Personal

Credits

Featuring: Devon D’amo

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Credits

Featuring: Barbara

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Description

So I ran into a McDonald’s crew at the Con, and my will as a vegetarian was put to the test. I successfully resisted their efforts to bring me over to their side, in the end, but the experience raised a question in my mind: how could someone POSSIBLY say no to a meal that is HAPPY? HOW. It’s HAPPY. Madness. Jokes aside, these guests were a pleasure to interact with.

Credits

Featuring: Michi, Jamila, and Lisa

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

In an effort to be more transparent in my work, I thought it’d be a good idea to start posting weekly updates. Over time, these updates will be mixed in with regular, creative posts, but for now, I’m thinking extra information is better than total silence. So, without further delay, here’s what’s new:

• Added three more Dragon Con 2013 interviews:
  • McDonald’s Crew – Ronald, Grimace, and the Hamburglar
  • Devon D’amo (Female Punisher/Bane)
  • Lucy van Pelt

• Transcribed two Dragon Con 2013 interviews.
  • Cecil Sinclaire and Carla Rhodes
  • Assassin’s Creed
• Modified font styles throughout the website to improve readability. Further improvements coming soon.
• Added descriptions to many of the Dragon Con 2013 interview pages. More coming soon.

There you have it. My focus for next week will involve publishing the final two Dragon Con videos that are in my queue. I also have two “Making Of”s that I’d like to create, but I’m not sure whether I’ll do them now, or later – I rather not keep my Hal-Con guests waiting.

Description

This was an interesting interview to do, especially considering the nature of Devon’s line of work: wrestling (she owns her own company and even wrestles herself). Believe it or not, it’s not often that I encounter wrestlers in every day life. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not implying that Dragon Con is anything like everyday life, it isn’t – it’s operating on a whole other level of awesome. But anyway, in addition to being a particularly unique guest, Devon was also cool enough to participate in another one of my videos, Jay and Silent Bob’s Rap.

Transcript

Matt Refghi: I’m here at Dragon Con and I just encountered someone who’s dressed as both a mix of Bane as the mask, as a well a Punisher shirt, so I want to know, what’s the story here? I see a lot of blood… has a war gone on? What’s going on?

Devon D’amo: Yes. I am Bane junior, and I have beaten the Punisher.

Matt: You have beaten the Punisher!

Devon: I have beaten the Punisher.

Matt: Alright, well that’s like the first course of –

Devon: So, that’s the story, I’m the first female Bane, I’ve not seen one of them here yet. So I’m the official first one at Dragon Con.

Matt: Nice, that’s good… good achievement. Have you seen a female Punisher? Maybe you’re a combo.

Devon: No.

Matt: No? Well, there you go, you’re the first female Punisher and Bane.

Devon: Yes.

Matt: And what I’m wondering is… if the first course of the meal is to terminate Punisher, which you’ve done.

Devon: Yes. So I’m at the second course!

Matt: Who’s next? Who will it be? Will it be the elusive Batman?

Devon: Batman, of course.

Matt: Batman’s next? I see a few around… you might end up with quite a few bat-heads in your bank.

Devon: Yeah.

Matt: Alright, so that’s cool. Your name, by the way?

Devon: Devon.

Matt: Devon?

Devon: Devon.

Matt: Alright, cool, cool. So, this is Dragon Con, I’ve been here four times personally. Have you been here before?

Devon: Five.

Matt: Five! Great. Yeah, so earlier you were talking to me about having a wrestling company, or working within wrestling.

Devon: Yes.

Matt: And wrestling’s something, always something that fascinated me. I used to watch it as a kid, there was a lot of drama there, a lot of interesting storylines to follow. I always questioned: is it real, or is it not real, and does it matter? Because it’s entertainment.

Devon: It is both.

Matt: It is both.

Devon: It’s according to what you like. We do both.

Matt: You do both?

Devon: I started out with this site, it was more like WWE, and I do more real stuff with my site, and we started out in Atlanta, so… yeah, we do more real but we do a little bit of both.

Matt: Okay, cool – would you like to mention your website?

Devon: Yeah, it’s fwagrappling.com. Female wrestlers of Atlanta.

Matt: Is it just female wrestlers?

Devon: Uh, no. We do mix, but we just smash the guys, so, you know –

Matt: Okay, well that’s always fun. I mean, there’s a lot of, you can maybe take some anger out.

Devon: Yes, take some anger out.

Matt: That’s probably part of the appeal.

Devon: I have a ring in my living room, so….

Matt: The ring’s in your living room?

Devon: I have a wrestling ring in my living room.

Matt: So you take a break when you’re watching TV and just go fight someone?

Devon: Yea, when I’m watching TV, I’m like boom, let’s go to the living room.

Matt: I think you’ve got a potential product here.

Devon: Right?

Matt: Buy a ring… stick it in your living room. That’s great.

Devon: Little Bane’s pissed off, and ?

Matt: That’s right. You have a problem with your maybe, you know, your significant other, go to the right. Perfect.

Devon: Right.

Matt: That’s great. Do you, yourself, wrestle, or is it a company.

Devon: I do. I wrestle and I produce.

Matt: Do you have… like what’s your wrestling name, because they’re often very strong.

Devon: Devon. Devon D’amo is my wrestling name.

Matt: Oh, so that’s the actual… okay, cool, that’s great. And I guess there’s footage from you perhaps available on the website?

Devon: Oh, yeah.

Matt: Alright, kicking the crap out of people, great. So… Dragon Con, what attracts you to Dragon Con?

Devon: You know what? It’s like Toys R’ Us, a kid can be a kid.

Matt: That’s right.

Devon: You get to dress up as your favorite character, and just have fun with it.

Matt: That’s cool.

Devon: It’s like a moment out of reality.

Matt: Yeah, personally, I agree, and there’s so many references … you can really appreciate the effort people put into it.

Devon: Very, very much.

Matt: And you come from where, exactly? Where do you live?

Devon: I’m actually from Atlanta.

Matt: Oh, yea, you mentioned, because it’s the Atlanta league for women, right? The wrestling league.

Devon: Yep.

Matt: Yea, we fly down from Canada.

Devon: But a lot of people I talk to today are from all over the world.

Matt: Yea.

Devon: It’s amazing how Dragon Con was very small five, six years ago, and now it’s huge.

Matt: Right. The cameraman, actually, he’s a friend of mine, he came to Atlanta two years ago… this is his second visit. The first one is infectious, he himself admitted this.

Devon: (laughs)

Matt: You get there and you’re like: oh, there’s something here.

Devon: Right.

Matt: We fly down from Canada, so –

Devon: Canada, eh?

Matt: – we can’t help it. We’ve got the bug. I’ve got four consecutive attended years… gotta keep it up. Anyway, it’s a pleasure talking to you. I hope you get the Batman.

Devon: Pleasure talking to you too.

Matt: I hope you do, because that’s a goal.

Devon: I’m working on it, tonight, tonight. It will happen.

Matt: Especially given the combo status you have here. Female Punisher, female Bane… you gotta get the Batman. So thank you very much for talking to me.

Devon: Thank you.

Credits

Featuring: Devon D’amo

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Hi all! I’ve been less active, as of late, and I wanted to give you all some insight into what’s been going on. The main piece of news is that I attended three conventions this year, and I hosted interviews at two: Dragon Con 2013, and Hal-Con 2013. At the moment, I’m still working hard on getting all those interviews edited and published. If you interviewed with me, and you have yet to see your footage, rest assured that I have not forgotten – I’m just heavily backlogged. One reason behind these delays is that I’m working on something big on the side, and that project relates to everything that I do in a really exciting way. Another reason is work, but that’s a constant factor in everyone’s life – the main cause for my delay is primarily the big project I have yet to reveal, in combination with typical life challenges that everyone faces.

Now, there’s more to this than just the delay itself, and the reasons behind it. I realized that I wasn’t being very transparent when it came to the interviews and my progress towards publishing them. I told people to check out my Twitter for news, but, by nature, Twitter can be a really noisy place – it’s not always easy to see what people are up to. So, to address this, and to better align myself with the end goal of the big, exciting project stated above, I decided to re-design my website. Previously, I had two sites: my personal website, and my blog. My personal website was a more professionally-aligned site, one that showcased my portfolio, freelance offerings, resume, all that stuff. It had its own visual style to it, separate from my blog. Now, they’re combined into one site, with one style, and over time, the features from both my personal website and the blog will be fully offered in one place. This will allow me to better focus on improving the quality of a single offering, rather than splitting my efforts between multiple.

So, now that you know what’s up, here’s specifically where I’m at with the interviews:

• Dragon Con 2013
  • 10 interviews and 1 rap video published. (Yes, a rap video… you read that correctly.)
  • 5 more videos are being edited at the moment, 4 of which are interviews.
  • 2 interviews have been fully transcribed. (None of these transcriptions are available through YouTube – that’s something that I’ll work on later.)
• Hal-Con 2013
  • 1 interview has been published.
  • 8-12 interviews have yet to be edited. (I have yet to fully review these videos, so I can’t judge how many there will be in the end.)

You can look forward to having more posts from me in the future (I plan on posting news entries more often, like this one, rather than leaving you all to plunge into the complicated depths of my Twitter feed). Beyond that, the big project that I spoke of will soon start showing more of its influence.

Description

Wayne tells me about his elaborate costume, a highly realistic astronaut suit. His choice wasn’t made in haste, but instead, it reflects on his career and interests. I really appreciated encountering this type of costume at Dragon Con… a rare sight.

Credits

Featuring: Wayne

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Credits

Featuring: Courtney Fulley

Filmed by: Ryan Josey

Description

He’s soft, he’s cuddly… but he’s probably the worst creature that you can leave with your kids. Mr. McGibblets in the flesh, ladies and gents. Matt Haskin mentions his love for all things Jon Lajoie, as well as his decision to dress up as Taco’s adorable alter-ego. Fans of the The League, this is one you’ll probably enjoy.

Credits

Featuring: Matt Haskin

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira

Description

Hey, listen! Navi’s at the Con, and she wants your attention. Well, technically, mine… since this was filmed before. You know, takes place in the past. Okay, moving on! Watch as I interview Patricia about Dragon Con, her portrayal of Link’s memorable companion from Ocarina of Time, and all things in between. Some people cringe at the reminder of Navi’s incessant reminders, but I remember a great game with an amusing mechanic – and Patricia’s out to prove that Navi can be fun as well.

Credits

Featuring: Patricia

Filmed by: Joseph Pereira