The Northeast Comic Con is happening this weekend at the Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, MA. It ends on Sunday, June 21.
Artist Jim Steranko
Actress Gigi Edgley (Farscape).
Author Matt ‘Matman’ Herring.
Author M.W. Schwartz.
If you missed this weekend’s convention, the next one takes place on December 5 and 6.
NORTHEAST COMIC CON ZOOMS BACK TO SHRINER’S AUDITORIUM FATHER’S DAY WEEKEND – FAMILY FUN FOR POP CULTURE FANS OF ALL AGES
Kapow! Northeast Comic Con & Collectibles Extravaganza is back at the Shriner’s Auditorium for a pop culture expo for fans of comics, movies, TV and nerd culture. Featuring Adam West, the original Batman celebrating the 50th anniversary of his first TV episode, this Father’s Day weekend event takes place Saturday June 20 and Sunday June 21, 2015 at the Shriners Auditorium in Wilmington, Mass. (99 Fordham Road). General show hours are 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday; VIP experiences are at 7 p.m. on both Friday and Saturday night, June 19th and 20th and early bird admission is available online.
This year’s event features a 40,000 sq. ft. entertainment experience for all nerds and the people who love them. Highlights include cosplay for all ages with “Create-A-Hero/Villain/Character” contests and Cosplay Death Match and Cosplay Dating Game, free-play video game arcade and tournaments, workshops forK!DZ, and celebrity autograph signings and panel sessions. Guests can shop at 150 vendors of vintage and modern toys, comic books, collectibles, art, jewelry, fashion and pop cultural artifacts. In between Father’s Day shopping, guests of all ages will enjoy music, contests and entertainment to marvel at between sessions and booths.
On Saturday, June 20, fans of the legendary Adam West, the original Batman (and now on Family Guy), can celebrate the 50th anniversary of the star’s first episode with a VIP event at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 20th at the Shriner’s Auditorium Fez room. The $100 VIP ticket provides fans with a chance to get their photo with West and then screen the first episode of the 1966 Batman TV program, introduced by West himself. This VIP experience includes free gaming play on the exclusive Starship Horizon bridge simulator as well as live entertainment, free soft drinks and snacks and a cash bar.
Visit the Northeast Comic Con Cosplay Stage, featuring puppetry, mask presentations, a Cosplay Dating Game, Create-A-Hero and Villain contests, a Cosplay Death Match, and “pose-off” contests for kids and those costumed as specifically as characters from Marvel Universe, DC Comics, Anime, Disney, Doctor Who, and even Video Game Characters.
NECC KIDZ can participate in a variety of activities hosted by comic book artist Emily Drouin, featuring imaginative facepainting with Sheri Sharkey of Chamillion Colors, get cartoonized with our caricature artist, participate in coloring contests and mask making, make your own monster, and listen a story, and even learn how to make your own comic book.
On the Fez Room stage, adults and kids will enjoy a host of performances and interactive games. Test your TV knowledge with TV Trivia with Morgan White Jr., with topics ranging from Star Wars and Movies to comics and cartoons, including Disney. Listen to musical performances by Emmarie and The World is Square, and laugh along with 20 stand up comics throughout the day on both Saturday and Sunday.
Other stars expected: Jim Steranko, Gigi Edgley, Julie McCullough, Vivek Tiwary, Jeff Kline, Philo Barnhart, Chalet Lizette Brannan, Noel MacNeal, and dozens of talented artists and illustrators; see website for full details on all convention special guests.
With free parking, regular Northeast Comic Con admission ticket prices are among the lowest in the industry. Advanced tickets are now available for purchase online; tickets are available at the door as well at a slightly higher price. Children are free when accompanied by an adult.
For schedules, VIP packages and advance tickets, visit NortheastComicCon.net. For show inquiries, email garysohmers@gmail.com or call 508-788-5474. The Shriner’s Auditorium is wheelchair accessible.
J.J. Abrams Announces “Force for Change” Campaign to Benefit
UNICEF’s Innovation Labs and Programs
Beginning Today, Visit Omaze.com/StarWars to Enter for a Chance to Win
Today in a special video message from the set of Star Wars: Episode VII, director J.J. Abrams announced the creation of Star Wars: Force for Change, a brand new Star Wars initiative from Disney and Lucasfilm in collaboration with Bad Robot dedicated to finding creative solutions to some of the world’s biggest problems. The first Star Wars: Force for Change campaign will raise funds and awareness for the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) Innovation Labs and its innovative programs that are benefitting the world’s most vulnerable children.
Disney has committed US $1 million to support the launch of Star Wars: Force for Change. Fans can now contribute directly at Omaze.com/StarWars for a chance to appear in Star Wars: Episode VII. For each $10 contribution made through the Omaze fundraising platform, eligible participants will be automatically entered for a chance to win this once-in-a-lifetime experience. The campaign runs from 12:01am PST on May 21stth until 11:59pm PST July 18th.
The Star Wars: Force for Change Grand Prize includes:
“The Star Wars fans are some of the most passionate and committed folks around the globe,” says director J.J. Abrams. “We’re thrilled to offer a chance to come behind the scenes as our VIP guests and be in Star Wars: Episode VII. We’re even more excited that by participating in this campaign, Star Wars fans will be helping children around the world through our collaboration with UNICEF Innovation Labs and projects.”
Star Wars continues to inspire generations of dreamers and doers to use their creativity to accomplish great things. Star Wars and Lucasfilm were built on the belief that in uniting creativity with innovation, you can make the impossible possible.
“The Star Wars films were made through George Lucas’s adventurous combination of technology and creativity,” says Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm. “We wanted to honor and carry on that positive spirit as we start production on Episode VII and use Star Wars to make a difference in the world. Star Wars: Force for Change will help us do that, letting us give back to the fans who keep Star Wars alive, and raising much-needed funds for programs like UNICEF’s Innovation Labs.”
By pledging support for Star Wars: Force for Change, fans are helping UNICEF create a brighter tomorrow for kids and families around the world. Through its global network of Innovation Labs, UNICEF helps create sustainable solutions to major issues facing children in the areas of nutrition, water, health, and education. The Star Wars: Force for Change campaign will help fund innovative, life-changing projects in communities around the globe.
“UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to help the world’s most vulnerable children and young people identify solutions and create change,” says Christopher Fabian, UNICEF Senior Advisor on Innovation and co-Lead of the Innovation Unit. “We work together with the greatest technologists and designers of our time to create open-source solutions that help millions of people. The support from Star Wars: Force for Change will help to bind these innovators together on a mission to solve the world’s most pressing problems, and create a better future.”
Visit StarWars.com/ForceForChange to learn more about this new charitable initiative and the work of UNICEF’s Innovation Labs and programs, and be sure to enter through contribution or free entry for your chance to win at Omaze.com/StarWars.
May the Force be with you!
About UNICEF
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org. Follow us on Twitter: @unicef and Facebook: UNICEF.
“I wanted to see it come to life. I had no aspirations to be a director, and still don’t, but I ended up writing, producing and directing the short film.”
Some Guy Who Kills People
As he traveled around the festival circuit and saw the positive reactions, he started thinking about an everyday guy who happens to be a serial killer and wondered if he could expand the main character’s world. Through brainstorming, he slowly developed his character’s background, family life, friends, and motives for killing. By developing his short into a movie, his character changed and it allowed him to let go of the character from the short film.
“Ultimately, while the short and the feature bear little to no resemblance to each other, there would be no Some Guy Who Kills People without “The Fifth.” Fortunately, our distributor, Anchor Bay, was cool enough to include “The Fifth” on the Some Guy Who Kills People DVD.”
The movie contains bullying, which came about because of “creative need.”
“Ken, the killer in Some Guy Who Kills People, needed a reason to kill his victims. In early drafts, he was just a serial killer who chose victims at random.”
The script shifted to Ken focusing on victims who treated others poorly, and then, ultimately, he began killing people who had done him wrong, Levin said.
“News about childhood bullying and suicides just started popping up on the news as we were in pre-production on this film, so while it was not intentional, I knew I hadn’t gone too far in scripting the often sad ramifications of bullying.”
Levin wrote the screenplay between 2007 and the end of 2009. It took about two and a half years to write the script, but it wasn’t a constant writing effort. There were many breaks “as other things came up” which caused him not to look at the script for six months or more.
“Ultimately, this worked to my benefit, as it allowed me to come to the script with fresh eyes each time.”
The movie stars Kevin Corrigan, Barry Bostwick, and Karen Black.
“It was, and continues to be, surreal,” Levin said about Corrigan, Bostwick, and Black being in the movie. “Kevin was someone we approached immediately for the lead role, and we just crossed our fingers he would find something in the script he liked enough to say ‘yes.’ He knew he would essentially be working for free, not to mention working in LA, away from his family in NYC. I imagine it’s a lot easier to take those few weeks off and live elsewhere when you’re making real money, but he wasn’t getting that from us. ”
Levin never pictured Bostwick and Black in their roles and was shocked that they auditioned for the movie considering “their credits and experience.”
“It was perfectly clear to Jack Perez (the director), Lisa Essary (casting director) and myself that we wanted them, and that if we did indeed land them, our movie was headed in the right direction.”
These actors took their characters and elevated them to levels beyond anything that was on the page, he said.
“They are three fearless actors who gave everything they had to this movie, and I can’t thank them enough.”
He was living in New York City when he decided to wanted to write for television and knew he had to get a production assistant job to be able to do that. These “jobs are actually quite hard to come by, as they are essentially the jobs that get you in the door on a production.”
“I sent resumes to every single show imaginable, super-eager to work for any of them. Through sheer good fortune, I ended up knowing someone who knew someone who got me an interview to be a PA on Scrubs, my favorite show at the time.”
When he got the production assistant job, he thought he had “made it” even though he considers “being a PA sucks.”
“I was on the show, I was writing in my free time, but I just wanted to move up the ladder as quickly as I could. I became the writers’ PA, then writers’ assistant then script coordinator. I knew the show runner would never promote me to a full-time writer because of a policy he had against doing so. But I also knew that if I could prove to him I was a capable writer, I could write an episode. Fortunately, that’s what happened. I wrote one episode in season 5, and was told I could return as script coordinator the following season to write another one.”
He didn’t return to work on the sixth season of Scrubs instead he went out looking for a full-time writing position.
“It took a couple of years of close-calls, of working on web series and pitching ideas, but, ultimately, I got a job on a Disney show called I’m In The Band, which ran for two years, and was far better, funnier and more creative than a lot of shows on network TV, which I’m allowed to say because I didn’t create the show.”
The writing staff for The Simpsons, seasons three through seven, and the playwright/screenwriter Martin McDonagh are writers that have inspired Levin. He loves McDonagh’s film, In Bruges.
“I’ve always been drawn to the darker content – always loved horror films and dark comedies, Fargo and Better Off Dead – and I was blown away by how [McDonagh] took these seemingly morbid stories and injected them with some of the funniest characters, situations and dialogue I’d ever heard. McDonagh’s ability to find the comedy in such dark material through characters with very specific points-of-views and his ability to seamlessly blend such different tones is what I can only dream of being able to accomplish.”
Levin is working on another Disney show and developing several features.
“The features are in various stages – from third drafts to basic outlines – and I keep moving back and forth between them. The great thing is I have several ideas about which I’m very excited; however, I really need to just focus on one of them, see it to completion, and then move on. If I don’t, none of them will ever get completed.”
The Some Guy Who Kills People DVD can be purchased through Amazon, click here.
Jason Harris Promotions 