Interview audio

Blerdcon founder Hilton George – Super Magfest 2018 – youtube

Hilton George is founder of Blerdcon. He spent a half hour talking with me at Super Magfest 2018 about setting up the convention and his motivations and goals for the con.

 

0:45 – Hilton George talks about Blerdcon. It’s a combination of black and nerd and the convention is designed to bring together communities that have been underrepresented in other conventions. This will be the second year. They had 1,800 people at the first one. They expect 3 and 5 thousand this year.

2:20 – Sometimes people wonder if the con is only for black people. Hilton explains that it’s a celebration of many cultures and it’s all inclusive.

3:45 – Blerdcon brings in more emphasis on Afro-futurism than perhaps other conventions do. Black Panther will likely increase interest in Afro-Futurism. 10-15% of their panels are on Afro-futurism. Blerdcon is hoping to bring in a guest connected to Black Panther.

5:35 – Blerdcon has used advisors from Magfest, Otakon, and other conventions to help develop their own convention. Hilton has shadowed con runners to help develop blerdcon. Community members are happy to assist.

7:10 – Hilton is inspired by people stepping out of the box and people who create something new. Geek culture is going mainstream. Disney may buy it all out but STEM outreach and creative inspiration will have been made part of the mainstream. Being weird is a positive thing.

8:45 – People have been the most important thing to make Blerdcon happen. Mutual inspiration makes things happen. The many volunteers and committees get the credit for making Blerdcon happen.

9:43 – Hilton loves working with people. He likes being on panels, representing the con and speaking with people. He loves to spread the message.

11:00 – Every nerd feels disconnected from others. Black nerds feel this disconnection but are also rejected by their own black community. They’ve had a double level of separation.

13:00 – The Stranger Things black character was Hilton. He was the one black kid in all his gaming crews. He was always Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters Halloween groups. There is diversity in fandom but the discussions about these groups don’t happen in conventions unless they’re written into the programming. People may attend conventions and not want to create issues by talking about diversity issues unless there’s a forum for them at the convention.

16:00 – Black female nerds are the most marginalized but most participatory in a sense in nerd culture. Blerdcon tries to highlight black female nerds as much as possible. Blerdcon can also show other conventions the success of highlighting marginalized communities.

18:22 – At the first Blerdcon, they had no idea what would work. There’s no template for a black convention. They tried everything. Some things worked and they know what works now and what resonated with fans. There’s just as much effort in producing it but it’s more focused. They hope to have more of everything this second time around.

20:30 – Blerdcon didn’t have any major problems in the first year due to the guidance they got from others. This time around they’ll have more signage and support better interaction guidance. They know how to do better registration and badge-ing and take care of audio and visual stuff. Scheduling will be better.

23:30 – Conventions and geeks life allow people to get to know each other before they realize that society has told them to avoid each other for some prejudicial reason. Hilton wants more dialogue between people. Geek culture might be the new way of life for people. Geek conventions might be the way for people to learn how to stop mistreating each other.

26:19 – Hilton was born and raised on Star Wars and comic books. He was a black kid growing up in the country in North Carolina. Then Dungeons and Dragons was his most interactive geek activity. He didn’t have this community available to him when he was a geek but kids now will have access. New fans have to be welcomed.

29:00 – Hilton loves Star Trek 2 and quotes it whenever it’s on. His long term plan is for Blerdcon to be Dragoncon of the North in ten years. He wants to grow Blerdcon into multiple hotels. Tourism in the area can be taken advantage of to grow the con.

31:30 – Cons are like a family reunion for Hilton. www.Blerdcon.com is the site for more information. They are on all the big social media sites. The con is on July 27-29, 2018, 24/7 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City.

 

Links to items mentioned

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1825683/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrofuturism

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087332/

http://dnd.wizards.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084726/

http://www.dragoncon.org/

http://blerdcon.com/

 

For more “Creating Sci-Fi and Fantasy – An Inside Look” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Hilton George

Host: Cris Alvarez

 

Fantasy and sci-fi artist Jed Henry interview – Super Magfest 2018 – youtube

Jed Henry is a prolific artist who focuses on Japanese print style art. I was able to interview him at Super Magfest 2018. He’s worked on movie animation, video games, comic books and traditional and computer art.

0:37 – Artist Jed Henry talks about the work he is most proud of and he finds it to be the one that was most difficult. He points out his Final Fantasy 6 triptych.

1:42 – He says that he’ll work on something for 2 to 4 hours and then stay away for a half hour and then look at it again. He checks at each phase of production if it’s done. Sometimes he just throws a piece away.

2:40 – He sketches in photoshop and does inkwork in traditional Japanese paper. He scans this in and adds color digitally.

3:10 – He’s inspired by people who show talent and he likes tattoo artists who do Japanese style tattooing. He gets inspirations from dance music, cinema and he reads a lot of comics, novels, poetry and so on.

4:19 – He talks about his inspiration to do Japanese style Star Wars artwork. He likes the Buddhist and eastern mysticism elements of Star Wars.

5:24 – He says he’s addicted to working on his computer. He also needs real brushes and inks for his work. A digital brush won’t work for him.

6:00 – He most likes doing line work. It’s the foundation of his Japanese style work.

6:36 – He feels a compulsion to do art and he loves doing it. It’s like a sweet torture and he would be unhappy doing anything else.

7:33 – He’s been doing art since he was a little kid and just kept doing it. He was a serious student and didn’t do as much art while in school. He tried to get good grades and create art but around age 22 he focused on drawing while in college. He barely slept but wanted to create art.

9:10 – He got free copies of Adobe and he began using that to work on his scanned in work. He picked up digital media pretty quickly in college.

10:00 – He studied animation in college and since the 90s animation was done on computer software. He never questioned using computers for his art. It was the tool of choice for his goals.

11:23 – He balances skill and effort to achieve success. It’s almost a numbers game and has had to reinvent himself half a dozen times to have success. He had a movie internship in LA and didn’t like it. He went into children’s books, then Japanese printmaking, a video game, and is working on a comic book. An artist must explore and also think like a businessperson. His process always changes to match his career goals. He wants to channel his creativity in a way that people will want to support him. You can’t do too much of any one thing.

14:46 – He says that many talented artists didn’t have complete freedom.

15:20 – He says that many people approach being an artist in a different way. He doesn’t know if an artist should focus on survival or making it a better place.

16:13 – He loves the Shattered Sea series by Joe Abercrombie. The first book is Half a King and are great YA fantasy. He gets impatient with lots of YA fantasy. Many lack character and emotional connection. He loves character first and concept second.

17:50 – He loves David Mitchell. He writes great literature but also writes great crazy science fiction. He also recommends the sci-fi novel Stories of Your Life and Others. He says it’s great people science fiction. He loves Mitchell’s latest book titled Bone Clocks. It’s an insane vampire novel.

21:25 – There are many pieces he’d like to create. He likes doing the fan art and enjoys going to conventions. He also wants to make more video games and continues with the comic book.

22:35 – People can find him on google under “Jed Henry.” He’s not the male model or the Jed who brings service member remains back from overseas.

 

Links to things mentioned

http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/382900/

https://www.amazon.com/Half-King-Shattered-Sea-Abercrombie/dp/0804178410

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/538163/stories-of-your-life-and-others-by-ted-chiang/

https://www.amazon.com/Bone-Clocks-Novel-David-Mitchell/dp/0812976827

http://ukiyoeheroes.com/

 

For more “Creating Sci-Fi and Fantasy – An Inside Look” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Jed Henry

Host: Cris Alvarez

 

Actress Nora McClellan interview

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Nora McClellan is a Canadian actress who has appeared on my many shows including X-Files, Orphan Black and Killjoys. I met Nora at Far Point 2018 and interviewed her about her work and inspirations.

0:47 – Nora talks about being on Killjoys.

1:26 – Nora talks about having been on Orphan Black and the original X-files. She said that no one thought the show would last. The effects didn’t work and seemed to have various problems. But she still gets residuals for it. She enjoyed working on the show even with the problems. She loves being on a stage regardless.

4:05 – Nora talks about having been an actor since age 8.

4:20 – Nora says that she likes working on tv, film and the stage equally. TV working hours are quite long. She’s inspired by acting because she constantly learns things from people older and younger than her. She likes new opinions.

6:04 – Nora talks about needing to start her day in the bath with the script to calm down for the day. She thinks about her dreams which often are very positive and uplifting.

7:39 – Nora likes being able to play a wide array of characters including Ebenezer Scrooge, a retired vaudeville performer, a retired space bounty hunter. She loves acting and hopes to be on stage even to old age.

9:41 – Nora talks about her first success in acting when she was in an opera at age 8. She likes acting whether performing for a small or large audience. She talks about how big the opera is with the performers, audience, and orchestra. She didn’t have stage fright even when she was young. She’ll even walk off stage if she doesn’t know why her character is doing something she is doing.

12:20 – Nora is inspired working with Tatiana Maslany and Maria Doyle Kennedy. Tatiana’s kindness and generosity was inspiring. She’s always positive and energetic. She said listeners should watch Orphan Black and watch her work.

14:00 – Nora talks about being inspired by things like SpaceX’s car launch. She is amazed by how much we can do scientifically and yet there’s so many things we can’t solve on Earth like drought. She said maybe the world needs to come together like science fiction shows for us to solve our problems.

15:20 – Nora was inspired by Blade Runner 2049 especially since she was waiting for it for so long and she enjoyed it very much. Wonder Woman really moves her. She liked the new Star Wars films too. She loves Star Trek and Star Wars.

16:43 – Nora wished she had a teleporter to help her commute and then she’d want a cloak of invisibility too.

17:35 – Nora would like to do some male Shakespeare roles especially since people are more into gender fluidity now. Falstaff and Lear are two characters that came to her mind.

18: 15 – Nora likes that D&D is coming back since people can come together without a tablet. She likes role-playing and Settlers of Catan. She really likes groups of friends binge watching shows.

19:35 – Nora is on @McClellanNora on twitter and she uses it often and talks to her sci-fi and tv show fans by tweet. She’ll meet fans who tweet with ehr.

 

Links to things mentioned

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3952222/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2234222/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106179/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/

https://www.catan.com/

 

For more “Creating Sci-Fi and Fantasy – An Inside Look” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Nora McClellan

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, acting, x-files, orphan black, killjoys, bounty hunter, opera, stage