Why I love my Alumni
Association - Wine Dinner on the Buffy Set
 You
know sometimes opportunities fall out of the sky. Like manna.
A friend of mine from college
emailed me about something the L.A. branch of our Alumni Association was
putting together. It seems that Marti Noxon, an Executive Producer for
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, went to UC Santa Cruz. The Alumni association
was holding a wine tasting dinner and tour of the Buffy set for any Alum
that wanted to go.
Me, me, me. I wanted to go.
I canvassed my friends. Couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't.
Whatever. I got my ticket
for the event. Then I bought me a ticket to aeroplane. No time to catch
a fast train. And I flew down to L.A. After a little online research (I
love the internet), I knew which buses would take me where I needed to
go. So, I did. (As an aside, I love doing things like that. Little trips
that say, hey I am self-sufficient. I can go and get anywhere if I want.
I may have no control over destiny, but I can plan a great day trip.)
 I
hit the beach in Santa Monica first. Cold and miserable. So, I headed out
to the set. I was going to call my friend Barbara and try to hook up for
lunch or dinner, but I forgot my address book. What can I say, I was excited.
When I arrived, they assigned
me to the first tour. I sat and chatted about UCSC with the other Alums.
What college did you go to? What was your major? Now that we have that
out of the way, let's talk about Buffy.
 Drank
a little champagne. Went on a tour. Marti led our tour. Apparently, the
set used to be some sort of gemology industrial site. Speaking as someone
who worked for three years on an industrial site, it looked it. First we
went through the offices. They looked like offices. Ewww...look computers.
On the other hand, look Christmas party pictures.
Then out a door and into
a warehouse, into the Magic Box. It's a weird thing, standing inside a
place that you've seen a hundred times on t.v. Look there's the staircase
to where they keep the dangerously magical books. There's where the Scooby
gang plots and ponders.
Marti went behind the counter
and read off some of the labels on the various ugents and magic supplies.
They are all named after people on the staff or characters on the show.
Noxon's eyeballs. Gellar's cream. Xanderific somethingorother.
Then down into the training
room. There were all sorts of sticky notes with phone numbers for massage
or stake sharpeners. Around a corner and there's Spike's crypt, which is
currently serving as a storage area for all the extra stuff on the set.
Around another bend and it's the college. Look it's a hallway. Look it's
an office. Look its signboard for classes which the cast/crew have messed
with and it now makes a number of highly inappropriate suggestions. (Dr.
Prozac, All Sluts class, etc.) Apparently, that happens a lot (it's a fun
set) and the directors have to check to make sure these things don't actually
make into an episode.
 Then
into a classroom and then out onto the street of down town Sunnydale. The
outside of the Magic Box and April Fool's. The hardware store that Buffy
and Faith had their little ruckus in season 3. The movie theatre. Marti
said that in first season everyone was so in love with sign (oooh, look,
colour) they took every opportunity to film it. Now they hold off a bit.
We skipped the fly set (where
the impermanent sets go.) Apparently, its pretty dirty and well, in the
process of being taken down.
We did go into another set
building. Buffy's house. Its so small. There's couch where Buffy found
her mother. Then once again you look up and see the total lack of ceiling.
Ducts and rafters and scaffolding, but no ceiling. All the better to film.
It still is little incongruous. Also, most the walls fly back and open
out. Ah, the wonderful world of make believe. Which is why all the furniture
was covered in sheets. Dust being an enemy on any set. We then looked at
the top floor of Buffy's house. Well, it isn't actually a two story building.
 We
poked in Buffy's room and Dawns. Looked at the pictures of the actresses
on the wall. Look little Buffy. Look pregnant Joyce. The set dressing is
subject to constant change. If a script calls for a phone, or pictures,
or a desk, then they add them to the scene.
From Buffy's house, we went
to the Bronze. Which looks radically different than on the show. They did
a huge makeover recently, and that while in person it is totally different,
on screen, it looks the same. Whatever, it was the Bronze.
Then we went out the back,
and looked at the vast rolling expanse (it was about 2x the size of my
living room) of the cemetery. A bit of green lawn. Trees on wheels. Crypts
on wheels. One whole in the ground for the dead to rise from. Very impressive.
Especially, because they try very hard not to leave the set. Almost everything
we see, is filmed on site. We then walked by Spike's RV.
Then out into the lot to
eat scrumptious munchies and drink champagne and wine and discuss, discuss,
discuss just how cool that was.
Then I caught the bus to
the beach, was considerably warmer in the afternoon sun. Then I caught
a bus to the airport. Then I caught a plane home.
It was a full day, but very,
very cool.
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