Ta§cape 2003
The Minute By Minute (or every half hour or so) Report
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Note: This is my personal collection of Minute By Minute memories. The things deemed important by other scapers will most likely vary from the following account. It's also adapted from a report for non-scapers, so if it sounds odd in places that's why.
Go To: Friday -- Saturday -- Sunday -- Index
Friday
Friday night we met everyone and discovered what a great bunch of people the scapers are. My non-scaper friends can tease all they like about us being trekkies, but after being through FOW and HawthornFC and Machine Gun Fellatio fan circles, the scapers are the most normal bunch of people one could ever hope to meet *g*
Friday night was a meet and greet, watching some videos of stuff I've probably already forgotten, and filk-a-longs. Sing-a-longs, to the Earthlings among you. Farscape parodies, some to songs nobody knew, but some to stuff that was really quite fun to belt out and laugh at ourselves to. Each day of the weekend had it's 'most fun moment', and for me, the filk-a-longs were Friday's.
The videos we watched included last year's TaScape video, with their trek around the Chinese gardens at Darling Harbour. For two years they've gone to the wrong Chinese gardens. This year they'd found out that they were the wrong ones, and we were going to the right ones :D
Other videos included some stuff the cast had done in other series, like Claudia in a New Zealand show called This City Life or something. A few of us wanted to see A Country Practice but they couldn't find the video.
Another video we watched relates to the fact that David Kemper says when he's overseas that working on Farscape in Australia is like working in a mine, because nobody here knows the show. The Aussie scapers decided that if he's working in a mine, he'd need a miners hat. So now a few crew members and various others have mining hats made by the resident scaper artist/s. On one of the ... dvd commentaries, I think? Ricky Manning was wearing his mining hat for one part. We watched that vid, and had a bit of a laugh at that. Warning to anyone who hasn't seen season three - don't trust Sue (WITGOB) when she assures you the commentaries are spoiler free. DK's first words were "we knew at the start of season three that [this would happen] and [this would happen] and [this would happen] ..." *g* Fortunately, though, my poor spoilt sister seems to have forgotten everything she heard there. She was more devastated to read one of the lines in one of the filks that told her the one storyline she hadn't wanted to know. Of all the spoilers in the world, this was the one thing she wanted kept from her, and it's the only thing she came away knowing *g* She's quite the Chiana/D'Argo shipper ;)
Videos, filk-a-longs, and meeting forty new friends. Friday was fun. But that was just the start ...
------------------Saturday
Saturday was the bus trip. We had a 57 seat bus complete with driver. We left at about 9:30 after waiting for Sarah (Apathy)'s taxi to arrive. He got lost, so we had to leave without her.
First off we went to the Japanese gardens at Auburn. NOT the Chinese gardens at Darling Harbour. Climbed off the bus, Deb (OzDebP) walked up to the ticket box with the sign "$2 adults" and said "51 adults please". Then we walked through the entrance, and 57 (we had kids with us) people all said at once "aaaah" as we recognised the scene. Then 57 people got attacked by the geese who were quite disturbed by the 57 people going "aaaah". *g*
Despite having only seen Look At The Princess, the ep filmed in the gardens, on the Tuesday five days earlier, I couldn't recognise a single landmark, nor remember any scenes. It looked familiar enough that I knew that was it, but I didn't know what to take photos of specifically. I took a few of scapers wandering through the gardens as well as things I thought probably would have been in the ep *g*
Saturday was really hot, especially in the morning. The bus was ten minutes from leaving and we were wondering what to do when Mark (MarkTwo) reported that there were sprinklers in 'that' direction. So we all traipsed off and walked through the sprinklers *g*
After the Japanese gardens we went to Homebush to see where the studios used to be. Since there's nothing there anymore there ... well, wasn't anything there. Or any security person guarding it. Which meant that we .... well, we didn't steal the signs, we're just keeping them safe until Sci-Fi let us have our series back, at which point we'll return them.
We were going to storm the sets, too, but decided to have our group photo in front of the sign first. Which was a bad decision, because then some guy in a singlet stuck his head out the window of the building out front that looked like a house, and said we couldn't go down there. We walked the long way around (six of us - the rest finally followed in the bus, when they rang to find out where we were and we told them to come pick us up) and Deb showed us which sheds housed what. It was rather sad to think that none of it is in there anymore. I took a photo of them, but I forget what was in which sheds now.
The bus driver then asked if we wanted a tour of the olympic site, so we said yes. Great bus driver - lets us keep snurched property under his bus, and offered to take us on a new tour. As it turned out that also had quite a bit of scapery stuff. He'd be "and this is the aquatic centre ... that's where the swimming was ..." (said in a broad country accent) and someone else would say "and this is the carpark from [insert episode name here]". So we saw quite a few extra places on the olympic tour. I didn't recognise any, cos I've only seen one episode that had location shots, but by next year I'll have seen them all, and I think it works better that way cos I'll see them and go "ooh, I remember that from the bus trip", which will then help me remember the scene for next time when I go "ooh, yeah, that's where so and so stood". Either that or I'll be just as confused next year as I was this year at the Japanese gardens.
After that we went for lunch at Pizza Hut in George Street in the city. We rang in advance to warn them that 57 people were coming for lunch *g* At the corner turning into George Street we saw Sarah, so we pulled over and let her on the bus before driving on to Pizza Hut.
After lunch we went to Manly Dam. Now, Manly Dam was definitely Saturday's fun experience, as well as being the entire weekend's 'most fun moment'. No other bus driver would have done quite as well as Robert did.
As Sue was explaining to Jonathon Hardy (voice of Rygel) later on Sunday night, we're so obsessed that we went to Manly Dam just to see where John ditched his module. We've driven up the bush track to the dam, and reached the sign saying "no buses past this point. Bus turning area [arrow]". We've looked up the bus turning area - which is packed with cars. We've proceeded down the only possible route - 'past this point'.
The track, as you can imagine by the sign, narrows to less than one lane. With trees on either side. And ditches on either side. Whilst rolling from side to side and stopping frequently to squeeze past branches that made fingernails on a blackboard sound like ... something soundless, we recorded final messages to eachother and our families on the video cameras that were running, and announced that we couldn't think of a better bunch of people to die with.
We reached another parking lot further down, and Robert jumped out. At that point we took to making up newspaper headlines about missing persons stranded in the bush, and wondered whether he was really a bus driver or whether we should ring the terrorist hotline.
After looking around he got back in and began negotiating a 13 point turn. Trees weren't a problem - he just jumped out again and pulled the branches off. We didn't hit any cars, so that was quite an accomplishment. In a space only a few metres wider than the length of the bus and with cars in the middle and trees all around, he did well to get it around. We then headed back out just as a car came up the track.
On the way back there were the same bends and trees and ditches. At one point on a sharp left hand turn there was a tree right in the middle of it, so once the front of the bus got around the bend and the back of the bus was before the bend, the middle of the bus was sitting over nothing and almost wedged on the tree right below my window. He started slowing and the tree and the ditch started getting closer, so I called out 'power it through, don't stop the bus' just in case he had any ideas to the contrary. He didn't stop the bus, and we got out of that one. A huge cheer erupted as we made it out the other side of the Dam road. We still didn't get to see where John parked his module, but Sue jumped out at one parking spot to take a quick shot on the video camera. Still, that was one of the best moments of the weekend.
After Manly Dam we went to Middle Head, to some strange gun barracks or something. They're like huge concrete tunnels and thingies at the top of the cliff. It's hard to describe, and I didn't actually take many photos of them. I did, however, take a photo of Deb standing up the top of where Shikozu apparently did some leany-outy bit. I also took a photo of Tracey (RaceyT) standing in front of Ben's (or someone's) gaffa tape mark, which was still on the ground.
One guy found a trap door that wasn't meant to be open, I don't think, but was, so we found Mark who had a torch and a group of us ventured over. A few people ventured down the very steep stairs into the darkness and reported up to us what they saw. This was already inside an underground stone/concrete room, so it was all dark and fun *g* It's kind of hard to put into words the fun-ness of having a group of about twenty people who don't really know eachother but kind of do all standing around a spooky hole in the ground making jokes and laughing and having fun and waiting for ghosts to eat us *g*
Jeannie (Bobean2) sat on the steps taking a video while someone else was down there. She's talking into the video, and says "hang on, there's something down there. What's that?" We asked if it was a dead body. "No, it's my sunglasses. Could you please pass me my sunglasses?"
After they came up and a few others went down, we all turned to leave and Mark dropped the metal trap door, in a small enclosed concrete space, with a huge crash, making us all jump.
Sue then directed us to the other part that had Ben's mark on it, and we found a nice cool breezy spot from which we could see across the ... whatever it was, to wherever in Sydney it was, and the Manly ferries crossing paths and the like. It was really quite nice up there. Maybe I'm just completely scaper obsessed, but I don't think it wouldn't be as fun with just two or three people - the space was so large that you really need a group of about 60 like we had, so you can just wander anywhere and chat to anyone and you don't have to see the same thing at the same time as the person with you because someone else you know will be there.
I think that also kind of explains the essence of the whole weekend. Just being part of a 60+ person family was great. But I'll save that for the end of the piece :)
After that we headed towards Mrs McQuarie's chair, the navigator having forgotten about the symphony in the park. After negotiating our way through traffic detours and pedestrians, we made our way back to the Sands hotel, where I reminded Deb and the bus driver that we had our snurched signs under the bus. "Oh, shit, yeah, forgot about those! Thanx for that!" *g* I wasn't gonna forget those, don't worry :)
Saturday night Belinda (my sister, scaper without an online alias) and I took a non-scaper friend out to dinner, before bringing her back to the hotel. The evening's activities weren't that exciting for a non-scaper, so after watching Revenging Angel - a fantastic stand alone episode from season three that's so hilarious for a farscape fan but isn't a great one for someone who's not familiar with the show, and after being bored through about fifteen minutes of footage of the farscape cancellation stories on CNN, I reminded her that she didn't have to stay if she was bored, and she took me up on that offer :) I, however, loved seeing Revenging Angel. Before TaScape I'd only seen about two episodes with Scorpius in them, but after this weekend he (including the version of him inside John's brain) is my new favourite character ... well, besides Chiana, who will always be first ;)
After that we watched .... oh, before that they were watching a season three episode. I wasn't allowed to watch it though. I went down and asked Jen (Merlincat) and Sue (Cloudie) if it was very spoilery, and said I didn't mind seeing it but I didn't want Belinda to be spoilt. Despite my insistence that I could watch it they banned me from the room. Paris (non-scaper friend) and I came back down a bit later cos no-one was upstairs anymore, and chatted to Mark who stood between me and the tv. Sue saw me and came over and yelled at me for being there, but I insisted I couldn't see or hear anything. She said to make sure I can't *g*
Then we watched Revenging Angel. Then we watched the CNN stuff. Then we watched ... oh, I think that was the night we watched the Saturn awards - like sci-fi's version of the Golden Globes. Not the whole lot, just the bits with Farscape people talking or winning stuff.
After that we watched some Farscape video clips - some very talented people have cut and pasted Farscape footage to make video clips. some were really really good - like the Chiana film clip to Meredith Brooks' Bitch, and the one to the Muppets theme with Pilot and the DRD's singing and dancing *g*
After all that excitement, it was off to bed before Sunday - official TaScape BBQ day.
------------------Sunday
Sunday was indeed BBQ day. Ronnie (Nemain) and a few others got there to bags our spot from around 6am. We got there around 10am, and most arrived around that time and shortly after. A few people had books they were passing around for people to write messages in, so we trekked up to the shop in Sue's 4wd (my first ride in a 4wd, and I trusted a South Aussie to drive me????) and bought a book and a pen. The Sands hotel is in the 7-11 complex, so while I was waiting outside the shop/hotel with a few others Deb and Tracey drove past waving the TV guide out the window - with a picture of Gigi on the cover :D That got passed around a lot at the BBQ.
The BBQ consisted mostly of wandering around chatting to people and meeting the ones who had turned up just for the day and generally just hanging out with a huge bunch of friendly scapery types. A couple of people turned up simply because they'd seen the article in Saturday's paper, so that was great, cos the guy puts it in as a personal favour to us. Now we'll be able to tell his boss it was worth it.
The first guest to arrive was Mario, one of the puppetteers, and one of the men considered most desireable by the female Farscape fans. He was really friendly though, so even though I didn't find him the Italian stallion he apparently was (or whatever the hell nationality of sexiness he's meant to be) he was a great guy, and more than willing to hug as many girls as wanted photos with him *g* He was quite amused by my "Hi, Mario, I'm Rebecca. Would you like to sign me?" for some reason.
Just before lunchtime Mark the carpenter who builds the sets showed up. He said he'd photocopy a set plan and give it to Deb to give me, but I'm not going to hold him to that, considering he probably forgot about two minutes later *g* But as that suggests, he was a very friendly guy and great to chat to.
Not long after that Ben showed up, another set designer. Ben, however, is not a carpenter, and thus after signing about four people's stuff, he went back and wrote 'scenic' underneath his name so we would know he wasn't a carpenter *g*
Mark's people build the sets. Ben's people pretty the sets up. Including 'aging' the sets. The Taking The Stone set was built by Mark, then the producers (or whoever makes these decisions ... I'm a music person, not a tv person ...) wanted it to look older, not quite so shiny new. It was a big cliff-thing. (You all knew that, right?) So Ben and his mates took to it with chainsaws. "Is it ok if we cut here?" "Nope, not really, that's kind of holding it all together." "Oh, ok" ... Proceeds to cut through it.
So we had someone who builds sets, someone who paints/gives character to sets, and later on someone who blows stuff up.
Caroline (Bwuce) had a prop she'd bought off EBay that she was getting signed. It was a light from somewhere, but she had no idea where. She handed it to Ben to ask him to sign it, and he said "hey, I painted this". She said "great, any idea where it's from?" :D Turns out it was painted silver and used in the cryogenic chamber, then repainted it's current motley red/brown and used in the Scarran quarters. So hey, Bwuce owns a Scarran light :D ... Signed by several cast/crew ....
The barbecue went off without a hitch and the waterfights were kept away from the sitting/eating area by a very well behaved and generally amazing group of kids. Not only were the Farscape adults amazing, the Farscape kids were too.
Over lunchtime Sue's phone rang, (Sue WITGOB, not Sue Cloudie) and after answering it she reported it was Ricky Manning. We all shouted out hi down the phone to him, and a few of us got photos of 'Sue talking on the phone to Froon' :)
Sue then got up on the table and made an announcement. Ricky had been very annoyed at Sue for not asking him to donate something to the raffle. She thought he'd given us more than enough over the years. Nonetheless, he had just told Sue that although it would take a while to ship out to the winner since he'd not been asked in advance and was ringing then to donate it, he was donating a part of Moya's rib.
When I told mum this, she just laughed and looked at me as though I was insane. I was quite annoyed at her refusal to even contemplate the significance of that. In my report to non-scapers I explained it in detail, but I'm sure scapers all understand just how frelling huge that is, and how frelling great Ricky is.
For the record, Libby won the piece of Moya. Unfortunately, I have no idea what Libby's online alias is *g*
Just before the raffle Matt McCoy showed up, another of the puppeteers. I asked him what part of Rygel he operated. "I spent four years with my hand up Rygel's bum". He was a great guy, very friendly and funny and more than willing to chat and be a generally fun guy.
Before the raffle we had state by state photos in front of the tascape banner. I missed the Victorian one because I didn't know what was happening, but I got all the others. We couldn't find the other ACT person so since there were only two of us, not many bothered taking that photo. We did, however, discover that Jenny (ozfencer) is a Hawthorn supporter, so we also had a Hawthorn supporters photo in front of the banner *g*
After that was the raffle. Over 170 prizes, varying from postcards to full sets of collector cards to signed t-shirts to a framed print of one of the aliens, signed by Matt. From 30 tickets (3 for $2, 30 for $20) I won a signed copy of the farscape novel (it's like a novel-length fanfic by a proper novel writer), a complete set of season three trading cards (Deb: I don't even have them. I'll buy them off you later .... Me: no you won't :p Deb: you haven't even seen season three, you don't need them!! :D) and Belinda won a set of season one character cards that she donated to me. Don't worry, I didn't steal them. Belinda is quite persistent with her putting herself out for others. And sometimes I insist that she can't. But when I want what she's offering, I have a three-refusals policy. I'll refuse three times, the second and third involving detailed arguments of why she should keep them and not give them to me, and if after the third she still insists, I back down and accept what she's offering :) Especially if it includes pictures of Chiana ;)
In the entire set of two hundred and forty something cards, there was only one pic of Rygel, on the same card as D'Argo and Aeryn and John. So I handed the set to Matt and asked him who else he worked on. He signed three of them, which was nice, cos I was only expecting one :) Mario had left by then.
Not much happened after the raffle, just clearing up and stuff. Belinda and I got a lift back to the hotel by Johnny (robotenchi), who does really amazing drawings. He donated one to the raffle - it was an A3 drawing of John and Zhaan, John in blue and Zhaan in purple, and it was amazing. Everyone went "wow" when Deb showed it.
When we came down for dinner someone said Wayne Pygram had shown up at the BBQ just after we left. He joined us for dinner, in his somewhat drunken state *g* He told us some stuff about what his band is doing. He's in one band called Number 96 with Anth (D'Argo), they do rock-type stuff, and another band that's more jazzy that has reformed after twenty years and that he wants to take out to play gigs. The other guys just want to write songs though. He said something that I can't remember exactly now, along the lines of "what's the point in playing music if people can't hear you. You play music to make people feel something". Or something that wasn't at all like that but had the same idea. Either way, I don't get why his band wants to stay in the bedroom anymore than Wayne gets it. Hopefully they'll soon see sense and let Wayne tell people his stories through his music. That's what it's there for.
I picked a Scorpy card for Wayne to sign, and noticed while I was waiting that it's from one of Matt (Ford, the reason I first watched Farscape)'s episodes, so I was somewhat pleased about my selection. It's also the best shot of Scorpius in the entire set, so I was doubly pleased with my selection.
After Wayne left we watched some more farscape music videos. One of them was a Dr Seuss song about ... um, I forget what it's called, but something about an Evil Mister Someone. Only it was Scorpy, cos Scorpy is the definition of evil. Just at that moment Wayne came back into the room, having forgotten something. Was quite amusing :)
I also asked if we had Farscape Undressed, the primer for season three hosted by Ben and Claudia where they explain the series and season's one and two for anyone coming in at the start of season three. That was good to see.
We then watched Police Rescue with Lani in it. Hmm, haven't seen that before *g* It didn't have Tammy tho. Tammy's Police Rescue character has three lines per show. No kidding. The other day two of her three lines were 'probably' and 'what?'. So whilst it didn't have Tammy, the ep we saw did have the boy who played John's best mate, but nobody knew that until we read the credits at the end. Then we had to rewind so those who knew the character (not me) could go "oh my gosh!".
Just as we were about to be kicked out of the basement Jonathon Hardy arrived. Jonathon is the voice of Rygel and is the sort of guy who commands respect. I don't know a lot about him and knew nothing about him before sunday night, but from what I gather he's been involved in theatre, he's recently directed an opera, he's written screenplays, he's an esteemed actor. So here he is, this esteemed older-generation actor, arriving at 9:30 just as we're about to be kicked out of the basement. We got a few extra minutes out of the hotel people, before they came down again to kick us out. So Jonathon is faced with a room full of women inviting him to their hotel rooms. We ended up with about thirty people sitting on beds and standing at the back of the room, Jonathon in a chair between two beds, and conducted the signings and interview in that position. We stopped the interview at about 11:30 cos it was getting way late. I went to bed after that, so I don't know how much longer he stayed.
Jonathon completed my five signed cards in my freshly won set, so it was lucky I didn't get Matt to sign the one Rygel card. I told Jonathon that it was the only pic of Rygel in the entire set. He was as appalled by that fact as I was, and said he felt it appropriate then that he write over the faces of the others sharing the card with him. I concurred, so I now have one trading card in the set with Aeryn and John obscured by Jonathon Hardy's signature :D
Jonathon is a very funny and entertaining guy. He's the sort of bloke that tells a lot of stories, but unlike Ron Barassi (an ex-footballer we were unlucky enough to hear speak once), he tells a great story. Ron Barassi will bore you to tears - he'll start on something, and an hour and a half and fifteen topics later he'll still be telling stories unrelated to the one that started the ball rolling, each story taking far too long to get to the point of. Jonathon is another rolling storyteller, moving from one to another, but his are all entertaining and well presented. He was truly amazing to listen to.
------------------Conclusion
Scapers are fun. That's the conclusion. An amazing weekend full of plenty of fun activities, spent with plenty of fun people. A huge thanx must go out to everyone who was involved in organising the weekend, and of course the fantastic scapers for being such a wonderful family to be a part of. And for accepting me into your family. Feel free to kick me back out at any point :)
TaScape 2004 - I'll be there. Remember that before deciding if you will be ;)
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