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Con Trek partnered with The Score for an exciting Halo 3 tournament and Alan and Brittney were there to capture all of the fun!

This year’s Scarefest came on the back on Dragon*Con and quite honestly I wasn’t sure I would survive both. Brittney and I rolled out of Nashville around six o’clock Central time knowing that we’d lose an hour due to Lexington, KY being in the Eastern time zone. We really didn’t know if we were going to shoot that evening or not so neither of us were dressed for the show. This would come into play later on that evening. As we approached Lexington the phone calls began. Stephen and Suzie were already downtown and we had to come straight to the convention to start filming. I can sum up the next thirty-six hours thusly:

•  You can’t get to Lexington, KY from anywhere
• It is damned near impossible to shave in a hotel bathroom that has motion sensor faucets
• “Holiday” wine means you are paying for the label alone
• Danielle Harris is more beautiful in person than on film
• Washed up actresses are real bitches
• Kane Hodder will talk about football with you in the bathroom
• The Ghost Adventure guys proved that you can’t judge a book by its cover
• Internet map systems will take you as far out of the way as possible in the name of “fastest route”
• Sleep is not a word found in the vocabulary of any convention

Still, I had a great time and plan on going back again, which brings me to my second point. I have had a blast this season covering all the different shows and have met a lot of cool people. As this season winds down I can’t help but look back at the long process that landed me in this incredibly lucky situation that allows me to travel and cover the things that I love. It really was a long process and one that all of us involved could each write a book about. But in the end it has been an awesome ride. I love this stuff and have gotten to meet several people whom I admire. I mean what other job allows you to see a guy dressed as a killer clown in a Santa suit dance to Prince? Or get to interact with the icons from horror and sci-fi that you wanted to grow up to be? Or see your co-host get dissed by a ten year old?

I truly cannot wait until we start shooting the second season of Con Trek. I know there is a particular fandom I know next to nothing about that has a traveling convention we are going to be covering. This will be an interesting episode because Brittney and I will be flipping roles as she is a huge fan and I’ll be the lost puppy in the woods, so to say. We do have one more episode coming after Scarefest so stay tuned and I look forward to meeting you guys when we hit the road for season two. In the mean time, if you would like to keep up with me go over to my website www.alansmith13.com to read my blog and checkout the links to all my social network pages. So, in the words of a very famous man, ’nuff said.

So this was one of the toughest shoots I’ve been involved in so far. It’s not because this show was so tough to shoot. It’s simply due to timing. One weekend we were at Dragon Con, the convention from episode one of Con Trek, and the very next we went to Lexington, Kentucky to shoot Scarefest. So I settled into this shoot already exhausted from Dragon Con. It’s challenging to go into a lengthy shoot and not be at full energy. Thankfully Mike and our guest PA Stephen Zimmer were fantastic help and they really played a big part in keeping the production moving forward.

Scarefest will end up being our Halloween special for the XBOX and I’m actually really excited about that. We managed to get some fantastic interviews for this episode! The final look and feel of the episode will more than likely be a cross between Dragon Con and Wonderfest. There’ll be costumes and crazy programming but there will also be solid interviews with industry professionals. Some of the interviewees include Danielle Harris (Halloween 4 and 5, Halloween I and II, Urban Legend) and Doug Bradley (Hellraiser). Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th films) also offers up some great Q&A plus he chokes Alan out which is always fun. As soon as the episode goes live we’ll have a full episode guide entry right here! Here are some pics taken by Mike at the show: http://digs.by/KZ9

Along with prepping this footage for post production we are also working on assembling some video from a Halo 3 event we shot at a cool gaming store called The Score (www.thescoreonline.com). Brittney and Alan hosted the competition and we interviewed some of the players about videogames and more. This video will be made available in a number of ways to be announced very soon. On top of all of that I’m starting to look at the script for the season finale to be shot in late October. This episode is still very early in development so I don’t have a lot to say about it just yet.

At Dragon Con we were given to panel opportunities. Suzie (co-producer) and I hosted the first one and Alan joined us for the second one. Both panels went great with nice attendance, especially considering they were scheduled for 10pm. We showed the complete Dragon Con episode of Con Trek and we showed several scenes from our feature film Fans and Freaks: The Culture of Comics and Conventions. I posted a few images from this year’s Dragon Con here: http://www.mania.com/13-cosplay-photos-from-dragon-con_article_117506.html

The Ringer Toss and other similar games mustn’t be missed! The is is defintiely a uniaue event full of good people who like to have a good time. We interview the “Carpet Pisser” from the film and the creator of a feature documentary about the fans along with tons of folks wearking crazy costumes from the film.

Download the episode now on XBOX Live!!