Since the SDMB attendees are likely subscribed to this thread, I’m using it as a general “2013 Gallifrey One” discussion thread…
Flying to Los Angeles tomorrow for the “24 Hours of Gallifrey One” Doctor Who convention, the largest (so they claim) DW convention in North America. With me are my wife and daughter, of course.
Top convention draws include Sylvester McCoy, Freema Agyeman, Philip Hinchcliffe (1970’s DW producer) and (big one for my 11yo), Anjli Mohindra who played “Rani” on The Sara Jane Adventures.
Sophia decided this past weekend that she needed to make her own money for the convention so she can purchase items w/o asking mom or dad. She worked feverishly to put together a collection of homemade bottle caps, hand lotions, shower gels, and bar soaps (using various DIY kits she received for Christmas and small plastic bottles purchased from Hobby Lobby), and the past two nights she has gone door-to-door selling her items. People have been buying them like mad – in 2.5 hours of selling she made over $60!
About a month ago, Sophia told me that she wants to “make trailers” for a living, and for the past year she has been using Windows Movie Maker to do so – for example, she’ll download video clips from YouTube, spliced them up, and put them back together with a Taylor Swift song as background music. Since we’re going to Los Angeles I decided to call a number of production shops that make trailers and hit gold with my first one – Ignition Creative, who are going to give us a 1-hour presentation about A/V production, making trailers, all coupled with your standard “do well in school” message. The people at IC are thrilled about this as they never have kids call them to ask them about their job – as one of the people I talked to said “all kids want to do is be an actor or an actress, with the occasional one who wants to be a director. None of them show an interest in how a movie is actually made, so we can’t wait to see her.” They are putting together a presentation just for Sophia, making sure that what they show her is “kid appropriate”, which is just very, very considerate of them.
We’ll be landing in LAX tomorrow around 8pm, a friend picking us up at the airport. We’ll rush to get to the hotel before pre-registration ends at 9pm but if we don’t make it, Friday registration begins at 9:30am, so we’ll hit that. Ignition Creative is only 20 minutes away from LAX, so we should have little problem making it in time, as long as we get in line early enough (if we have to.)
Doper attendees – PM me so I can give you my phone # and we can meet. As I said last year: “my wife and daughter are going to the convention while I’m going to Los Angeles”, so my time will be pretty open.
I like DW, but not enough to spend three whole days immersed in it - I have some business associates I’d like to meet, so will do that if possible.