San Diego Comic-Con is on top of its game again, after the pandemic shut it down and last year’s strikes kept most of the filmmakers and actors away. While efforts to expand the city’s convention center have stalled, the Con has simply taken over the adjacent Gaslamp neighborhood, with massive signs blanketing tall buildings and special events and installations taking over spaces from amusement park-style games and rides to immersive experiences in interior spaces.
A joint exhibition on “Star Trek” and “Dr. Who” featured costumes and props from two series that have, to use a “Dr. Who” term, regenerated in many forms and with many characters over the decades. For the 20thanniversary of “Shaun of the Dead,” an installation re-created the pub where much of the action takes place.
A “Kingdom of Planet of the Apes” installation featured a timeline going back to the original novel and 1960s-70s films, with costumes, props, and behind-the scenes photos. Alain Gauthier was there to demonstrate the “Ape School” training he gave to the “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” actors. He showed us the difference in the walks of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans, and told us how his background in “movement acting,” dance, and months of observation helped him show the actors how to move like apes.
I was listening to a panel on the second floor of the convention center when I felt the room shake. It was not an earthquake. Something was happening just below us in the convention center’s largest space, Hall H, where once again attendees were camping out in in line to get to see their favorite stars. Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman did not just show up to promote “Deadpool & Wolverine.” They gave out tickets to a special showing. Perhaps the highlight was the news that Robert Downey, Jr. is coming back to the MCU as Dr. Doom.
There were panels on every imaginable element of pop culture. Some highlights:
Costume Design: “Where are my Lucys?” Costume designer Trish Summerville looked out into the audience of the panel about the costumes in “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” then asked them to stand up, so we could appreciate their careful re-creations of the iconic dress worn by Rachel Zegler. At the end of the session, Summerville asked all the Lucys to meet with her so she could give each of them a gift of jewelry inspired by the film. Summerville’s panel included costume concept artists Gloria Kim and Oksana Nedavniaya, assistant costume designer Corey Deist, and fabric buyer Allison Agler.
They described the process from the original creative concept (postwar 40s-50s, more earthbound, a bit gender-blurred with kilt-inspired uniforms, less outlandish than the more flamboyant costumes in the films that take place decades later), and the daunting mechanics of getting enough red fabric to get 700 matching costumes in the middle of a supply chain crisis during a pandemic. Agler said getting 5500 yards was “a big global enterprise.” Lucy’s skirt had 14 different fabrics that had to be aged and distressed. Some decisions were both aesthetic and practical, like the mandarin collars, which are gender neutral and create fewer continuity problems. And some of the items they worked hardest on, like a specially made belt, never made it on screen.
Peanuts on Screen: A panel paying tribute to “Peanuts” animation covered everything from the origin story of the first Peanuts cartoon to the new AppleTV+ series “Camp Snoopy.” Jason Mendelson, son of the producer of the early Peanuts classics, told us how no one would buy the documentary about Peanuts creator Charles “Sparky” Schultz made by his father, Lee. “But CBS said Coca-Cola had bought space for a half-hour Christmas special and asked if he had anything.” Lee said yes, then called Schultz, and they wrote “A Charlie Brown Christmas” over the weekend, bringing in the composer who had worked on the documentary, Vince Guaraldi. CBS executives did not like the show because it used children’s voices, jazz, and a quote from the Bible. They would have pulled it but it was too late to get anything else. And so, a Christmas classic was born and Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroder, and their friends went on to appear in animation for almost 60 years, and is still going strong with “Camp Snoopy.”
Tod Barbee, who provided the voice for Charlie Brown in several films, including “Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving,” laughed when he told us he did 26 takes on the “ugh” when Charlie Brown lands after Lucy takes the football away. Finally, they used someone else. He talked about going to the recording studio and meeting the other children in the cast in the lobby.
Caleb Bellavance, who currently plays Franklin, said his experience was a bit different. He recorded in a closet in his basement, as it was during the pandemic. “Camp Snoopy” showrunner Rob (Boots) Boutilier said that Schultz’s original strips are still the heart of the storytelling, showing us examples of situations and dialogue in the original strips that inspired the series episodes.
“Meth Gator,” from the People Who Brought You “Sharknado:” In almost every panel we see the extraordinary dedication and artistic integrity the creators bring to every project, from the biggest-budget blockbuster to the IP-extenders. Not so much The Asylum, which makes no pretense of art but has a lot of fun. When their distributor asked for another alligator movie, they obliged with “Meth Gator,” opening August 2, with a VOD release the following week. It is exactly what it sounds. The title of the panel: “Cocaine Bear” Move Over. They brought scenes from “Meth Gator,” but the audio was not working, so we watched it MST3K-style, with the producers providing commentary. I hope the film will be as entertaining.
The People in the Credits: I always love the panels with the people whose names we see in the credits, to learn more about what they do and how what they do contributes to the way we experience a movie. For example, sound mixer Jeff Shiffman says he has a library of 4000 punch sounds to choose from when providing the “frosting on the cake” that sound design adds to a fight scene. Emilio Sosa came from theater to design the costumes for Disney’s “Descendants: The Rise of Red.” He said that meant coordinating not just with Disney but with Mattel, to make sure his designs would work on a doll. co-producer/editor Shelly Westerman, of “Only Murders in the Building” told us about editing the intricate “Triplets” patter song performed by Steve Martin. VFX supervisor Michael Cliett said the visual effects in “Shogun” were the center but not the star of the series, “woven into the fabric of the story.” He did nine month of research and worked with Japanese advisors to create the world of 16th century Japan. The scope and scale of the VFX designs were unprecedented. They created huge structures and smaller, sometimes grisly details, like how a head falls when it is cut off. Perhaps the widest range of projects was Stephanie Filo’s “Black Lady Sketch Show” and “Dahmer.” But, she said, “Every sketch is a different genre,” which is good practice. She told the very appreciative audience about an Easter Egg in “Black Lady’s Sketch Show’s” last episode. Look for a prop from each sketch in the final scene.
Costumes: Fabulous, wildly imaginative, and a lot of fun, as always. Heres’s one from “Toy Story.”
Hallmark: SDCC is all about popular entertainment, and that means not just aliens, zombies, and superheroes. Hallmark is here with a new reality series premiering on Hallmark+ this fall, “Finding Mr. Christmas.” Handsome actors will compete to become the next leading man in a Hallmark Christmas movie, produced and hosted by Hallmark Christmas movie all-star Jonathan Bennett. He told me that the challenges include cutting down and carrying a Christmas tree, rocking a Christmas sweater, and mastering the meet cute. Members of the HCU (Hallmark Cinematic Universe) appear as guest judges. And they’ll all be staying in a classic Hallmark movie Christmas house. Bennett wanted to do something different in reality programming, where the most frequent line is, “I’m not here to make friends.” He says they are there to make family. “The contestants learn to be better as actors and also as men, allowing themselves to be vulnerable with each other and the audience. Because we are Hallmark, we figured out a way to do a reality competition with heart.”
Gremlins: The Wild Batch: Season 2 of the animated series about gremlins gone wild premieres October 3. We got to watch the first episode and hear from the creators and voice actors about what adventures lie ahead for the mogwai and their human friends and foes. Something is happening with the usually cuddly Gizmo; he gets into all kinds of mischief when he appears to be sleepwalking. This leads Elle and three generations of Wings on a new adventure in a new country – San Francisco. Adding to the cast this season are John Glover, who appeared in “Gremlins 2: The New Batch,” and Simu Liu.
Inclusion: I have never been in a space as intentionally and respectfully inclusive as SDCC. Everyone there is a passionate fan, but everyone I have seen is completely supportive of whatever weird thing anyone else is into. Inclusion is reflected in every aspect, from the ASL interpreters and wheelchair spaces at the panels to the discussions of making sure everyone’s stories are told and appreciated, not just in panels with specific focus on particular communities but in just about every panel. When a nervous young woman got up to ask a question, froze, and stammered, “I’m just so awkward,” the panelists and audience were warmly supportive. Many of the booths on the gigantic exhibition floor were about inclusion, including Magic Wheelchairs, which provides dream mobility machines for disabled children at no cost, turning them into superheroes, monsters, rock stars, princesses, or anything they can imagine, “celebrating the freedom wheelchairs give us, one epic costume at a time.” At the booth, Kevin Watamura told me that “Kids in wheelchairs want to be included, too, and this gives them the opportunity to feel seen as just a normal kid.” People come to SDCC because they love the craziness and fandom, but they keep coming back because it feels like home.