Apollo's All Part 1.

In my recent New York blogs I mentioned "The Apollo Project" and thought I would take the opportunity to talk about what was one of the most exciting and yet disappointing times of my life.

Let's be very clear on one thing, I'm a fan, I have been since seeing my first episode of Dr Who over 40 years ago. I grew up with original Star Trek, all the shows of Irwin Allen such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space etc all the way through to today's adventures.

So it used to always annoy me that my shows received only limited if any sort of recognition from any or all awards shows. In 1988 I feel into the convention scene as I have mention in past issues and found like minded people to share my frustrations and excitements with. We had our own awards and spoke long and loudly to anyone who would listen but this still wasn't enough.

In 2004 I meet and started working with an awesome individual who shared many of the same ideas as myself. Together we started forming a concept to showcase the best that fans could offer in the way of costuming, model making, writing, and short films. These would all be presented at an awards ceremony after an Australian wide competition. It was and still is a great idea and may happen, but as we worked on this an greater undertaking was born, "THE APOLLO PROJECT". Imagine the Oscars meet MTV. Below is a part of our pitch document.

The Apollo Awards Ceremony is a gala red-carpet event presented in front of a live audience hosted in picture-perfect, subtropical Queensland, Australia.

The inaugural event will honour NASA astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, famously recognisable from the first moon landing in Apollo 11, and three actors: Richard Hatch, Jamie Bamber, and Michael Forest - all of whom have portrayed characters named "Apollo".

This was to be a worldwide effort to raise our voices and and show our support not just for the special effects but for everyone who contributes to sci-fi/ fantasy being what it is. The image on the right was the design of the award. You can see from the names above we certainly had some support for the project.

This was the start of what was going to a integrated website that would allow the world to talk and vote and show the mainstream media that we were more than just people who dressed up on the  weekend, but it was an expensive exercise and we were in the market at the wrong time.

I'll continue with the creation and journey the "The Apollo Project" took me on in my next blog. Plus tell you how it changed me and my world and how it still continues to do so.