Back in early June, Laura was part of a group of fansite operators who were invited to Los Angeles to see a clip from Breaking Dawn, to interview director Bill Condon, and to attend the MTV Movie Awards. The first part of the interview will go live at 6:00pm eastern tonight, and the second part will go live at noon tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s what the very, very surreal experience was like.

Ever since getting involved with Twilight, I’ve been saying that my benchmark for surreal keeps getting reset. Just when I think “it’s never getting more out of this world than this” something else comes along. So when I got a call that I was being invited to the MTV Movie Awards and to visit to the editing room and to be able to speak with Bill Condon…yeah, it was another of those moments. If in 2006 when we opened the site someone had told me that I’d be meeting one of giants of the film industry and a personal favorite of mine(Kinsey, Gods and Monsters, the Academy Awards ceremony, master of two film musicals…need I go on),I would have thrown them in the car and taken them to the emergency room for detox.

So after arriving in Los Angeles the group headed out for a dinner. My roomie for the weekend was our red carpet broadcasting buddy, the very cool Kallie from Twilight Series Theories (if you haven’t checked out their podcasts you should!) Kallie and I were joined by Kara of Twilight Moms, Lauren of Facebook, Andrew of TwiSource, Kara of Twilighters Anonymous and Amanda of Twilight Examiner. The really nice thing is that we all get along. Lots of other site operators in other fandoms would rather poison each others food than eat together, but we always hang with each other. Seriously, if there is a Twilight event we are doing drinks and dinner. (L-R in the above photo: Andrew: TwiSource, Kara: Twilight Moms, Me, Amanda:Twilight Examiner, Kallie: Twilight Series Theories, UK rep, Kara:Twilighters Anonymous, Summit rep, French blogger, Lauren:Twilight facebook, Brazil Blogger (in front)

So off to a group dinner hosted by Summit we went to hear about the schedule for the following day. We got there early and quickly realized that there were too many chairs for the number of people supposedly in attendance. In addition to our Summit contacts there were three surprise guests: Charlie Bewley(Demetri), Erik Odom (Peter), and Jack Morrissey (Bill Condon’s partner). Now the hilarious thing was that when they arrived Charlie sees me (we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well via the Twilight Convention Tour) and he looks puzzled and mouths “What are you doing here?” I mouthed back “Twilight Lexicon, duh” then he does a head smack. After seeing me on tour so often he forgot for a second that I do other things. Dinner was fabulous, and Jack, Charlie, and Erik (who is possibly the nicest person on the planet and seriously adorable with the Southern charm) were just as entertaining in person as they are on Twitter.

The next day we were joined by bloggers from France,the UK, and Brasil for our viewing and interview. We all got into this van that took us to the editing location. I joked around with Kallie and Kara from TwiMoms “if I start to drool on Bill Condon stop me”. I don’t really do the whole screaming thing. I’m more of an inner squee kind of person who can get completely toungue-tied, but fortunately that doesn’t happen too often. So far the only time its happened in relationship to Twilight is when I met Michael Sheen (who probably thinks I’m a complete idiot, but that’s another story). For obvious reasons, I didn’t want a repeat of the babbling Sheen incident.

Finally we arrived at the editing site. Let me tell you security is way tight: guards, cameras, passwords. It was like any second Matt Damon was going to pop up as Jason Bourne. We all crowed into this tiny room (my living room is bigger) and on a large flat screen TV we got to watch the teaser that was to be released the following day and then about 10 minutes of footage. The first time we watched with our jaws dropped, and then watched again so we could take notes to ask Bill Condon questions.

So the viewing ends, and in walks Bill Condon and several members of his editing staff. We all start fumbling for our recorders and it’s suggested by Summit that we go around the room and introduce ourselves and the sites that we represent. Now there’s a lot of people in the room, everyone’s site is named “Twilight something” and if it’s not confusing enough there are two Kara’s, a Lauren, and a Laura, so do I think Bill Condon is going to remember any of this…no. So, it’s my turn (I’m second to last) and I give my name and site as I’m fumbling in my bag for my IPhone to record the interview. I was proud of myself—drooling averted and power of speech intact. But instead of just nodding his head, Bill Condon says words to the effect (I didn’t have my recorder on yet), “Oh the Lexicon. I love that site. It’s impressive. We used it as a reference on set.” …Yeah…all that preparation…gone…I’m pretty sure all bodily function stopped for like 3 seconds: heartbeat, breathing…hell I’m sure my liver shut down. My face was hot and I just knew I was as red as my hair. I thought I was going to pass out. I’m not exactly sure, but I think I babbled something along the lines of “Thank you so much, that’s so kind of you to say, it’s hard work by a lot of people.” I then remember, as the girl from the UK introduced herself, turning to my left. Seated next to me was Kara from TwiMoms. As I gave her this look that we later described as “dazed Bambi on crack”, she smacked me and mouthed “breathe and focus”. We were good, I was back. Bill Condon was ours for an hour-long Q & A. You can catch the first part here at 6:00pm eastern today.

Shout out to our other editing room buddies:

Twilight Series Theories(special shout out to Kallie Matthews who did like 99% of the transcription that you will see later today)

Twilight Source

Twilight Examiner

Twilight Facebook

Twilight Moms