.
He told the audience his usual stories, and then brought out the 5 seasons
bloopers reel. The laughter was deafening. If you haven't seen the 5
seasons blooper reel, I recommend you get yourself to a JMS presentation.
He then took questions from the audience. There was a lot of general
questions like how he liked filming in Vancouver (he liked it well). Then
he said, you know, wouldn't it be neat if he had brought along a trailer for
the new movie. He then pulled out a video cassette in a red box. We popped
it in and saw a wonderful sequence of completed scenes with music. Everyone
was quite jazzed. So he took some more questions, then he said, wouldn't it
be neat if we had scenes from the movie. We played the tape again, and saw
two almost completed scenes (they were missing post-production). Trust me,
the new Drazi phrase of the future will be "I lift heavy things."
After that, he took a few more questions, then he said (paraphrased), "You
know what would be better than having the trailer and the scenes is if we
had the cast." He then asked the audience if the password Entil'Zha meant
anything to them, and the back row got up and came down. Almost the entire
cast of the new movie came down for a huge ovation from the audience. They
each introduced themselves and took questions from the audience. They're
all Canadian, and almost all of them are native Vancouver locals. They were
all excited to be involved in this.
Then, we escorted everyone up to the autograph tables and even the new cast
wanted to do autographs. We got them all settled in with water and Coke
(for Joe), and then the line-up began. What was really amazing is how the
audience embraced the new cast. Everyone wanted their autographs and wanted
to talk to them. You could see everyone was thrilled to meet them, and the
cast were excited that the fans were thrilled to meet them. I got my three
JMS comics signed by him, although he had no comment about me providing his
epitath.
After that, we took a group photo of the organizers, the cast and JMS and we
all went home.
I just wanted to make special mention of Ron McCloud. He's a producer on
the movie, local guy if I recall correctly. A really, really nice guy. He
was completely unobtrusive, no one made a fuss over him and he wasn't
bothered at all that he wasn't being directly included in the attention. I
made a special effort to introduce him to the organizers and he said he was
genuinely impressed with our warmth and friendliness. Just thought I'd at
least mention him. He does more than just drive JMS around (or is producer
a fancy word for delivery boy now?).
Details of questions/answers, movie clips, etc. will be available in the
Zoccalo via Sandy Bruckner.
We just want to publicly thank JMS and the cast of LotR for making this
evening truely special. We hope we can do this again.
--
-----
Travers Naran, F/T Programmer & P/T Meddler in Time & Space
New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada, Earth, Milky Way, etc.
"Stand Back! I'm a programmer!"
Visit the SFTV Science Blunders Hall of Infamy!
<http://www.geocities.com/naran500/>
------------------
vakie
