Apollo's Part 2

The Apollo Awards were born. The opportunity for fans worldwide to show the main stream media that we did have a voice and it was a loud one. That we weren't just a bunch of strange people that dressed up and lived in the basements of our parents or similar places.

Science fiction and fantasy products ruled the world when it came to making money for studios etc and we wanted it known that we deserved to have our thoughts and opinions heard and respected. So we set off to help the world have their say. That's the two of us on the right,in an early planning meeting  at the home of our creative consultant, see we had people with important titles working on this, this was a planning day to start chasing the funding for the project.

Then something interesting happened, we discovered it wasn't enough to  simply have this great idea, one we knew the world would embrace and rally around. We found out the need for the business structure that went with it. The hours spent creating business and marketing plans and strategies for how to approach which company and organization. When and where to meet , how to say what needed to be said but in such away that it was not asking for a hand out. And thus was born 101010 Productions Pty Ltd.

This was created for the sole purpose of staging "The Apollo Awards". For those really clever ones reading this you will of course have worked out the 101010 is binary for 42, the answer to life the universe and everything. Yes we are that conceited to name our company that way because we had all the answers.  With this side of things completed  we went in search of sponsors ( if only Leonard Nimoy had hosted this in search of) and we found tremendous support and enthusiasm and encouragement for the project but alas no money. 

We became even more creative and redesigned the whole show but it was just not possible to be able to stage the event and the associated voting that went with it. So by know you are all thinking wow this is a bit of a bummer blog, lost dreams and hopes. Shattered  beliefs and expectations. But it's not. Many things that were created along this journey are still happening and in no small way this honours what we started out doing.

Soon I'll be blogging about "The Pythia Festival" about the "Australian Fan Awards", and a host of other activities all of which were born from and created to support "The Apollo Awards"

Are "The Apollo Awards" dead and gone? Let me  quote one of my life long hero's, Captain James T. Kirk.

"There are always possibilities" Spock would say.

Apollo's All Part 1.

In my recent New York blogs I mentioned "The Apollo Project" and thought I would take the opportunity to talk about what was one of the most exciting and yet disappointing times of my life.

Let's be very clear on one thing, I'm a fan, I have been since seeing my first episode of Dr Who over 40 years ago. I grew up with original Star Trek, all the shows of Irwin Allen such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space etc all the way through to today's adventures.

So it used to always annoy me that my shows received only limited if any sort of recognition from any or all awards shows. In 1988 I feel into the convention scene as I have mention in past issues and found like minded people to share my frustrations and excitements with. We had our own awards and spoke long and loudly to anyone who would listen but this still wasn't enough.

In 2004 I meet and started working with an awesome individual who shared many of the same ideas as myself. Together we started forming a concept to showcase the best that fans could offer in the way of costuming, model making, writing, and short films. These would all be presented at an awards ceremony after an Australian wide competition. It was and still is a great idea and may happen, but as we worked on this an greater undertaking was born, "THE APOLLO PROJECT". Imagine the Oscars meet MTV. Below is a part of our pitch document.

The Apollo Awards Ceremony is a gala red-carpet event presented in front of a live audience hosted in picture-perfect, subtropical Queensland, Australia.

The inaugural event will honour NASA astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, famously recognisable from the first moon landing in Apollo 11, and three actors: Richard Hatch, Jamie Bamber, and Michael Forest - all of whom have portrayed characters named "Apollo".

This was to be a worldwide effort to raise our voices and and show our support not just for the special effects but for everyone who contributes to sci-fi/ fantasy being what it is. The image on the right was the design of the award. You can see from the names above we certainly had some support for the project.

This was the start of what was going to a integrated website that would allow the world to talk and vote and show the mainstream media that we were more than just people who dressed up on the  weekend, but it was an expensive exercise and we were in the market at the wrong time.

I'll continue with the creation and journey the "The Apollo Project" took me on in my next blog. Plus tell you how it changed me and my world and how it still continues to do so.

New York New York Part 2

The show started and what a show it was, I am yet to experience anything like it, at one point they closed the venue because it had reached it's capacity of 120,000 people.  

The costuming or cosplay if you want to call it that was amazing. My favourite piece of "performance art" was a fellow dressed as the Joker who had a life size Robin dummy. He would stop drop the dummy on the ground and start beating it with crowbar recreating the scene from the original death in the family. He would then just move on to the next spot. Fans making the effort to be a part of the festivities by simply wear a pair of Hulk hands up to the most elaborate outfits you could imagine. 

The variations and effort that fans went to was truly inspiring. Even pets get in on the joy and excitement of the day.

The diversity of what was there, from gaming to comic books to film and television. Endless rows of artists showing the wares. Fans pitching their fan films, an entire area dedicated to pod casters who were doing "live shows" from the event. This was a wonderland of epic proportions.

But the time came for us to launch of project and to do this we had the help of long-time friend Richard Hatch. 

Amongst the thousands at New York Comic Con a crowd gathered to see what all the fuss  and giant countdown timer was all about, the Apollo Project was launched, no not an attempt to land a man on the moon, but a global voting and awards event for Sci-fi fantasy. I will discuss the Apollo Project in a future blog. Whilst the project is yet to be fully realized the memoires of that weekend and the fans and frenzy of such a large convention will long stay with me.

I never got to a single panel or workshop or saw much of the event itself. I did a quick stroll around when I had the opportunity but not long enough to  fully take it all in. Yet the excitement, fun and wonder was infectious.  To miss quote a certain Time Lord " One I shall come back again, yes I shall come back"