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Audience Member:: For this year, do you plan on bringing back, Darla, Drusilla, the Gentlemen and Tara?
JW: Some of that I can answer; I don't plan on bringing the Gentlemen back, I have thought about it, but I like the fact of them just existing in the that one space. It's nice to have them be their own little legend and I think it would be a mistake to see them again in a way. And Darla, you know she's dead again, so unless there's a flash back thing, and I know everyone is dying to see David Boreanaz in more wigs, so it's unlikely that we'll see her which is depressing because Julie Benz is such a treasure. Drusilla I would very much like to see again this year, and Tara, also unfortunately dead, whether or not we see Amber is still a little bit up in the air and what that means, you'll find out.
Audience Member:: This year the Emmy's conveniently forgot to put "Once More With Felling" on the ballet, then they re-sent it out, what was that all about?
JW:: That was all about a mistake that wasn't the Academy's fault, and the Academy actually sent out an addendum as soon as they found out that put it back on the ballad. In a way they certainly can't be blamed for that, the Academy members however can all be blamed for not voting for it (said in a dramatic over-the-top voice).
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"I know everyone is dying to see David Boreanaz in more wigs." ~ Joss
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Audience Member:: Can I ask why you're even contemplating Buffy without Sarah Michelle Gellar?
JW:: Do I look like I'm contemplating Buffy without Sarah Michelle Gellar?
AM:: Well, it's been on the Internet a lot.
JW:: Yeah, so's my Dr. Who and my direction of Boy Meets World. I did the silent musical episode of Boy Meets World, I don't remember if any of you remember that, because it never aired. Here's the thing. Everyone knows Sarah's contract is up and whether or not she'll return is in question. UPN wants the show to come back, I don't know if it will. I have no idea. I always think about this year and this year only. What I know that I've been quoted as saying is, 'You could do a show starting any one of the people who star in Buffy the Vampire Slayer', they are all that good. Would it be different? Yes. But that ensemble cast, talk about them not getting the props, they are as good as anybody I could hope to work with, so if it's something dull I'd be very surprised.
Audience Member:: Can you give us some insight on the decision process to kill a major character? It's important to the drama but the fans, what about the fans?
JW:: I know, I know. The decision is always 'must make this world as unsafe as possible' and 'we must make things as hard on people as possible'. Obviously, we're not the only show that does this, I thought Buffy had it bad, but look at poor Sipowicz [NYPD Blues's Dennis Franz' character]. Eventually it becomes boring and you have to find a way to put a new spin on it but there are really two things that matter: sex and death - and eventually they're both going to show up. It's tough and people think I'm being facetious when I say that as a staff we had difficultly talking about what we were gonna do. Talking about that episode was actually painful to us, not just as writers but also as collaborators because of our love of Amber [Benson]. But we felt that it was necessary for Willow's arc and also for Alyson [Hannigan] as an actress. We needed to send her as deep down as we could because we wanted to see what she could bring back and what she brought back was one of my favorite darkest, strangest, saddest characters that I've ever seen. It's not something we take lightly, but it's not something we'll ever stop doing, I think. (cheery voice) I can't wait to see who's next! Well, that one pissed me off, let's see what could happen. It was Kristine [Sutherland], Buffy's mom, oh s**t, poor Buffy.
Ending on that humorous note, Scott took the mic again and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, Joss Whedon." The final rupture of a standing applause ala cheers sent Joss downstairs to continue with an autograph signing at the Dark Horse Booth. As always, the man was gracious to the last signature, the final smile, and one last hoarse whisper of 'thank you'. Joss wasn't the only exec floating around; producer/writer Jane Espenson was casually taking in all the excitement of the convention.
Bob Harris and Jane Espenson incognito
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Dark Horse Comics booth, Buffy, Angel and Fray
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Jane Espenson ~ Buffy's co-executive producer and writer (whose name tag read Willow Rosenberg), was found cruising the Dark Horse Comics booth with none other than Bob Harris who worked with Jane on Dark Horse's The Lone Gunmen comic and recently wrote Star Wars tale #13: The Sith in Shadow. While Jane had pretty much filled her quota in the comic book arena she had plenty to hint about when it came to the show of a certain slayer. "Look for some fun this year on Buffy from Anya," she teased. "Maybe (dramatic pause), look to see more information about the past of Anya. What was her name before she was Anyaka, I wonder? And maybe, look for a tiny bit more singing." Jane's been moved up the ladder once again, now to Co-executive producer. "That's sort of the ceiling," she explained, "everybody sort of lands at co-exec and David Fury and I are now at the same level. You tend to stay at co-exec unless you're given your own show to run, so we'll all just eventually pile up there." Jane's first episode on this season's Buffy was episode three, "Same Time, Same Place", and she also wrote an episode of Firefly. Although she has no directorial début plans in her immediate future she did tell us to look for Mr. Doug Petrie to be directing some more this year.
Her partner-in-crime while perusing the darkened corners of Comic-Con, Bob Harris, had his own great news to share as Jane revealed he just became the newest staff writer on CSI. "We're doing okay, we're the number one show on television," admitted Bob with a coy smile but quickly confessed, "I've been overwhelmed, I'm really, honestly the luckiest person in television right now probably. It's my first job in television and I walked into the number one show." Bob also worked on the 9/11 comic for Dark Horse published and he has a line that he wants to create at some point. "But for now it's finding dead bodies, you know, seems to be what I'm doing. The main difference between CSI and Buffy is that our dead bodies don't sing and dance, yet. I'm trying." Jane is enjoying his experience in the trenches, "That's been very exciting. It's felt like I'm a staff writer again," Jane admitted, "because I'm going thru all of it over again with Bob. That's been my big outside thing, listening to exciting stories about CSI." And we closed out our conversation with a few comments on how she enjoyed the previous season of Angel. "Oh, I loved Angel this year. I think the addition of Angel's son was really, really cool. And poor Angel, he's spent all his hiatus chained up at the bottom of the ocean. I think he's been under the ocean this whole time," she teased, "I can't wait to see what he looks like and how he's doing and how he got along." Be sure to watch for more dynamic episodes penned by Espenson this season on Buffy and Harris on CSI.
THERE'S A DEMON AMONG US
Robert Hall working on pre-demon Darren
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Christi being transformed
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The Three ~ after Buffy battled them
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On Saturday, a stop at Robert Hall's Almost Human booth revealed his need for a volunteer to be made up as a demon in his demonstration. Not one to pass up an opportunity, our own Darren Danforth hopped up into the chair and proceeded to become the Bouncer Demon, from Angel's "Double or Nothing" episode of Season 3. For two hours afterward, he received nothing but stares for the unbelievable makeup Rob prepared and he found himself having to stop frequently and pose for pictures taken by other Con attendees. "I have inordinate respect now for the actors who wear demon and vampire makeup for 14-hour days on the set," commented Darren.
Robert Hall ~ Special Effects Makeup guru set up a demon creation demo to let attendees see behind the camera and just how all those monsters get made. Despite what some people thought, it's more artistic flare than just pieces of mask and a little touch up. Once the applications are applied, it's all in the talent of the artist to bring his or her creatures to life, so to speak. While working on Christi (Rob's girlfriend), he gave us his thoughts on how Angel was doing with their latest horde of demons. "I was pretty pleased, it was my first season creating all the monsters. I seem to have made the Powers That Be happy, so I was very happy. I think we did some nice characters," he admitted, "certainly Skip [from "Birthday"] stands out and the Bug creature from "Fredless" is one of my favorites. I thought we did some nice stuff." Rob has a tight production schedule with only a week, and sometimes less, to create most of these creatures and there was an on slough of demons towards the end of the season. "Double or Nothing" was really big for us obviously; they had like 30 characters either in background masks or makeups, demon-wise. We submitted that for Emmy, unfortunately it didn't get picked up on, but Dayne [Johnson - Head makeup Supervisor of Angel] and I were pretty happy with the stuff we did in that. Then after "Double or Nothing" things kind of simmered down; there was just the Holtz old age makeup which Dayne applied."
Inkworks Cards booth
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Brian Neubauer and Meloney Chadwick
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All during the process of applying Christi's makeup, Rob would pause to ask, "Are you okay?" always taking into account the comfort of his victim. The use of some of the latex adhesives can be a discomfort if caution is not taken and Rob is careful not to let the vapors irritate Christi's eyes. But she's a trooper and we couldn't help imagining that she's probably called on a lot to be his King's taster so-to-speak when it comes to new creatures. 'Honey? Let me see how this Vlaskel demon looks on you.' But a moment later we were back on course and Rob was giving us a few clues to what we'd be seeing this season on Angel. "Yeah, this season we're doing some very," he enthused, "let me just tell you, we're not messing around, we're starting off with some very cool stuff. The second episode ["Ground State"] will be one of our coolest things I think that we've ever done if all goes well. One of our coolest characters without saying too much." It's hard to keep the excitement from spilling any spoilers but Rob did offer that, "A very, very, very cool character coming up, demon-wise; there's other cool characters non-demon-wise but I only care about the monsters," he said with a laugh. Rob and Almost Human also worked on Joss's Firefly this season and of course, they'll be helping out on Buffy. "That keeps us pretty busy. Any one of those shows would be too much you know and we've got all three of them going at the same time, so it's pretty gnarly." Which doesn't leave much room for sleep, but we've all come to realize; you work with vampires, you don't sleep. "Exactly," said Rob.
Mark your calendars, next year the San Diego Comic-Con International will be held a little bit earlier: July 17-20, 2003. Another Comic-Con by the boards, and as always, it lived up to its billing. San Diego is a great city, a perfect host for the event, and the Con is always entertaining. It was very well organized and well structured. We must take a moment to again urge that if you get an opportunity, and you enjoy science fiction, the Comic-Con is a great introduction to the medium. The people are generally friendly, and many show up in costume, which lends even more to the over all atmosphere. "That's it until next year true believers," in the words of the immortal Stan Lee, Excelsior.
Written by CoA Writers, Darren Danforth and Kristy Bratton
CityofAngel would like to extend our most gracious thanks to David Glanzer and his outstanding crew at Comic-Con.
For all the information on Comic-Con International 2003, log onto their Official Website at: www.Comic-Con.org
If you have any comments for CityofAngel.com regarding this 'Behind the Scenes' feature, we would love to hear from you. Just email us at: comments@CityofAngel.com
