Comic-Con, for me, has always been one of those names that I was aware of, had some notion of what it was all about, but never anticipated attending. To be honest, I’ve never been overly excited by comics, and I’m not a huge fan of overwhelmingly huge crowds, so it never crossed my mind that I would ever experience a show like Comic-Con personally.

Then, several months back, I was introduced via a college friend and fellow video production professional, to a dude named Kona. Kona (real name Shawn) has made a name for himself in the video game world. He runs a successful podcast and reviews games, and on top of that, he’s a hell of a nice guy. Kona was hired by a well known game distribution company to bring along a team to game-related trade shows and expos and put on a live video broadcast featuring interviews with folks involved in the production of games (artists, voice talent, writers, etc), and capture some interesting footage of the shows which is streamed live over the web. Kona is also responsible for hosting a live chat and monitoring how many people are viewing the stream at any given time.

For the past three shows, (PAX East in Boston, E3 Expo in LA, and Comic-Con San Diego), Anchor Line has provided two shooters (myself and colleague Adam Knee) and we make up about 1/3 of the broadcast team. It’s a pretty impressive operation, and we’re really excited to be a part of it.

So back to Comic-Con. Clearly this conference is focused on comics, television, and film, however we were there promoting one video game in particular, and shooting similar content to the other shows we’ve done. What’s different about SDCC is that probably more than half of the people you’re packed sardine-like up against are in costume… and any celebrity who is promoting anything at all is there too.

Aside from meeting an old “friend” Terry O’Quinn, I shot an interview with David Hasselhoff, shook hands with Seth Green, and scoped out people like Gene Simmons and Mark Hamill signing autographs and posing for photos. The show was a total trip… absolutely sensory overload. We worked long days, but had good fun. It didn’t change my opinion about huge crowds, but it’s a show that I won’t soon forget, and I’m enjoying the opportunity to provide camera support to Kona’s Korner Productions and look forward to building the partnership stronger with each show! Enjoy some photos below.