Finally the big day arrived! The plan was
to meet in the lobby at 7:30 to get in line for the show. We drove over, and
arrived when only a dozen people were there, among them our own Jerry and
Serenity. The one person who got there before them was a man who was saving
a place in line for his daughter. We got talking, and told him about the ToO
and how his daughter could sign up. Our dear admin Catspaw was conveniently
there to explain everything.
We shivered our way through an hour or so of waiting, with Sarah popping her
head out every so often to proffer cookies and clarify things, until they
opened the doors early at ten of 9 to let us in out of the cold. Even an
hour ahead of time the line had grown longer than the Focus lobby would
hold, so only us early birds got the benefit. Registration opened at 9 and
we all got our tickets, then to wind up at the front of the line to get into
the chapelteria. The big sliding metal doors stayed closed until 10, at
which point we finally got to go inside and take our seats.
We rushed to the front of the room and
claimed seats in the second row on the left flank of chairs. This included
Jerry, Serenity, Monday, her family, Jonathan, Hope, Catspaw, and Frank.
Sarah and Chris had their own reserved seats in the first few rows in the
center section, along with her grandparents. So began the final stretch of
waiting, until 10:30. The two projection screens showed a series of
questions from AIO's Answer That DVD (though I haven't seen it in action
myself) interspersed with photos of the actors and informational slides
about the Official Guide and the autograph sessions. Also before the show
Dave Griffin was to be seen roaming the audience, greeting fans and shaking
hands. His goal for the weekend was to shake the hand of every fan who came,
and he quite possibly succeeded.
A woman named Diane was the first to appear on stage. She requested that we
all squeeze in to fill the empty seats so everyone could have one, and then
introduced AIO. "Where do you think the name Odyssey came from?" she asked.
"It's a place everyone oughta see. And that's just a taste of what you're
going to see today." On the way in there were signs saying that absolutely
no audio or video recording devices were allowed, and Diane reminded us of
this and told us to repeat after her a vow that we would refrain from all
recording during the show itself. She mentioned that in attendance were fans
from 44 states, five Canadian provinces, Bermuda, and New Zealand. Finally,
she introduced our host, Chuck Bolte, voice of George Barclay and father of
two AIO actresses.
Chuck began by introducing the cast, giving
their names, what other productions they've worked on, and finally their
character's name. From left to right, the actors were: Chuck Bolte, Will
Ryan, Katie Leigh, Dave Madden, Jess Harnell, Chris Anthony, and Aria Curzon.
Dave Arnold adjusted their mics as they entered, then retreated upstairs to
the foley lair, which was a raised platform behind the actors and below the
projection screens. Chuck introduced Dave and his noisy compatriot Nate
Jones next. There was a dedicated foley camera, in addition to those amid
the audience, to show close-ups of the effects being created. He also gave
the audience a test run on following directions, as they put up a series of
slides reading "Applause," "We Want Wooton!" and "Make Farm Animal Noises."
At the first show, the general result of the final directive was a sad sort
of mooing sound. This slide wasn't actually used in the show, which is a
good thing, seeing as the second show's audience actually read out loud the
words "Make farm animal noises"!
And so the show began. It's entitled "BTV:
Live", and began with a Dr. Schnitzelbonker wrap between Chuck and Chris,
just like the old days. I can't write many details about the story, lest I
spoil it for you, but several clips from the show were aired on the
Official Podcast, and photos
were posted on
the web site. However, I'll try to describe some details that could only
be seen in person.
Marshal Younger directed the recording
aspects of the show from the back, and occasionally spoke up to instigate a
retake of some lines. For the most part, however, the actors took care of
redoing their lines when they flubbed them, as it was rather obvious when it
happened. Do note the phrase "for the most part" -- Chris had a terrible
time pronouncing the name of a character in one of the BTV spoof segments.
Jess Harnell, her next-chair neighbor, kept coaching her on how to say the
name, Rash-on-my-foot, but I'm not sure I ever heard her say it properly in
either show. I'm interested to hear how they end up editing that for
broadcast.
Nathan Hoobler stood in front of the stage
directing the actors, sometimes cueing the actors to start their lines when
waiting for a bit of music to finish. He also handled the guest actors as
they walked up from the audience to the guest mic, which included Don and
Genni Long as Jack and Lucy Cunningham-Schultz-Davis, Dave Griffin as Jimmy
Barclay, and Sage Bolte as Robyn Jacobs. One more special guest was Sarah
Harris, who was there as a result of the Dreams Come True organization and
had her own line in the show.
The foley guys had a setup consisting of a half-size door to open and close,
several floor surfaces to walk on, and a table full of props. These props
included an electric can opener, a large metal bowl to bang on
(Gongs-R-Us?), a nylon flag used to make the sound of falling through the
air, and a rubber ducky. Even with the FoleyCam, some of the sounds came and
went so quickly that I don't even remember what other props there might have
been. Some of the sound effects, like a water splash, as well as outdoor
background sounds, were prerecorded and played by the sound guys. During one
of Wooton's imagination scenes, he chides his foley crew twice for making
wimpy effects, so they repeat it with more oomph (you just have to wait and
see). In a different imagination sequence, George Barclay is subjected to a
fanciful cleaning device, which sees Chuck Bolte getting vacuumed off live
on stage, among other treatments. In the semi-foley department, Mandy had a
scene where she was sliding down a long slide. Dave Arnold had a hand-held
mic which he orbited around Aria's head as she wailed, to get the effect of
going around and around the spiral slide. Finally, as the show settled down
to more talk and fewer effects, the foley guys were out of work and took to
sitting down at a chess board, which was brought to our attention by the
FoleyCam.
If you listened to the official podcast, you may have heard mention of a
giant Whit's head costume being used in the show. In fact, this costume was
not used in the two public shows on Saturday. According to our special
informants, it was used during the Thursday rehearsal, but scrapped because
we couldn't hear the lines being read with the costume on. The Saturday
shows did, however, feature a giant Eugene head. Keep this in mind when you
hear this costume mentioned in the show, complete with critiques about the (in)visibility
of Eugene's eyes behind his hair. The actors actually got to see what they
were talking about, for once.
Although there was no costume Whit head, we
actually did see a large head speaking with Whit's voice. Paul Herlinger
joined the show in a surprise appearance live from Tacoma, WA, by way of an
audio/video feed on Skype. In the episode, Whit calls the gang on BTV from a
conference at which he's teaching, and at the same time Paul appeared on
screen.
Immediately following the show, the
question-and-answer session began. Chuck read questions submitted to the
Information Station before the show. Unfortunately, I don't remember many of
the questions. I do know that he asked one question to Dave Madden with
great trepidation, asking him to control himself. He responded in an even
grumpier fashion than Bernard does, and in fewer words. There was a request
for Dave Griffin to do Jimmy yelling for his sister Donna, with his voice
cracking. When Dave came up to do it, he said, "I know exactly whose fault
this is," and went on to to a fine job of it. Sarah had submitted the
question, but was confused because she hadn't written the extra part about
cracking his voice, and thought maybe somebody else had asked the same
thing. It was amusing to think that maybe Dave had pegged the wrong person
for this. It was all resolved in the end when we found out that it was in
fact Marshal Younger who amended the question.
The autograph session followed the show,
but the ToOers decided to go for lunch instead of waiting in line. Almost
all of us went back to the mall for another food court meal, minus Sarah who
had to be elsewhere. We had ample time to eat before saying goodbye to Jerry
and Serenity, who had to start driving home, and returning to Focus to get
in line for the second show, which started at 3. We decided that since we'd
had a front-row experience the first time, we'd sit further back the second
time. The show played out in the same way as before, though, for example,
with mistakes in different places.
We rushed out of the building as soon as
the Q&A was done, and flitted across the rainy parking lot to the welcome
center. We got fairly close to the front of the autograph line, but had to
wait for half an hour until the session started. In the meantime, Rachel,
Hope, and I had amusing conversations to pass the time. I wasn't
particularly interested in the autographs, but all of my friends were there,
so there seemed to be no better place to be.
All the actors sat at a long row of tables,
so we could get autographs from each of them in turn. Focus had provided a
photo of most of the cast in the bags given out to each ticketholder, so one
could get either a photo or a book full of signatures. The page numbers were
posted where each character was featured, so they could easily turn there
and sign adjacent to their photo. I was impressed that Jess remembered my
name, having been introduced just once on Thursday. Following the
autographing, most of us fans plus Shadowpaw and Mary, an AIO writer, went
out for dinner. We first tried Cracker Barrel, but found they were full. On
the way in, though, someone spotted our AIO shirts and greeted us, saying,
"Hi, Odyssey people! We just came from the show too." Plan B was IHOP, not
far away, which had plenty of room for the twelve in our party.
It had been a day well enjoyed, and
following dinner we made our way back to Homewood for the last great
adventure of the weekend. Everyone plopped down to play games, most of them
joining in on Taboo. Rachel, Hope, and I played Five Crowns instead, or at
least tried to. I had to teach them, and Rachel was a terrible student. But
we had fun anyway.
The games were brought to a close with the
arrival of Dave Madden, having returned from the Focus dinner for the
actors. We all said hello, and asked to get a group picture with him so he
could be off again. We tried to return to our games, but then all the rest
of the actors arrived. We had a good 15 minutes talking to them all in the
lobby, taking innumerable pictures with each combination of fan and actor.
Jess Harnell, master of the voice, did some
imitations per Sarah's request, which I caught on video. I'm told he's able
to imitate almost any voice, and has been called upon to record replacement
lines for famous actors, with nobody able to tell the difference. Several
people talked to Chris about the ToO, which she was all excited about and
said she'd join soon.
The newly-arrived actors all went up to
their rooms, and we returned to what we'd been doing before. The general
sentiment was that we'd get our talking and picture-taking in quickly, so
that they could have some rest without us fans bothering them. However, to
our delight, Will and Katie soon returned to talk with us, bringing popcorn,
no less. They really are nice people, and were happy to spend time with us.
Dave explained it this way. Imagine that
you were one of these actors, that you were the one who created the voice
for one of these beloved characters. Something that you yourself did,
secluded inside a recording studio, has affected so many lives, and now just
the prospect of seeing you can make these people immeasurably happy.
Wouldn't you want to do whatever you could to not just see the fans but to
get to know them and learn just how much you impacted them? It's a great
privilege and a joy to be in that position, where a lot of people look up to
you, and this gives you a chance to make a difference in their lives. This
is why they came back to talk to us.
Dave also gave the example of his hand. At
the end of Saturday, after signing thousands of autographs, he was
completely tired and acheing -- all except for his right hand. God had
sustained that hand through the day so that he could bring joy to so many
people just by shaking their hand or signing his name. And it wasn't just
God's invisible hand at work that day -- during the autograph session He
used the Focus employees to take care of all the actors as they sat for
hours, talking and signing. Dave told of finding his shoulders being
massaged and being grateful for it while he was busy with all the people. He
didn't know who it was, but when the hands returned he made sure to find out
to whom they belonged, which happened to be Vinny, Katie's fiance.
One of my friends from the ToO and the chat
room is Julia, who just missed being able to come to the weekend. After
Katie and Will had left, leaving just Dave, Darcie, and half of the ToOers,
I talked to her from my laptop and had her call me. The phone got passed
around between me, Hope, Rachel, Catspaw, Chris, Catspaw, Frank, Darcie, and finally Dave. She
didn't recognize his voice at first, but that's understandable over the
phone. This was just another example of Dave's interaction with the fans --
he talked to her for several minutes, and just that short period of smalltalk caused her to post on Facebook, "I got to talk to Dave Griffin!!!"
It's amazing how much good you can do when you have that kind of influence
on them and you use it in a caring way.
Dave is a really nice guy, and I'm glad I
was able to be around him so much that weekend. (This is not to say that the
other actors aren't nice, just that I wasn't around them nearly as much.) He
was kind of our bridge between the ToO world (via his wife) and the AIO
world. He cared not only about the fans that were able to come, but also
those that couldn't. He requested that we all do our best to tell about our
experiences to everyone else on the ToO, as there were far more fans who
wanted to come but couldn't. This was one of the motivations behind writing
this article. I wanted to convey exactly what it was like to be one of the
few who had this experience, so that everyone else can enjoy it as well and
not feel too left out. There was so much more that was said during these
hours and hours with Dave and the others, but I lack the time and the memory
to recount them all. I did, however, get a lot of video of these
conversations, and I'm going to try to post some of them on Facebook and
elsewhere.
Sarah, Chris, Frank, and I had to leave for
the airport at 4:30 am, so that didn't leave much time for sleep. Sarah, in
fact, decided to not sleep at all, and instead stayed up copying AIO albums
onto her computer. I headed back to my room around 3, and Rachel and Hope
left a bit later. I packed everything up, slept for 45 minutes or so, and
then got right back up again. Sarah's grandpa, who always made himself
available to drive us places, took us to the airport. He said Will Ryan had
left shortly before us, and when I got to my gate I found Eugene himself
sitting next to my gate. We exchanged a few words, though no extended
conversations ensued due to my quietness. When my flight was called, we
parted ways, I to the east and he to the west.
This weekend was an amazing experience. I
was quite excited about it in the days before, and I remained excited
afterward because of all the wonderful memories. I only wish I could have
spent more time with everyone. I look forward to the 25th birthday party!
Thanks to Sarah, Julia, and Jacob for
providing comments, and to Sarah, Darcie, and Shadowpaw for their photos of
Diane, Whit's End, and Whit's head, respectively.
