Felicia Day

I will try to list all the amazing things that happened this weekend briefly, but honestly, it would take a novel. So I’ll skim the highlights day by day. I literally slept 14 hours last night, all the stress and rush from the Convention put me in a coma…but in a GOOD WAY!

WEDNESDAY:
Drove down to San Diego early in the morning because we had to set up our booth. Had banners and DVDs and posters in the car, along with 12 pairs of shoes (half of which I didn’t wear, but I was comforted by the fact that I had them with me ) Took several hours to get everything arranged for the booth, extra table and chairs (thanks@egspoony for scamming about a dozen chairs for us, and a backstage pass somehow!) After the booth was set up, I rushed back to the hotel to get dressed, and then ran BACK to the convention center to do a preview night signing from 6-8pm. Then Jeff and Sandeep and I went to perform with our improv group@hammerimprov at 9pm. The whole group was there,@brookseguin,@alexalbrecht,@tonyjanning and@taraperry! We had a great night, and Jeff Lewis playing a character called “Butters Johnson” will forever stick in my mind. If you’re in LA, be sure to follow us on Twitter and come see us perform, we do it pretty much every month and it’s a blast!

THURSDAY:
Our morning 11-1pm signing was PACKED! We had our booth facing a major door this year, so literally the lines were so long we had to turn people away towards the end, I’m sorry guys! Mid-day I ran over to do a photo shoot for EW and interview with Ausellio, then back to the booth for more signings and some interviews. That night we had a great birthday cast dinner because Sandeep and Robin and Jeff all celebrated birthdays recently, so that was a nice evening within the storm of the con.

FRIDAY:
BUSY! Signings, then my panel “Girls Gone Geek”, an amazing panel with inspiring women, including Marni Noxon. I feel like that panel could have been an hour longer, I forgot I was actually ON it a few points because I was so interested in hearing what the other panelists had to say! Then I went to meet the Sprint/Xbox sweepstakes winner for a little Guild party, screened some secret episodes with the winner, Shawn, then rushed back to the convention center at 11:00pm to intro the premiere of the RED Syfy movie trailer. So excited for people to see it, I hadn’t seen the trailer beforehand, so that was exciting! Here it is embedded for your pleasure!

SATURDAY:
PANEL DAY! Omg I was so nervous. While waiting for our time, we hung out in the green room back stage, and saw the whole cast of Community. Strangely enough, Kim and Jeff knew Joel McHale from ACME theatre, and I knew Danny Pudi from a pilot we did years back, so it was a weird reunion of sorts. (And I saw Chevy Chase from afar, that was a thrill!)

Our panel started pretty much on time, Kim went on stage and introed Episode 3 preview. And, during the episode THIS appeared:

The sound of the crowd laughing made me soooo happy! This is my favorite gag of the season, and I can’t wait until all of you see the episode on August 3rd to know exactly what I’m talking about, hehe! FARK has already done some funny mashups (and typical internet comments, lol).

Then Kim and Sean brought us on stage! The whole cast arranged to wear a custom Squid Hat (a-la Episode 1 Season 4) from Obey My Brain and we walked out to over 2000 people cheering. Um, that was AMAZING GUYS! I announced that everyone in the audience was getting a button with Wil and my faces on it from the painting. It was the most expensive piece of promotion/advertising we’d ever done for the show, but the thrill of giving it away and how funny the buttons looked on people’s lanyards was the best reward ever!

Then we previewed the music video. I will write more about that tomorrow when it comes out on Xbox/MSN/Zune (it will be on iTunes/YouTube in a week). Suffice it to say, there was a very warm reception to the video! Sean and Kim co-directed and they did an amazing job! We also did Q&A, announced that Guild Avatar skins are coming to Xbox Live later this year, and I slipped in that I’ll be doing a big guest arc on EUREKA with Wil Wheaton later this season! So excited to work on that show, it’s one of my favorites!!

After another signing I RAN to the Eureka panel to announce officially I was joining the cast for a recurring part later this season. I was so relieved the audience cheered because I had an anxiety dream the night before that no one would know who I was when I walked out. I wake up in cold sweats with neurotic thoughts like this a lot, actually. After that I ran to Dark Horse to do a signing with Joss and Jed and Maurissa and Zack for the limited edition DOLLHOUSE comic poster, available if you pre-order the DVD set. The colors are BEAUTIFUL in the poster, so it was a neat, unexpected Comicon experience, I didn’t know I was on the cover until a few days before the con! NEAT!

Saturday night I went to the awesome SyFy/EW party with my penguin purse , and then danced until 3:30 am at Zachary Levi’s (Chuck) NERD party. My feet still hurt, but favorite party night I’ve ever had! Ran into Michele Boyd (Riley) there randomly, shows how small this world is!

SUNDAY:
11-1pm we had our last Guild signing. Posters of the “Team Cawkes” painting were flying off the table, which is amazing, and it was neat that Greg Aranowitz, the artist, was there to sign them too. See what a funny whim of an idea gets you? On someone’s wall, haha! After that I FINALLY got to walk the Con floor and buy a non-virtual edition of Carcassone, some comics and I ran into@nerdist and@paulandstorm on the floor. We took turns photo bombing each other as we walked around, hehe.

After that we had to break down the booth and I drove home! Whew. After a year of prep, this was an amazing 5 days. Thank you to everyone who stopped by. Now…it’s back to work to get more stuff to show for next year!

Well, I survived, but barely, haha! The Guild had a fantastic time at Comicon this year. We had to turn away like 500 people from our panel (We asked for a bigger room, sorry everyone who didn’t get in!!), our music video, “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar” was an awesome hit, as was our season premiere episode (Wil Wheaton is our guest actor this season!), and we had a booth where we met a ton of fans face to face! Not to mention that Legend of Neil premiered there, with me returning as the dirty dirty fairy, and the 13th episode of Dollhouse I appeared in had it’s world premiere in front of thousands (it’s horrifying to see your face that big, honest).  I think I can say the weekend was an awesome success. Some pics below:

Although we were extremely busy with signings (we had so many, but the lines didn’t stop!) our indie show did get some press, the pinnacle of which was this article on io9 that lists me as one of the top ten hits of Comicon (wow, really?!?!) Tubefilter.tv covered our panel in two different articles (One about the panel and one with  MSN video interview embeds), And below is an interview I did for EW with Michael Ausiello, one of my favorite blogs:

If you compare the pics of me on Facebook and Flicker from Wed night to Sunday, you definitely can see I got more and more exhausted as the Con went on, ha!  It was a lot to deal with, my wonderful co-producer Kim Evey took care of a lot with the booth and logistics of signings, as did our legion of awesome volunteers.  Xbox was a fabulous partner who threw a really cool scavenger hunt party for 50 fans and the cast, as well as organizing getting the cast down to San Diego and printing posters, signings, interviews etc.  Thank you Wolf, James and Lisa, you guys are the best!  Also, I especially have to thank the California Browncoats for lending many a hand with the booth setup and line management, they are the awesomest group of people I’ve ever met, I love you all

It was after the panel that the fatigue REALLY set it.  There was so much to do and so many secrets to keep by that Friday morning deadline:  Getting the music video finished and uploaded in time for the special Comicon Xbox codes to be implemented, getting everyone’s costumes down to the Con and getting them on and getting to the convention without ppl seeing, (Thanks to Microsoft for providing a laser-light stripper bus for transit, a video of which you can see here with Kim Evey and Greg Benson, LOL):

Guild director Sean Becker worked separately to get the Season 3 premiere episode finished in time for the panel, and Scott Allie at Dark Horse rushed to get the announcement about the Guild Comic ready too.  So much awesome info to coordinate, I can’t believe it came together!  Costumer Sarah Trost and weapons maker Greg Aronowitz especially helped by coming down and making sure our stunt appearance in-costume would happen right.  So many people helping this tiny indie web show, it’s overwhelming at times.

Anyway, lots to look forward to in the coming month, a few convention appearances, season premiere, music video debut, gah!  I want to sleep now!  Thank you to every person who stopped by and got a DVD or picture to support the show, it means so much to me to hear how ppl enjoy our work and how it helps inspire them to do their own creative stuff like web series or art or music.  Meeting fans is what gets us through all the hard work during the year behind a computers screen, so thank you!

Oh, also if you have an Xbox, reply below and I’ll give a code to the first 10 people who reply for the music video.  Not sure if it’s geo-locked or not, sorry.

Well, we wrapped season 3 of The Guild! Yay! I can’t tell you what an up and down journey it’s been, I’ve been living and breathing this season since I sat down to brainstorm story ideas in March/April, so it’s strange to realize that it’s all finally “in the can” er…”on the drive”.

I cannot say much about the shoot because I want it all to be a cool surprise for viewers, but I definitely learned a few lessons in web video, namely, make sure you have the locations BEFORE you write! I wrote a very ambitious script, and it’s going to be very cool, but the logistics of finding places to legally shoot were very challenging and stressful, so next season I will double check before I go “EXT.” anything! It’s a hard lesson to learn, but every crew member and cast member is so invested in making the show great, that we overcame hurdles that would have sidelined a less passionate production, so I’m eternally thankful to each and every one of them

Now…post production. Ack! Director Sean Becker will be rushing to get a cut of Episode 1 ready for our Comicon Panel (July 24th from 10:30am-11:30am in room 5AB!) and the whole cast will be there. It’s going to be an amazing panel, I assure you. We have another extra special video we’ll be showing, and I am gleeful at the idea of people seeing it for the first time, it’s going to be awesome!!!

At the same time, my producer Kim Evey and I are organizing for conventions, starting with Comicon next week. I can’t believe it’s here so quickly! I will be posting a very detailed schedule of Guild activities on The Guild website in the next few days, but we are doing a lot of cool things, like signing in the Xbox booth after our panel on Friday, and doing “Game with Fame” as well!

Otherwise, we have our OWN BOOTH we’re splitting with awesome RPG writer Jamie Chambers, who is premiering the Supernatural RPG, so there’s lots to check out in booth #4417 all week. We have cast signings every day at least once a day scheduled. We’ll have DVDs and Tee shirts and cast photos (we’re asking everyone to purchase one item if they want things signed because the booth is quite expensive, as is getting the cast down to San Diego). Like I said, a comprehensive list will be on the Guild website by Friday. Follow@theguild on Twitter for other announcements, we have fun stuff planned!

I’m also very excited also about the Dollhouse screening of Epitaph One, the unaired episode, that I have a guest starring part in. (I will try to sneak in the back of that one ) That panel is 4pm on Friday. It’s a wonderful WONDERFUL episode that is going to knock fans’ socks off, kudos to Maurissa and Jed, the writers who also wrote a song in the episode that is amazing! The whole thing is gonna cause a big splash and it’s cool to be involved with it in any way

Down the line, we’re prepping for a few other conventions, like DragonCon and a few others, and I just agreed to do Farpoint convention in Maryland in FEBRUARY! Finally a Northeast event! But gosh, who every thought I’d be planning my life that far down the line? I didn’t. Ah well, might as well ride the wave, placid seas are always on the horizon

It seems like just yesterday that I was going to Comicon for the first time, Dr Horrible had just come out. What a crazy year I’ve had! BTW, Dr. Horrible is being screened by the California Browncoats Thursday night at 8pm at Comicon, so check it out if you’re interested.

Ok, off to punch my to-do list in the face

Wow, this place looks great! Maybe because it’s on a brand spankin’ new VPS Server! As we speak The Guild site is being transferred over as well (Thanks Edgar) so I’m crossing my fingers that I won’t be panicked with having to pick them up off the floor and get them working again in the near future. Thank you Penny Arcade for driving so much new traffic here. I do appreciate it…in the end. And hey, it’s not so bad being immortalized in a PA Comic and being Blogged about:

I can’t wait to meet the artists at PAX in Seattle next month. (We will be screening The Guild season 1 there).  I will be looking for that grooming, ha!

I’ve had quite the information overload this past week.  So much has happened I don’t even know what to blog about, it’s been overwhelming!  Comicon was the most amazing experience I’ve ever had.  Not only did I get to meet thousands of people who knew me on sight (such a strange experience), but I’m sure pictures of my half-opened eyes/mouth are immortalized in countless cameras as we speak.   Check out my ComiCon Flickr Album for a small sampling of my own photos, eyes open mouth closed.

I can’t go over it all, but I will just touch upon a few highlights from Comicon:

• Hanging out at the Browncoat booth with the best volunteers in the whole world.  You guys made my weekend, thank you
• Walking out on stage at the Dr. Horrible Panel and seeing about 3000 roaring fans.  I now know how rock stars feel:  And it is good.  I swear I almost started crying, Miss America style.
• Being caught Twittering at the Dr. Horrible Panel.  Share my mortification with the video clip. Twitter should be paying me for the influx of traffic.
• Definitely geeked out when meeting Masi from “Heroes” at the Sci-Fi network party, but then we ended up talking about WOW and video games a lot.  Best party chat I’ve had in a while
• Another memorable moment was when a Browncoat volunteer connected me to Jaqueline Carey, author of Kushiel’s Dart and one of my favorite fantasy series.  I now know what it feels like to become an incomprehensible stuttering idiot in front of an admired personage.  In fact, I have video proof.  Never can be accused of protecting my image.
• Feeling like a proud parent as my other cast members were recognized and photographed and signed things.  I’m so excited for them, and with the DVD sales we will be back paying them for the first season, so thank you if you bought a DVD!   If you have pics of any of The Guild cast, please submit them to The Guild Group on Flickr.

I’m so sad that it’s over, but now I need to get back to the grind, and prep for as big an event for NEXT year’s Comicon!  Writing Guild Season 2 and my other project with Machinima (still in development) is going to take up much of my next month.  Also, there’s that little thing of getting mainstream jobs to pay the bills   But the thing I take away from this whole experience is that I love what I’m doing on the web.  Working with people I love and adore like the Horrible crew and The Guild cast, and being so supported by fans…I couldn’t ask for more in life.   Well, maybe some free time to play video games.