The Apple Soho Doctor Who Experience
Tonight, I managed to get myself together and to the Apple Soho store in New York City for the "Meet the cast" session, celebrating Doctor Who. Little did I know what a treat I was in for.
Outside of the store, I met future_tennant, wonderfully dressed as the Tenth Doctor. Although I had never met him before, we struck up a conversation and spent the time in each other's company, which was very nice indeed.
I brought tiny!Five with me, because I know that having him around helps break the ice, both for other people to approach me and as a method for me to get over my Crippling Shyness when it comes to talking to people. I need to bring him everywhere, methinks. I did a very good job opening up about Ravelry and our amazing "Who Knits?" forum there and all the wonderful other tiny!Doctors and tiny!Commpanions. ANYWAY... back to the Apple Soho store.
The interview was happening upstairs in a theater-esque area. I was really surprised that I managed to claim a seat. It was in the back row, but given that there were only a few rows in front of us, it was wonderful!
I decided to break out the crappy cellphone camera and take a picture or two.
First, while they were playing Apple ads on the wall.
Then, they changed it up to the appropriate ad. I couldn't help but take another picture.
A lovely lady sat next to me and we started chatting (she was an in-the-closet Who fan, which I thought was adorable! I hope I didn't chat her ear off with the long lists of random!facts that I know. I think I convinced her to watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl, though). She took a picture of me, tiny!Five, and Ten while we were waiting:
They told us no recording, but I figured a non-flash picture of them after they came out would be ok. Bah, crappy phone camera.
Next time, I should bite the bullet and go dressed as fem!Eleven, yes? Sitting next to a neatly decked out Tenth Doctor made me wish I did. ANYWAY...
Karen, Steven, and Matt were interviewed by a gentleman from TV Guide, I believe. He asked interesting questions and the three of them kept their answers interesting for both the new-to-this-Doctor folks and people like me who eat up as many words as possible printed on all three of them.
They first started with the lovely 9 minute clip available for free on iTunes. The audience squeed and laughed and cheered in the right spots, which was quite nice.
Here's a selection of quotes (admittedly, some of these are paraphrasing... hopefully when the video is out on iTunes, we'll be able to extract exact quotes from them) and bits of information that I livetweeted (some with additional commentary):
Matt mentioned how much he loved how the crowd wooted and hooted when we were excited or cheering. He rather loved that we did it here in the US (what do folks in the UK do?).
"Children don't watch passively, they actively play with the show... and the worst cases become part of the show." - Steven Moffat
"It is the most knackering show, but also most rewarding." - Matt Smith (The question was originally asked of Steven and he answered with essentially the same thing and passed the question onto Matt who reiterated it.)
They talked about filming in Croatia. Karen added this interesting tidbit:
Croatia served as both Venice and Paris. They are not in the same episode. In other words, the Croatia shoots were used for two different episodes.
"It's a role that requires great physical prowess!" - Matt Smith
"You just want to make it exciting. The selling point of the series is that everything is different from show to show. Genre too." - Steven Moffat (They talked about what made Doctor Who different from other programs, what makes it unique. He mentioned that it's one of the few shows that can have different settings and apply different genres within the same episode.)
When asked about preparing for the program, Matt talked again about Einstein. He offers this gem:
"Albert Einstein's book of quotes. When you sit on the loo, have a read." - Matt Smith
He added something like, "Well, you've got to be doing something" and Steven was like "TMI!"
"The Doctor's charm is that he's half the oldest man in the universe and half unruly child." - Steven Moffat
"She is not the damsel in distress. She doesn't follow him around like a puppy. She runs off and does her own thing." - Karen Gillan, on Amy
"We have a Dream Lord!" - Matt Smith (This is referring to Toby Jones in the upcoming series. Ooooo.)
"They aren't just vampires. There's more under their skin." - Matt Smith (Steven then said something about Matt's mind being 'in the gutter'. Oh, and Matt definitely mentioned the six sexiest vampires ever again. Hee hee!)
Matt brought the bracers to the costume. A combination Neo/Jack Sparrow was the first costume but MS wanted a professorial-look. He wants a hat!
"He looks like a hot young bloke and talks like a 72 year old professor." - Steven Moffat (I may have gotten the age wrong, but this is an exact quote.)
They then showed the clip of the Doctor in "The Eleventh Hour" when he is returning to Amelia's house and trying to warn her about Patient Zero. They played enough to get that flash of Amy's police costume. Hee!
They had question and answer afterwards. I raised my hand because I wanted to ask them about SDCC (whether they are attending) and ask a personal question about their hobbies outside of Who-stuff... but a number of the questions asked were quite good and I look forward to watching that iTunes video to recall some of the questions/answers.
I do remember three bits:
1. When someone brought up Rory's badge, Moffat was like, "Oh, I wasn't aware of that" and seemed genuinely "oh really?" about it. But I'm still a bit suspicious. I think this is fall-out from the RTD years at work.
2. Karen and Matt completely laughed about the scene where Amy and Rory are watching the TARDIS dematerialize in "The Eleventh Hour". They say they giggle every time they watch it because you can hear this owl hooting in the background and it took them a long time to get it together to film it properly.
3. Steven's favorite cheese is Stinking Bishop. Karen's is Gorgonzola. Matt's is Cheddar.
I decided to stick around afterwards and see if anything cool could come about from it.
I managed to snap some photographs of them milling about and chatting on the "stage" with the interviewer and other people behind the scenes.
Oh, probably now is a good time to mention what Matt and Karen wore. Matt wore this really nice gray suit (jacket and matching pants) with a black shirt and a hat. Karen wore this lovely flowing purple dress with small contrasting decorative bits.
And we got to watch Matt have a conversation.
And then they came and started signing things and talking to us. And I got these two gems. A woman in their group was kind enough to take the photograph. *squee*
Karen thought that tiny!Five was adorable!
Steven was like, "Ooh" but didn't add any additional remarks.
Understandably, Matt was SWAMPED and couldn't stop for a picture with tiny!Ten, but he was so generous, signing everything. (Alas, I forgot my poster I thought he could sign in the car! Perhaps next time, yes?)
It was absolutely fantastic, great to see them. They were all so lovely and entertaining and amazing! I hope to see them again soon. Fingers crossed!
ETA: Oh, remembered one little tidbit from the event. Steven mentioned that the pivotal emotional moment in the entire series emphasizes the nature of the relationship between Amy and the Doctor.
EATA: Oh yeah, they gave out magnets! I've got a BBCA-style "All of time and space FOLLOW ME" fridge magnet. Woo!
Addition: the "Meet the Filmmaker" podcast on iTunes will have a download shortly of the event!
This entry was originally posted at http://iko.dreamwidth.org/416.html. Feel free to comment there or here. There are
comments so far on this post.
Outside of the store, I met future_tennant, wonderfully dressed as the Tenth Doctor. Although I had never met him before, we struck up a conversation and spent the time in each other's company, which was very nice indeed.
I brought tiny!Five with me, because I know that having him around helps break the ice, both for other people to approach me and as a method for me to get over my Crippling Shyness when it comes to talking to people. I need to bring him everywhere, methinks. I did a very good job opening up about Ravelry and our amazing "Who Knits?" forum there and all the wonderful other tiny!Doctors and tiny!Commpanions. ANYWAY... back to the Apple Soho store.
The interview was happening upstairs in a theater-esque area. I was really surprised that I managed to claim a seat. It was in the back row, but given that there were only a few rows in front of us, it was wonderful!
I decided to break out the crappy cellphone camera and take a picture or two.
First, while they were playing Apple ads on the wall.
Then, they changed it up to the appropriate ad. I couldn't help but take another picture.
A lovely lady sat next to me and we started chatting (she was an in-the-closet Who fan, which I thought was adorable! I hope I didn't chat her ear off with the long lists of random!facts that I know. I think I convinced her to watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl, though). She took a picture of me, tiny!Five, and Ten while we were waiting:
They told us no recording, but I figured a non-flash picture of them after they came out would be ok. Bah, crappy phone camera.
Next time, I should bite the bullet and go dressed as fem!Eleven, yes? Sitting next to a neatly decked out Tenth Doctor made me wish I did. ANYWAY...
Karen, Steven, and Matt were interviewed by a gentleman from TV Guide, I believe. He asked interesting questions and the three of them kept their answers interesting for both the new-to-this-Doctor folks and people like me who eat up as many words as possible printed on all three of them.
They first started with the lovely 9 minute clip available for free on iTunes. The audience squeed and laughed and cheered in the right spots, which was quite nice.
Here's a selection of quotes (admittedly, some of these are paraphrasing... hopefully when the video is out on iTunes, we'll be able to extract exact quotes from them) and bits of information that I livetweeted (some with additional commentary):
Matt mentioned how much he loved how the crowd wooted and hooted when we were excited or cheering. He rather loved that we did it here in the US (what do folks in the UK do?).
"Children don't watch passively, they actively play with the show... and the worst cases become part of the show." - Steven Moffat
"It is the most knackering show, but also most rewarding." - Matt Smith (The question was originally asked of Steven and he answered with essentially the same thing and passed the question onto Matt who reiterated it.)
They talked about filming in Croatia. Karen added this interesting tidbit:
Croatia served as both Venice and Paris. They are not in the same episode. In other words, the Croatia shoots were used for two different episodes.
"It's a role that requires great physical prowess!" - Matt Smith
"You just want to make it exciting. The selling point of the series is that everything is different from show to show. Genre too." - Steven Moffat (They talked about what made Doctor Who different from other programs, what makes it unique. He mentioned that it's one of the few shows that can have different settings and apply different genres within the same episode.)
When asked about preparing for the program, Matt talked again about Einstein. He offers this gem:
"Albert Einstein's book of quotes. When you sit on the loo, have a read." - Matt Smith
He added something like, "Well, you've got to be doing something" and Steven was like "TMI!"
"The Doctor's charm is that he's half the oldest man in the universe and half unruly child." - Steven Moffat
"She is not the damsel in distress. She doesn't follow him around like a puppy. She runs off and does her own thing." - Karen Gillan, on Amy
"We have a Dream Lord!" - Matt Smith (This is referring to Toby Jones in the upcoming series. Ooooo.)
"They aren't just vampires. There's more under their skin." - Matt Smith (Steven then said something about Matt's mind being 'in the gutter'. Oh, and Matt definitely mentioned the six sexiest vampires ever again. Hee hee!)
Matt brought the bracers to the costume. A combination Neo/Jack Sparrow was the first costume but MS wanted a professorial-look. He wants a hat!
"He looks like a hot young bloke and talks like a 72 year old professor." - Steven Moffat (I may have gotten the age wrong, but this is an exact quote.)
They then showed the clip of the Doctor in "The Eleventh Hour" when he is returning to Amelia's house and trying to warn her about Patient Zero. They played enough to get that flash of Amy's police costume. Hee!
They had question and answer afterwards. I raised my hand because I wanted to ask them about SDCC (whether they are attending) and ask a personal question about their hobbies outside of Who-stuff... but a number of the questions asked were quite good and I look forward to watching that iTunes video to recall some of the questions/answers.
I do remember three bits:
1. When someone brought up Rory's badge, Moffat was like, "Oh, I wasn't aware of that" and seemed genuinely "oh really?" about it. But I'm still a bit suspicious. I think this is fall-out from the RTD years at work.
2. Karen and Matt completely laughed about the scene where Amy and Rory are watching the TARDIS dematerialize in "The Eleventh Hour". They say they giggle every time they watch it because you can hear this owl hooting in the background and it took them a long time to get it together to film it properly.
3. Steven's favorite cheese is Stinking Bishop. Karen's is Gorgonzola. Matt's is Cheddar.
I decided to stick around afterwards and see if anything cool could come about from it.
I managed to snap some photographs of them milling about and chatting on the "stage" with the interviewer and other people behind the scenes.
Oh, probably now is a good time to mention what Matt and Karen wore. Matt wore this really nice gray suit (jacket and matching pants) with a black shirt and a hat. Karen wore this lovely flowing purple dress with small contrasting decorative bits.
And we got to watch Matt have a conversation.
And then they came and started signing things and talking to us. And I got these two gems. A woman in their group was kind enough to take the photograph. *squee*
Karen thought that tiny!Five was adorable!
Steven was like, "Ooh" but didn't add any additional remarks.
Understandably, Matt was SWAMPED and couldn't stop for a picture with tiny!Ten, but he was so generous, signing everything. (Alas, I forgot my poster I thought he could sign in the car! Perhaps next time, yes?)
It was absolutely fantastic, great to see them. They were all so lovely and entertaining and amazing! I hope to see them again soon. Fingers crossed!
ETA: Oh, remembered one little tidbit from the event. Steven mentioned that the pivotal emotional moment in the entire series emphasizes the nature of the relationship between Amy and the Doctor.
EATA: Oh yeah, they gave out magnets! I've got a BBCA-style "All of time and space FOLLOW ME" fridge magnet. Woo!
Addition: the "Meet the Filmmaker" podcast on iTunes will have a download shortly of the event!
This entry was originally posted at http://iko.dreamwidth.org/416.html. Feel free to comment there or here. There are
comments so far on this post.