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Collectormania differs from other comic-book/fantasy/fan signing events in that admission is totally free, and it's held in the middle of a huge shopping mall to attract members of the general public. Stores make their money selling goods, and the celebrities make their money selling autographs in a situation that proves advantageous to all except those wanting more than a couple of autographs, when admittedly things can get quite pricey. It's a great way of introducing the public at large to convention events that they would otherwise never think of attending. This year's event (the third) was very much a case in point, with not one, not two, not three.. but FIVE 'Lord of the Rings' cast members in attendance at the Milton Keynes shopping centre!
The Saturday start was slow. Although the opening was advertised for 9am very few of the advertised guests were at the advertised stalls much before 10.30am. Kudo's to Virginia Haye (Farscape), Armin Shimmerman (Quark in Deep Space 9 and the headmaster in Buffy) and the guy from Star Gate (sorry Jen, I forgot his name) for starting bright and early! Fortunately most of the small stores were open. These varied from official merchandise (swords, very nice rings from the 'Lord of the Rings' movies and other memorabilia) to stuff that was very obviously unofficial and, frankly, poor quality (there were some very bad film cell rip-offs of the official New Line product). Hunting around I was most impressed by The Prop Store of London - their stuff was expensive but immaculately presented and bona fide New Line supplied product. Gemma bought a Prancing Pony mug actually used in the film with a certificate of authenticity from New Line to verify this, and I ended up with a very expensive Production Clapperboard with the last entry, dated 28th September 2000, showing it had been used for a shot with Merry, displayed in the most amazing case with the official logo emblazoned in 3D below it. A very cool item (I just hope my bank manager agrees!). I was also impressed with Frames and Displays from Cambridgeshire who had some amazing glass display cabinets - rather like over-large bathroom cabinets with glass shelves and the movie's logo embossed in wood with a very nice cabinet frame for just £35. They do stuff to order so I'm sure I'll be going back to them!
		The autographs were handled by ticket number and the asking price included very nice New line 10x8" colour photo's. I'm used to seeing the same few images repeated everywhere, but there were some really high quality photo's I hadn't seen before being used for the autographs - eg far better than the 'home printer' photo's of Dom that were being sold for $20 at the Comic-Con signing last year, which made the autographs good value if you also wanted a rare photo from the movies. Once you joined a queue you were given a ticket and told to come back when a number in the range you had been allocated was announced. This proved a mixed blessing - hard to hear the announcements and very often "it'll be half an hour" turned into two or three hours. Having started at 9am our little party was able to see all five cast members, but those who arrived after lunch were not to be so lucky and queues for Billy and John were particularly time-consuming. Things could have been worse - the queue for the kid who played the evil Dreyfus boy in the Harry Potter movies was unbelievably long throughout the whole day. It seems a bit pointless repeating the small tittle-tattle of the various cast members as we and others queued. All were super-friendly, all acted like every fan was a long-lost friend, but the reality is we were strangers and although there were a lot of very over-excited girls who felt they'd had some sort of real conversation and made new friends for life there is little new to report on previous fan signings. So instead of repeating the short conversations I overheard, I'd like to dish out some awards for the day's guests...... Award for Best Actor Billy Boyd. All the cast members deserve awards for their performances of greeting strangers like long lost friends, pretending they remembered vague faces from the past when they didn't (one or two of our party faked it a few times and got the desired 'recognition') but the prize has to go to Billy. I'd gone to the front of the queue to get some pictures and saw a girl pull a large sheet of paper out of an envelope to show Billy her picture of him and Dom. Billy was clearly impressed and I was annoyed I couldn't see the work of art he had obviously unfolded before him. 'It's amazing', he exclaimed. 'You did this? It's incredible' as his face showed genuine joy. Now you have to remember that I got 8% for Art O'level. I can't even draw a stick man to save my life. But when I finally saw the work of art Billy was being so complimentary about I realised that (a) I could draw a better picture blindfolded and (b) I'd just witnessed an oscar winning performance! Award for Endurance John Rhys-Davies. I asked John to sign a 10x8 picture I'd taken of him at the TORn oscar party. He looked at it and grimaced, 'I don't look well in that' he advised. But the truth is he looked better in that picture than he did at this event because he was clearly exhausted! Queues for autographs trailed on and in the late afternoon when we got to see him they were advising that there were already another 150 people who'd been allocated tickets to go. And another two full days of the same thing with two movie screening panels in the evening to go too! What a trooper! Award for Best Autograph Andy Serkis. Spotting that Sala Baker had autographed Jen's copy of Brian Sibley's second movie book on the map page near Mordor, Andy drew an arrow pointing at Mount Doom and wrote alongside it "Aaaaaaaarrrrggghh! 'Precioussssssssss'". How we laughed! Award for Best Vocal Performance Sala Baker. His rendition of a song for Gemma and Jen when they went to keep him company on Friday because things were quiet, was apparently very well appreciated by all who heard it. He does stunt work! He acts! And now it turns out he sings too! 'Man of the Match' Award Bruce Hopkins. At 10am on the Saturday when fans were milling around waiting for the 'Lord of the Rings' celebrities Bruce was the first to appear and start signing. The official event rate for an autograph was £15 (except for Paul 'Dr Who' McGann who was charging £20 - boo! hiss! - he still had one of the longest queues!). Bruce was the only one present charging less than the convention amount - £10! And he had the best selection of photo's. And when I tried to pay him for two (one for myself and one a friend had asked me to get) he told the convention assistant collecting money NOT to accept payment, apparently simply because he liked the Oscar party photo's I'd put up on the web. What a gent! Other fans were similarly impressed with his good humour and tireless work over the long weekend. As a result he gets my 'Man of the Match' award and, as he's been one half of a stand-up comic act in the past, I'm really looking forward to hearing him talk and answer questions on stage in Germany in November at RingCon 2003. For those prepared to part with the £15 entrance fee, special evening screenings of Fellowship of the Ring (Saturday) and The Two Towers (Sunday) had been arranged. Limited to just 120 seats, the main feature of the screenings was that all five guests were going to attend a pre-screening Q&A session scheduled to last for 30 minutes (in fact on the Saturday panel I attended it ran on for 45 minutes until all the questions had dried up). Most of what was discussed has been raised in TORn news stories over the last few months, and so I'll not repeat it here. Highlights for me were John Rhys-Davies showing he could do a Gollum impression, which then caused Andy Serkis to demonstrate that he could do a Gimli impression and Andy Serkis advising us that PJ saying that the third movie would be the best of the three wasn't just hype, Peter honestly believes this. Other things I remember.... The cast all explained how they got into acting. John Rhys-Davies said he "fell into an English degree. It's what you do when you're no good at Maths and too lazy to do a foreign language. I'm an actor by default" Sala simply said "I wigged it" (I THINK that's what he said!) before adding "I actually started off as a stunt man". Billy said "I just went to drama school" Bruce said "I was a dancer. I suddenly discovered I was going to be a dad with one of the other dancers - that's what dancers are like. Dance companies tour around a lot but I needed to stay in one place and I was offered a job in a musical and then offered a job as an actor.". Andy said he went to college to do painting "but really it was to be near the Lake District so I could climb. I had to add another subject so I chose Theatre Studies." John Rhys-Davies talked a lot about his impressions of New Zealand (that the standard of living was quite low but that they had a much higher quality of life) and had some unprintable things to say about the producers of his Troy film. Billy Boyd was asked if he'd be appearing on the stage again soon and said he hoped to be doing something in August and that details would be on his web site when/if it happened. Asked if he had any props or souvenirs Billy Boyd pointed out that filming wasn't over yet and props like swords etc were still needed, ignoring John Rhys-Davies jokey comments about hobbits stealing things.
The subject of the seeming snub of Peter Jackson at the oscars came up when someone asked Andy if he thought the oscars were fair. Andy got quite heated on the subject of PJ's lack of nominations for best director, not realising perhaps that the question was aimed at his own nomination, and Bruce chipped in with his feelings that the impression he got in LA were that these things had little to do with the quality of the work and more to do with other factors, although his heart hoped that maybe they'd held back because they knew they would nominate him after the third film and that Peter's work would get proper recognition then. The panel were asked what was the most stupid question they'd ever been asked. Billy Boyd talked about being at a press junket and being asked what part he played in the movie and he said "Pippin" to which the interviewer replied "Oh! Will you be playing him in the second movie too?" to which he replied "No. I've got to do Frodo in the second movie". Andy had been asked at the press junket for The Two Towers if he'd had to go to New Zealand to make the movie. John's favourite was at the Cannes Film Festival where actors were put in groups and he was with Viggo and Sean Bean. "The female French interviewer had looked at Viggo and said 'Well I am a woman and there's not much for me in this film' and gave a small sigh. And then she looked at John and did the same thing. And then she saw Sean and suddenly became more lively. 'Ah!' she said, 'Sean, tell me as a woman how would you seduce me?'. I've never seen Sean so embarrassed and of course Viggo and I were going 'Yes, Sean! Go on! How would you...?'. Lots more was said, but I wasn't taking notes. There were thankfully no silly 'Are hobbits real?' questions and the fans present behaved well. After the cast left the movie was screened but I didn't stay for that. Probably just as well since I understand a small number of the 'giggly schoolgirl' contingent ruined the film for many by insisting on shouting out Merry's lines over the top of the film, despite being continually told to keep quiet.
All-in-all Collectormania 3 was a great success and well worth the trip to Milton Keynes. The cast, yet again, showed themselves to be friendly, hard working and keen to support the fans. There were many girly squeals of delight and much excitement throughout the day. I didn't attend the second panel on the Sunday because I had business elsewhere.... An Audience with Sir Ian McKellen where the veteran actor spent two hours talking to an audience of 140 people about his experience of the movie. You can read a report of that event here.
Don't forget you can check out reports of lots of other Lord of the Rings -themed events in the Web Logs section

Email: ian@iansmith.co.uk