As seen at STAR WARS CELEBRATION VII • BESPIN CLOUD CITY DIORAMA BUILDERS
Anaheim, CA, USA from April 16 to 19 2015
pre production Celebration VII DEPARTURE & MATERIALS DROP OFF
Welcome to the OFFICIAL Star Wars Celebration VII Bespin Cloud City Diorama Builders workshop site featuring my EXCLUSIVE CREW COVERAGE not seen anywhere else on the web.
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Tuesday, April 14 2015
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One day to arrive and rush to pick up the shipped materials and set up the booth just isn’t enough anymore and this year we arrived one extra day early, so that we could use the afternoon to drop off luggage at the hotel, go to the van rental and pick up all the stuff we will need to be at the convention center for early tomorrow so we can have a FULL DAY of setting up little more relaxed and leaving before 1 am, that was the plan 🙂
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- So here we go again 🙂 3 AM in a taxi, I am off to the airport on my way to Los Angeles for my 6th Celebration adventure designing and producing the kids (and some adults) Diorama Builders area. This time sponsored by HASBRO themselves and displaying INSIDE their own booth. I am very excited to see how that turns out.
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- Arriving at the airport, slide passport into the automatic register, Air Canada please...
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- Don't fly FIRST CLASS on normal trips, but when alone and going to a Celebration, be it that it's only every 3 years, I splurge a little extra which allows me access to the Air Canada Lounge, and PASTRIES 🙂 mmmmm
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- 7 am I'm in the plane and getting ready to go to the runway.
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- And we're off... Goodbye Montreal, see you in 1 week 🙂
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- Amazing sunny day above the clouds.
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- OMG hahahaha What are the chances, In flight movie is Paddington, which I just finished like 4 months ago at Framestore. A little TOO kiddie for me, but the work my colleagues did bringing the bear to life is AMAZING.
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- First class breakfast at 9. Fresh HOT bun, fruit and Greek Yogurt. Followed by Homemade Crepe and maple sirop.
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- What? MORE Food ? Just look at this, So spoiled for 1,000 bucks LOL.
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- Meanwhile, in California, my new staffer Bobby rented a van and is loading it with ALL the Figure Fund Donations and Art Supplies that were delivered to his home in the past 3 weeks. Having Bobby live in LA and allowing us to use his home as our base of operations was a VERY GENEROUS and TIME SAVING gesture. Day 1 Drop Off would NOT have gone as smoothly without his help, that's for sure.
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- Han Solo hanging outside the window of the Anaheim Convention Center. He is HUGE - like 50 feet tall.
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- Pick up our Exhibitor Badges for the show. These allow us to gain early access for daily set up and to stay later for clean up.
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- When you arrive at the Convention Center, you are NOT allowed to bring in your supplies yourself. You MUST find and place ALL of your items on wood pallets and wait for a UNION personel to free themselves, and pick up your pallet and drive it inside to your booth. A little inconvinient but then again, the weight and amount of those boxes would take many many trips to do it by foot.
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- Once at the Anaheim Convention Center, Bobby and Duke (who's been with me for 4 conventions now) unloaded the van and found this HUGE metal container. They emptied the entire van themselves and got the union guy to use his truck to bring it to our booth space.
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- Almost there... Flying over the Rocky Mountains. There is still snow down there.
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- During this time, I am just flying into Los Angeles. I circled the little dot there in the ICONIC aquaduct trench where Olivia Newton John sang the reprise "Look at me I'm Sandra Dee" in Grease before putting on her black outfit 🙂 You may also recognise this from the TERMINATOR 2 motorcycle chase.
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- Landed and taxiing towards the terminal. Grand Theft Auto ??? 🙂
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- After almost 7 hour plane ride, I'm finally inside the terminal on my way to get my luggage. The great thing is that because of the time zone difference, I've GAINED 3 hours and its now 11:30 am instead of 2:30 pm in my brain.
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- Selfie REUNION - with Mark P. It's like summer camp to get back together with friends that you only see once every 2-3 years. Mark has been with me as Staff since Celebration 4, or is it 3 ? I'll have to ask him, you know the memory goes after you pass 50 😛
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- 20 minutes later... Scott S. lands and joins us in Mark's car. Scott has also been staff with me since Celebration 4.
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- Staff selfie with Duke D. who has been with me since Celebration 4 as well. (He actually was one of the lucky fans to WIN a LUNCH date INSIDE ILM the Friday before the convention. Working on Transformers, I had the opportunity to show fans what it feels like to walk INSIDE George Lucas' special effect company. My teenage dream come true.) Finally found our way to the rear of the Anaheim Convention Center loading docks where I discovered Duke and Bobby (who left to return the rental van) had completely emtied the van and that ALL the supplies were already INSIDE waiting at our booth. I was expecting to arrive and help them. So this was amazing, shaved 3-4 hours off the initial plans.
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- Staff selfie - the four of us giggling like 13 year olds LOL. Scott, Me, Mark and Duke. Notice we are ALL smiling because the show hasn't started yet and we still have our energy and sanity. Hahahaha.
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- One of the coolest things of organizing and producing the Diorama Workshops is the ability to see the conventions like very FEW fans do, Behind the scenes BEFORE opening day. The excitement to walk around and see empty halls where thousands will be waiting in line in 2 days is so cool and hard to explain at the same time. Hopefully these photos from today will give you a glimpse of what it's like to be inside BEFORE the show starts and how it feels if you were a part of the staff.
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- After signing in, getting the lanyards and badges, we found our floor space. The BRIGHT light in the rear is the open bay doors that stay closed during the convention. Which is kind of sad because it is more fun to go through here then all the way around the convention center. We arrived early enough this year that the workers had just started setting up our tables in our space. The last conventions, set up was already completed based on our floor blueprints. For the first time, I get to see behind the scenes of the behind the scenes 😛
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- Wow, that metal bin is PACKED. Where to start, we can't really unload yet because our tables are being set up. We will have to slow down a little and just catch up with each other while we wait for the others flights to arrive and come help us.
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- Looking at this, I REALLY have to THANK Bobby and Duke one MORE TIME, for taking all of this out from the van, wait, it first had to ALL be LOADED IN the van first, then driven, THEN removed. That's a LOT of muscle power. I was so in shock when all that in my head that we had to do was already done. PS... Look at those HUGE Hasbro Boxes 😀
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- The ONE thing we COULD do while waiting on the tables, was check out all the rolls of decals that came from the printer. I finished the last ones like 5 hours before my flight. Why is it ALWAYS CRAZY like that ? Haven't I learned anything after 6 conventions ? 😛
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- Rolling out the poster for the Bespin Reference Photo Wall. It's SO HUGE it didn't even fit on 6 tables.
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- The quality of the print turned out FANTASTIC and Mark's friends who owns the print shop gave us a great discount. On last day, we cut out each scene and sined it to each other as souvenirs of the staff experience.
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- Close up of the NEW Bespin Core wall texture. I will be putting this in the FREE Decal Downloads soon. Remember !!!! Home use NOT ebay 😀
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- This Reactor Core wall is just HUGE. Having it at this size, you guys will have the option to print the original 8x10" sheets at home, or use this NEW print to bring at kinko's and printed out for a most awesome Diorama background image.
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- Here are the last minute decal templates I created merely hours before I jumped on the plane. These are the Floor and Ceiling textures for the connecting room - where you sometimes see a statue in some of the shots of the film.
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- Since today was more to drop off all the art supplies and catch up with everyone at the hotel when their flights come in, we had just one LAST thing to check out... The crane installing my banner !!! 🙂 I had one of these made for me at Celebration 4 (thanks to the sugestion of David I. from Lucasfilm) but never since. It's always cool to have hanging art that gives your space an OFFICIAL feel 🙂
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- After about 15 minutes, the boom crane operator cuts the straps and slowly begins to unwrap the banner. I see some Yellow !!!!
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- Awesome, the banner I designed and printed by Lucasfilm is now hung and proudly displayed over our booth space. Isn't it AMAZING ? I will do a smaller poster version of it for the fans who built and maybe want to hang it on the workshop wall space.
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- Leaving the convention center to go check in to our hotel, I spotted this truck in the parking lot. I think he's LOST and at the WRONG convention 🙂
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- Staff selfie !!! Alissa with a "i" and hubby Brent arrive at the hotel. Alissa came to build hoth at Celebration V and had so much fun she wanted to graduate to STAFF. Being an architect, she's a great help. I've been making her life miserable ever since 😛
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- That's it for today, tables placed but not set, still missing a few, and banners in place. Time to go relax and EAT !!!
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- Cheers !!!! The gang who flew in today are all here. Dinner and drinks with Matthew, Alissa, Matt, Duke, Mark, Scott and ME (behind the camera) It really feels like you haven't been 3 years apart. And I must say that these people, fans, may have started out as visitors to the Diorama Area, but through the years and working HARD alongside with me, have truly grown into a disfunctional family - hahahaa. I LOVE YOU GUYS - And Girls - I could NOT do this WITHOUT YOU !!!
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- Matt, Alissa and her hubby Brent
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- Duke, Mark and a REALLY TIRED Scott LOL. Tomorrow is a BIG day ...
