They say everything comes to those who wait... or those who don't even know what to wait for!
To make a long story short but still giving you an insight of how full of suprises life can be, back in May 2005, I was unemployed... job seeker they call that because I had never worked before! ;-)
Anyway... I was depressed, I had nothing to do and not much to look forward to. I was working on a database project on Stargate SG-1 with a few people and was chatting with one of them on MSN like any other day. But that day, he asked me if he could invite someone to the chat... and that's how I met the president of Constellation Conventions.
What's even more surprising and quite amazing is that we were talking about the behind-the-scene of these conventions, which I had never heard of before, and I merely dreamed out loud, saying I would love to be a translator on a convention.
Two days and an interview later, I was a translator for the organization!
Life's great, ain't it?!
Two months later, I was in Paris for Constellation 4. There I met:
Stargate SG-1:
- Tony Amendola (Bra'tac)
- Douglas Arthur (Heru'ur)
- Musetta Vander (Shan'auc)
I also met a few Star Trek actors but truth be told... I'm not a Trekker/Trekkie! ;-)
I had one of the most humiliating moments in my life at this convention!
I was translating the questions from the audience during a Star Trek panel. Denise Crosby was on stage. A French fan asked her a question and of course, being the translator, it was down to me to ask it in English.
Problem is, at the time, I had never seen a Star Trek episode! I mean I didn't even know (and still don't!) what or who a Vulcain is!
So the person in the audience asked the question in French and I had to make her repeat because there was a couple of words I couldn't get. I honestly thought it was a technical term I didn't know about.
So I made her repeat about 4 or 5 times before even Denise Crosby understood what I couldn't...
She stared at me like I was from another planet, and said: You don't know him??
I was like... huh, sorry, no is that a person?
Then about 150 persons started shouting, kinda shocked... which I can understand now since the 'technical word' I couldn't understand was actually the name of the actor portraying Mr Spock, Leonard Nimoy!
Then, another funny moment was during the signing session. Vaughn Armstrong was also attending the convention, Amiral Forrest on Star Trek Entreprise. Needless to say, I didn't have the slightest idea who the man was!
But he's such a lovely and sweet and funny person that we had a real great time having him and I really enjoyed talking to him.
So on the Sunday night, during the signing session, I came to him and told him as much. I also added that I really didn't know what he was doing but I liked him as a person. He gave me a bear hug and told me he had hardly ever heard that! ;-)
But on the next Tuesday, we went to the restaurant with the actors, just the staff and them. In the meantime, our president had made me watch an episode he was playing in.
So when I met him again I had what must be one of the stupidest reactions ever... I told him I found it weird to see him on TV when I had met him in the flesh!
I mean I had the opposite reaction when meeting the actors from Stargate, it was surreal to meet them in the flesh after having watched them so many times on TV. But with Vaughn Armstrong, it felt somehow weird to see him on TV!
One of my favourite moments during this convention was being a translator during the Stargate panel, chatting with Tony Amendola who is a lovely and interesting man and meeting the staff of Constellation. that was my very first convention and I was already working on it, which was just as scary as it was excellent!
Conventions are always fun. there's a lot of pressure for us and in the end we just have memories and tons to do for the next one, but it's a way to give back to the community and show the actors and the producers that we really appreciate what they're doing to entertain us. On our very small level, it's being part of this dream.
0 comments:
Post a Comment