I’d given up blogging about the Cons I attended, until the recent LiveJournal kerfuffle made me realize that I really valued having those Con notes afterward. So I’m starting again.
I only heard about Norwescon last year, when writer friends rounded up a bunch of people for breakfast. Next year, I decided, I really must attend the Con as well. It’s large – around 3,500 people, and very much a ‘big tent’ Con with books, media and costuming. There are literally thousands of people milling around, many of them in quite fantastic costumes.
The registration lines 
were long, but once that was done, I attended panels, made a round of the pretty awesome Dealer Room, visited the art show twice, and also got to the Masquerade (amazing) and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I’ve wanted to see for years.
It’s also a great Con for meeting people, if you set it up with them. (You *can* run into people, but with such a crowd, it’s easier with planning.) I’m lucky to be a member of Codex, a neo-pro writers group, and so I knew a few people there. I imagine it could be quite daunting for someone altogether new.
Overall, I attended a bunch of writing/ publishing panels, as well as a couple on other media (film, sound) and a few others that were new information/ experience. I am putting some of the panel notes into separate posts for easier access. And, of course, got to hang out with a great bunch of Codexians. I really hope I can make it again next year.
Links to my Panel Notes from Self-publishing Panels:
- Panel: Navigating the New Publishing
- Panel: Advanced Self-Publishing
- Panel: Writing to Market
- Panel: Writing as a Business
Norwescon Film-making Workshop: Introduction (Daniel Kaufman (M), Ryan K. Johnson, Brian D. Oberquell, John Medlong)
Each year at Norwescon, the film team and a bunch of volunteers put together a short film over the weekend. It’s planned on Friday, shot on Saturday, and shown on Sunday. They showed us two films made in previous years They talked of how film-making was now very affordable, since the technology costs were very low and even excellent equipment could be rented at a reasonable price. Anyone could make a film – it was a matter of learning (and the internet provided lots of information) and then, practice.
- Three phases to making a film:
- Pre-production (time to do the planning for the film and pull together all the elements needed);
- Production, which is very time-sensitive because you’ve assembled the team and rented the equipment etc so it has to be done right then and there or it becomes too expensive.
- Post-production, which is essentially the editing stage. A lot of things can be accomplished here.
- People will tolerate poor video, but can’t stand poor sound. Make sure you get professional sound quality. Beware of copyright issues. (That made me remember the whole story of Sita Sings the Blues, where the maker thought the songs she used had aged out of copyright, not realizing that the studios had tied up all the rights for decades more.)
- Pointers and tips:
- You can get people to participate by asking for volunteers among your friends.
- Feed your crew on-set – at least one hot meal, coffee, snacks. Especially when they’re volunteers! (Check if anyone is vegetarian, they may not mention it in advance. Also ask about allergies.)
- During production – know what your role is and stay within that role even if you can do others. It’s not your job.
- Especially when you start out, you don’t need to buy very high-end equipment. Also, rent! Glazer’s in Seattle treats a weekend as one day and only charges one day of rent.
- For camera equipment, lenses are more important than cameras. “Latitude” (sensitivity to light from white to black, measured in “stops”) is as important as resolution. (8 1/2 is good enough, 13 1/2 is excellent).
- Most times, the audience is more interested in the story than in the cinematography. No use shooting technically perfect shots that don’t advance the story.
- Practice is more important than equipment quality.
- Seattle’s grey overcast skies are wonderful for filming. You can brighten it up in post-production so it looks like summer in L.A.
- (But to make Vancouver look like L.A., we bring in heaters to dry the pavement, and people scraping moss off the benches!)
- The problem for Seattle is sound – crows and airplanes.
- Special effects is not just blowing stuff up.
I’ll put panel notes on other panels in separate posts. I don’t want this thing to become 5,000 words long!
KEYAN BOWES 