Leverage CON-con Day Three -- The Girls, The Guys, and the Stairwells.

When I last left my blog post, I was on my way to the Saturday evening banquet of the first official Leverage CON-con convention in Portland, OR. It was in the same large ballroom at the Governor Hotel as the cocktail party had been. Lots of round tables with lots of chairs encircling them, white table cloths and even whiter cloth napkins. I found my Browncoat/Firefly Fan friends and we were joined by a couple from LA and a mother and her two teenage daughters. When signaled, your table could go to either side of the room and take your dinner from the buffet tables that had been set up. Salad, pasta, chicken, fish or beef - your choice. I have been to less than five hotel banquets in my life, so far, and can say that Jake's Catering has by far the best food.

Andy Lange and his band performed, as did Storm Large. I like Andy's music and picked up his CD from the dealer's room - his song "Not Sure Yet" is featured at the end of the Leverage Season 2 episode "The Beantown Bailout Job". I think Storm has an incredible voice, but I'm not fond of the lyrics. The sound was also turned up incredibly high (for me), so I spent some time just hanging out in the back of the room.

I thought of leaving the banquet a few times, but saw Apollo Robbins walking the room. Nothing fancy or showy, just walking from table to table, talking with folks, sometimes sitting down. Since I had missed his panel, I hung out, waiting to see if he was going to do a set. Eventually it was too late and too loud for me, so I got up to leave but was stopped at the door by Ava Do who said Apollo was getting ready to work his magic on the crowd. We talked a bit (she advised the Leverage gang on the fortune-telling aspect of season 2 episode "The Future Job"), but it didn't work out for Apollo to do his thing, so I went up to bed.

Mark Sheppard

Which brings me to Sunday, the last day of the Leverage CON-con. Up early enough to snag breakfast and a tall chai latte from the Starbucks and make it into the main programming room to see Mark Sheppard. If you have seen any genre TV in the last 5 years (Firefly, Dollhouse, Battlestar Galactica, Chuck, CSI, Burn Notice, Monk) you have likely seen Mark Sheppard. He shared the stage with John Rogers (creator, writer, show runner and executive producer for Leverage) and it was amazing fun. They are each dynamic individuals; put them on stage together and it's non-stop stories and banter.

The next panel was The Girls: Gina Bellman (Sophie) and Beth Rieisgraf (Parker). We heard about Beth's audition and Gina's past acts on the British TV show Coupling. They took a lot of questions from the audience and the audience policed itself very well regarding the quality and content of the questions. These actors are our guests and we should treat them with respect.

For the next several hours (yes, hours), I was sitting, standing, or walking the stairwells. This was where they kept the people lined up for the various photo-ops. A common option at media conventions, a photo-op is your five seconds of fame, standing beside the actor of your choice, getting your picture taken which is then either printed on site, or mailed to you as a photograph and/or an electronic file/jpeg. Unsure whether or not this would be the first or the last Leverage convention, I paid for photo-ops with everyone together (the group shot) and each actor individually. This meant a lot of time in line, in the stairwell.

I just want to insert a side comment here - no matter what you do, you cannot please all of the people, all of the time. This event had some issues, as does every convention. Being Sunday, being in the stairwell which was a concrete shaft that essentially had no air flow whatsoever, and being an activity that involved walking up and down several flights of stairs several times, some people were not happy.

Overall, I think what was pulled off in the five months that was available to coordinate this event was fabulous. Having worked on the other side of the convention/audience line, it takes a tremendous amount of work to create something like this, and most conventions have a year to do so. Could it have been organized better? Yes. Did I have fun? Yes. That's good enough for me.

Once I was finished with the photo-ops, I hurried back to the main program room and assumed I would see the closing ceremonies. It was well past time for them, which meant there wouldn't be a Boys panel (Timothy Hutton, Christian Kane, Aldis Hodge). Much to my surprise, all three actors walked out on stage. And sat and talked and joked and took questions for over half an hour. This is after they had been photographed and flashed in the face for the past 3 hours. I greatly appreciated their time, and so did everyone in the audience.

Closing ceremonies had every cast and crew member on stage to a standing ovation. It was the end of the first official Leverage CON-con event. I sincerely hope they have another one next year.



Heidi Berthiaume

(somewhat) daily stuff
music video stuff
writing and promoting stuff

Comment to be entered to win a Fresh Fiction Blog Contest prize: TWO WINNERS!

Day One (1) Report
Day Two Report

Leverage Day Two -- Cocktail Party, Leverage Set Visit and Conference Panels.

I have been to exactly two media convention cocktail parties, so I do not have a large sample to draw upon for this review. From what I can tell, corporate sponsorship makes a difference. The TNT Cocktail Party Extravaganza at the Leverage CON-con was amazing.

• cash bar
• two separate tables of food
• free ticket for 1 drink
• 2 Wii stations
• Garage Band set-up in an adjoining room
• live music by Andy Lange
• entertainment by Rick Overton

I hung out with new friends I'd made at this convention, and some local Browncoats (Firefly/Serenity fans) I had cruised with in 2006. Being an introvert in a heavily crowded room filled with good yet exceptionally loud music, my instinct was to find a place and stay put. Barbara taught me the find art of "wandering", or as we came to call it, "hit-and-run mingling". Through this technique I talked with actors, a financial producer, a director, and the man who runs the computer systems that get the shows digital dailies to LA after having been filmed in Portland.

I had a fabulously fun time. Around 11 pm, after getting off a full day of
shooting, all five main actors showed up for a brief appearance. At 11:45 pm,
they kicked us out of the room, which was a good thing, as those of going to
visit the set on Saturday had to be presentable and in front of the hotel by 7 am.

Which brings me to Saturday. Not even the Starbucks was open as we waited in line on the sidewalk outside the hotel to board the two coach buses that would take us to the Leverage sets. I'm not sure how long it took to drive there, but it seemed around 20-25 minutes. The sets are working sets, so there was repeated instructions about watching your steps and not licking anything due to the live wires.

The first building housed the bar and Nate's loft, which has been nicely updated for season three. The second building we toured had several corridor sets and the Mill - half of the warehouse where the flats and sets are actually built and dressed. John Rogers and Chris Downey were our fabulous tour guides. They answered questions, told stories, and let us take as many pics as our cameras would allow. I ran down my battery.

Back at the hotel, the convention started up again with a Leverage crew panel who talked about visual effects, blowing things up in real life and virtually, giving something Hardison something to look at on all of his computer screens, and how much it is choreograph fights.

Then The Five (Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf, and Aldis Hodge) had their time on stage which was structured as a Q&A both from the moderator and the audience. Lots of laughs and great interactions with each other. This is a cast with magic.

The autograph session was held on a different floor of the hotel. The organizers allowed the autographs to be personalized, which takes more time, but I appreciate as it makes the autograph personal. The Five were signing, as well as the FBI guys (Rick Overton & Gerry Downey), Sterling (Mark A. Sheppard), Dean Devlin, John Rogers, and Chris Downey. The photo ops were to happen after the autographs, but that event took much longer than scheduled, so I've heard the photo ops are going to happen Sunday (crossed fingers).

I missed the Gentleman Thief Apollo Robbins's panel because I was in line for the autographs. It is one of the facts of any good convention - events you want to go to will be scheduled against each other.

"Choose wisely," (pop culture point if you can name the movie and who said it to whom). I did catch the tail end of the FBI Guys. Wonderfully funny skits with audience participation and a Q&A where their camaraderie with each other shone through every answer.

One of the panels I had been waiting for since seeing it announced on the convention website did not disappoint. Having Dean Devlin, John Rogers, and Chris Downey on stage together, talking about *their* TV show, made it obvious why Leverage is the success it is.

I need to get ready for the banquet now, so I'll post more pics to the flickr stream later.



Heidi Berthiaume

(somewhat) daily stuff

- music video stuff

writing and promoting stuff

Comment to be entered to win a Fresh Fiction Blog Contest prize: TWO WINNERS!

Day One (1) Report