Discworld Convention 2012 - Part Two
Aug. 26th, 2012 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcRight, I haven't thought this through; Part Three, which will cover the play, closing ceremony and whatever random stuff happens tomorrow, will probably be Wednesday. Unless I try writing it on the train, which will make it even more erratic than this already is.
After breakfast, I headed to the Charity Auction, where I picked up a The Truth flyer with art by Mark Ayling, and narrowly missed out on some authentic clacks dockets from Sky's Going Postal. But I was popping in and out, because I also wanted to see Unseen University lectures by Jack'n'Ian and Ian Mitchell. This meant I missed the Roundworld stamps, which was probably just as well... 8-/
Jack and Ian's talk went into more detail about what SoDIV is about. From the sound of it, it's religion versus magic (with magic, in that peculiar Discworld manner of things, standing in for science). The Omnians get very excited about the Roundworld Project, which fits with their beliefs that the world is round and orbits the sun, and start wanting to treat it as a holy relic. Meanwhile the High Energy Magic Building's Very Big Thing (A magitek LHC) has been affecting the local Quantum ThaumoDynamics, making it easier to cross from RW to DW.
Ian's talk was also fascinating. The new Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide takes the old Streets of Ankh-Morpork map and turns it from a medieval-style sketch map that shows you roughly where the streets are and names the important ones to a Victorian Ordnance Survey map, with everything to scale and every street labelled. This meant Pterry having to come up with a whole load of new authentic street names... We got a look at the map, and also the panorama view on the other side, and the detail was amazing. We also learnt that the site labeled "Dragon's Landing Redevelopment" on the old map is now the Brickworks; all that ash and charcoal...
After grabbing a quick lunch, I went to The Watch Production talk. This turned out to contain much more exciting news than simply "The Watch is still being made"; The Watch is now a Narrativia Production, and Narrativia Productions is Pterry, Rob and Rod Brown (previously of Prime Focus, the company that was producing it, and The Mob, who made the Sky One films) The writing team is led by ... someone whose name I've forgotten (ETA: Guy Burt of The Hole and other stuff), and includes the well-known video games writer and journalist Rhianna Pratchett. BBC Worldwide are already interested, and the discussion between them left us all feeling that this is going to be epic.
Narrativia Productions, since it is now in charge of all Pratchett film stuff (which means Pterry himself is) is also involved in Terry Jones's Good Omens, which it looks like ITV is interested in. It says a lot about how big the above news was that this was seen as a bit of an afterthought.
Dinner, and then the before-party to the Great Unseen University Reconciliation Banquet. I'm sure that in previous years you claimed your free drink with the voucher kindly provided by Transworld, and then you bought further drinks with actual money. This year the bar was voucher-only, which caught us by surprise. We watched the heads of the Eight Orders of Magic explain the great hopes they had for reconciliation with the other seven Orders, just as soon as they admitted they were wrong, and then lead their followers into the banquet hall. (In other words, that was this year's theme for getting everyone to the Gala Dinner in an orderly fashion.) We thought about hanging about for the Cori Celesti Games[2], but once again, didn't have the energy.
Three days down, one to go. It's almost over for another two years (sob!)
[1]Narrativia is Pterry's patron goddess, whom he made up last year. She's the goddess of storytelling, and particularly of that moment when you're researching a story, and find that things fit together better than you could have hoped, or even imagined. (For instance, contacting a very old gents' outfitters about a detail in Dodger and discovering that one of the Historical Domain Characters not only got his suits there, but also his uniforms.)
[2]Yes, the same gag I used here a while ago, but it's a pretty obvious one.
After breakfast, I headed to the Charity Auction, where I picked up a The Truth flyer with art by Mark Ayling, and narrowly missed out on some authentic clacks dockets from Sky's Going Postal. But I was popping in and out, because I also wanted to see Unseen University lectures by Jack'n'Ian and Ian Mitchell. This meant I missed the Roundworld stamps, which was probably just as well... 8-/
Jack and Ian's talk went into more detail about what SoDIV is about. From the sound of it, it's religion versus magic (with magic, in that peculiar Discworld manner of things, standing in for science). The Omnians get very excited about the Roundworld Project, which fits with their beliefs that the world is round and orbits the sun, and start wanting to treat it as a holy relic. Meanwhile the High Energy Magic Building's Very Big Thing (A magitek LHC) has been affecting the local Quantum ThaumoDynamics, making it easier to cross from RW to DW.
Ian's talk was also fascinating. The new Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide takes the old Streets of Ankh-Morpork map and turns it from a medieval-style sketch map that shows you roughly where the streets are and names the important ones to a Victorian Ordnance Survey map, with everything to scale and every street labelled. This meant Pterry having to come up with a whole load of new authentic street names... We got a look at the map, and also the panorama view on the other side, and the detail was amazing. We also learnt that the site labeled "Dragon's Landing Redevelopment" on the old map is now the Brickworks; all that ash and charcoal...
After grabbing a quick lunch, I went to The Watch Production talk. This turned out to contain much more exciting news than simply "The Watch is still being made"; The Watch is now a Narrativia Production, and Narrativia Productions is Pterry, Rob and Rod Brown (previously of Prime Focus, the company that was producing it, and The Mob, who made the Sky One films) The writing team is led by ... someone whose name I've forgotten (ETA: Guy Burt of The Hole and other stuff), and includes the well-known video games writer and journalist Rhianna Pratchett. BBC Worldwide are already interested, and the discussion between them left us all feeling that this is going to be epic.
Narrativia Productions, since it is now in charge of all Pratchett film stuff (which means Pterry himself is) is also involved in Terry Jones's Good Omens, which it looks like ITV is interested in. It says a lot about how big the above news was that this was seen as a bit of an afterthought.
Dinner, and then the before-party to the Great Unseen University Reconciliation Banquet. I'm sure that in previous years you claimed your free drink with the voucher kindly provided by Transworld, and then you bought further drinks with actual money. This year the bar was voucher-only, which caught us by surprise. We watched the heads of the Eight Orders of Magic explain the great hopes they had for reconciliation with the other seven Orders, just as soon as they admitted they were wrong, and then lead their followers into the banquet hall. (In other words, that was this year's theme for getting everyone to the Gala Dinner in an orderly fashion.) We thought about hanging about for the Cori Celesti Games[2], but once again, didn't have the energy.
Three days down, one to go. It's almost over for another two years (sob!)
[1]Narrativia is Pterry's patron goddess, whom he made up last year. She's the goddess of storytelling, and particularly of that moment when you're researching a story, and find that things fit together better than you could have hoped, or even imagined. (For instance, contacting a very old gents' outfitters about a detail in Dodger and discovering that one of the Historical Domain Characters not only got his suits there, but also his uniforms.)
[2]Yes, the same gag I used here a while ago, but it's a pretty obvious one.
