Wondercon '07

Whew, what a day. Wondercon San Francisco couldn't have had nicer weather. It was sunny and blue all day long. I got on the ferry at about 10 and enjoyed the views and drew a few unsuspecting people. The ferry was running a little late, but there was still plenty of time before the main event began. Brad Bird and Patton Oswalt were to start their panel about Ratatouille at 12 o'clock. I got to the ferry building to meet Jeff, and at about 11 we were off to the Moscone South building.
What we weren't expecting were the lines...Long, long lines! I was watching my cell-phone clock anxiously, and I was afraid we'd miss the panel. But finally we got in and were lucky that they started it late.
I was surprised at how big the room was. There were two large screens on either side of the room and the panel table was in the middle. First an intro person came out to welcome us and show us the teaser for the movie. Then Brad Bird came out and got the audience laughing. He listed all of the sequels coming out this summer (and thirds, maybe fourths and, for Harry Potter, fifths) and said that because of that they had decided to rename the movie "Ratatouille 1," so the audience would feel more comfortable watching it this summer.
Next he introduced the characters of Ratatouille with pictures of them on the screens showing simultaneously. It was wonderful to see some preliminary artwork for these characters. Remy's the main character, and he's quite picky with his food (he's the only skinny rat in the movie-- sympathetic laughs from the audience). Linguini, the garbage boy at the restaurant, was introduced as well, with some great artwork and an awesome maquette of his head. And did I see a storyboard panel by Enrico?? Looked just like his watercolors! Django, the father rat, was shown as a magnanimous dad, but there was also an angry pic of him too.

(I wasn't supposed to take pictures of the scenes they showed us but I did anyway. This was my favorite scene. Or maybe I forgot to bring my camera...)

Next Mr. Bird briefly summarized the first act of the movie, without giving away too much, and set us up for the clip we were about to watch. And maannn I have to say. I thought their other movies looked spectacular. I mean, just the look of it is new and different, but as always, it looks timeless.
After the first clip Patton Oswalt came out and proved to be quite the comic as well. They chatted for a while about Mr. Oswalt's involvement, and then another clip was shown, and again it knocks it out of the park. It was more about character dialog and less about the action in the kitchen, but it was hilarious. Wonderful acting and comedic timing.
After this clip was audience Q and A. Some were good questions, like how much is done by the storyboard artist, writer and layout artist when it comes to camera angles. I think Bird's gist was that most of the time he knows what he wants to see, so he writes exactly what he wants in the script-- but other times he'll give a scene to someone he knows can produce something he likes and he'll let them run with it.
After the Q and A the audience was given one last little surprise. Bird and Oswalt said adieu and went out showing us the real theater trailer. A lot of it was comprised of the first two scenes we had seen earlier, but new scenes were shown too. Remy narrates at the beginning, saying that he always knew he should follow his dreams, knowing that one day he'd be discovered. Cut to scene of Remy being found at the pot of soup in the kitchen by Linguini. Chaos and hilarity ensue! Someone let me know when that trailer gets online...I can't wait to watch it again. And again.


And again.

SO yeah, this movie looks okay i guess. ;)

The rest of the day at Wondercon was just a little too tiring for me, and claustrophobic! There were too many people there at the same time. You could hardly move, even in the wider rows. I did get to stop by James Baker's booth and pick up a comic of his; it looks quite funny, and it's always nice to chat with him. My only other necessary stop was Stuart Ng Books, where I picked up Three Trees Make a Forest book. Beeea-utiful. And that's all I got this year! I know it sounds silly, but neither me nor Jeff were really attracted to any particular booths. Bud Planet had some cool books, but also it was impossible to navigate through their narrow isles. Same at Stuart Ng, though when we were there it wasn't so bad. There was one last artist that Jeff wanted to buy from, but he was drawing/autographing his books and talking to a crowd of people, who in turn stood in front of the booth and blocked us out. We went away so we could catch him a different time with no crowd. But we came back to the same big crowd 10 minutes later. I guess thats what we get for going there at peak time on Saturday.
So it was tiring and a little disappointing to walk away without more books, but all in all, it was definitely worth it to see the Ratatouille panel, get Ronnie, Enrico and Tadahiro's book and James Baker's comic too. Yay.

Whew. What a post. You made it! Maybe I should start making part ones and part twos to my posts in the future, huh?