Wonder-Con

A week ago I went out to San Francisco because my film was running in the San Francisco International Children's Festival at Wonder-Con. I have to admit that I had some interesting expectations for this festival but it was so much more than I could have anticipated.
What I didn't know was that the gamers conference was being held a few days before Wonder-con and the two fests overlapped on Friday. It was quite the experience.
Thursday night - I arrived in San Francisco at about 8:15pm after flying from Florida to Atlanta and when we were held up in Atlanta for about 30 minutes. So I arrived a little later than I expected I would. While I was headed there I struck up a conversation with the guy that was sitting next to me from the Atlanta leg of the flight. He told me about how the company he was working for was sending him to Atlanta a few times a year, and this was the first of many trips. We also talked for a while about the film industry and how I was on my way out to a festival. So over a couple hours we got to know each other and had a lot to talk about. As we landed he told me that he lived pretty close to the hotel I was staying at and since his girlfriend was picking him up at the airport he offered to drop me off. I was really appreciative and offered him a couple of my extra tickets to Wonder-con.
Well so far the trip was going good, the hotel was right in the middle of the city, really close to the Moscone where the Con was happening. Everything we could possibly need was right there. So after checking into the The Maxwell Hotel and getting into the room (it was on the 12th floor, and the view of the city was pretty nice) I took a stroll down Geary st to a local pizza / sub shop and got dinner. As I was walking out the door of the shop I knew I could get in a lot of trouble if I wasn't careful.
A girl walking by the shop immediately stopped and began acting far more friendly than most people do. She acted as though she knew me from somewhere else and even said "I remember you, we met earlier" and I told her that she was mistaken. So after about 5 minutes of her trying to get me to either buy her dinner or "walk her home" as she was kind enough to put it, she realized that I wasn't about to be taken and tried to find someone else that she "recognized". So I high tailed it back to the hotel dinner and money still in my possession.
Friday was interesting as it was the first day of the Festival and the Con, Ari and both knew that we should check in that day but we didn't have much intention of hanging around there since our films wouldn't run until Saturday. We explored San Fran for a couple hours, and then headed out to the Moscone where we met up with some guys that Ari knew would be at the game conference. So after we met up and had lunch, we went to the Moscone South and got our passes to get into the Con.

Friday @ The Con -
We had some difficulty getting the passes, it seems that one of the guys that was working for the Festival had picked up all of the passes and we didn't have his phone number to find him. After talking with the registration people one of the ladies took pity on us and made a couple professional passes for us to get in and find out where we were supposed to be for the film fest.
As we explored the lower level of the main floor we found a bunch of the booths where a lot of various companies were that we were familiar with. While I needed to check out the View Askew booth (and buy up a bunch of the stuff that they usually only sell on the website) Ari needed to check out the SLG Publishing booth (they were right next to each other so that made things easy). We each picked up a bunch of things that we wanted and decided that anything we would acquire at this con we should do on the first day so we don't bog ourselves down on the days that were more important.
After doing some more exploration of the main floor we came across an area where there were various people signing comic books and a I noticed a familiar face... I can't say that I had ever met him before but I remembered seeing him a number of times in various documentaries about Star Wars. As I got closer I realized that I was standing before Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca in all of the Star Wars movies. Now those that know about my past know that all through out high school and college I was a star wars geek. Before the movies were re-released I was still coveting a prized collection of about 20 figures and when people had questions (or wanted to make me look like even more of a geek in front of other people by trying to stump me) they would ask anything they could think of about Star Wars. Fortunately for me I have been in many various industries that have gotten me accustomed to having the opportunity to meet celebrities. I learned many years ago not to freak out or go all "fan-boy" on anyone of pop culture status. So when I approached Mr. Mayhew I simply shook his hand and told him that I appreciate his work. I watched a number of other people freak out and while he was courteous with them I could see that he was used to this kind of a reaction and knew it was best to be polite and eventually they would either stop of move on to the next celebrity that they could freak out over. So while they got a smile and a hand shake, he actually talked with me for a while. When I told him that I was running a film in the children's festival he even took out his copy of the Wonder Con book to try and look up my film so he could see what it was about. I think it was probably one of the most positive experiences that I have had in quite a while getting to meet someone that I grew up watching on many different occasions in what was once my favorite movie series of all time.
Afterwards I got a call from the director of the film festival and he wanted to tell me that there was a booth for the fest on the floor and he told me where the films were playing. So Ari and I decided to find the booth and put some of our promotional materials out. We also decided that it might behoove us to work the booth for a couple hours in between the showing of our films on Saturday.
We made our way to the area where the films were being shown and then we realized how much time had gone by so after becoming slightly familiar with where we would be spending the next day we made our way back to the hotel to meet up with a friend.
After having a drink and just relaxing at the bar & grill adjacent to the hotel with our friend we got a call from Jenny and Dan, two other directors that we met at the Los Angeles Film Fest. We gave them directions to the hotel and agreed to meet up for dinner and drinks at 7 which gave them a couple hours to get settled and find their way to the hotel.
So Dan and Jenny met up with us and we went to a place called the Sushi boat which was across from the hotel, to follow it up by going to Lefty O'Douls Pub down the road. After a few hours of drinking and laughing and just having fun we decided to call it a night at about 1am. Being that I was still functioning on east coast time it was about 4am for me and while I would try to "sleep in" the next day I would still wake up at 5:30... and then struggle to stay in bed until 8.

Saturday @ Wonder-con
Saturday would be just as busy as Friday. Getting up at 8 so we could get to a cafe down the road in the morning and meet up with another animator that we had been in touch with since watching his film at various festivals. We didn't get much time to hang out as he had to get to work, but it was cool having the opportunity to meet up for a few minutes.
After breakfast we headed straight to the Moscone and got to the booth to make sure that our promotional materials were in check. We talked with a couple people about the films and told a few people with kids to check it out. 10 minutes later I was in the auditorium watching the films during the block in which my film was playing. My film was the last to show and I was getting slightly discouraged as the two films prior to mine were both documentaries that lasted 10 minutes long each. I could see the kids getting restless and parents started leading them out of the theater before the second one ended. Suddenly with about 3 minutes remaining for the film before mine would end I noticed that what was a 2/3 full theater was now 1/4 full. A lot of people had left and it was looking pretty sparse. I didn't know what to think at this point and I figured that this would be tough because the place was mostly empty.
As my film started the place was just about as barren as I would see it....... and then it happened. As soon as the slash screen for my little picture company cleared off of the screen, and the first couple seconds of the film began I noticed that just about every kid that left the theater was still near the door outside, and all of the kids that were waiting for the next show were also there and they all seemed to spot that a cartoon was playing. Suddenly the theater filled in quicker than I could have ever imagined. I could hear them laughing, and while I have been told by hundreds of adults that that they like my film about "bears" the kids were saying "Look! Dogs!"... the kids get it! That was the greatest feeling to hear them talking about it. This is the whole reason to do what I do. Hearing the reactions of the kids, the kids that I made this film for, made the whole trip worth it.
After wards we had the Q&A and when I got up to talk with about the film the kids were still in the crowd and one of them was saying, "I want to ask a question" to his mother, but didn't know what to ask. Then Ari came to the rescue by whispering "Ask him how long it took to make." After that question came a flood of other questions from the kids "How many dogs do you have?", "Do they really act like that?" etc. It was the most interaction that I have had in a Q&A ever, it was great.
Afterwards, we went back to the booth to continue promoting the film fest. When we got there, almost all of the cards that we had put down were gone. I came with over 250 post cards promoting the film and I was nearly out. After and hour or two of promoting the fest I decided to explore the Con a little more. I managed to get around and see a lot of different people dressed as various characters. It was interesting to see how many people were dressed up in Star Wars costumes, one guy even had a working life size R2-D2 he even gave a seminar on how to make your own.
As I continued to wander around I saw a number of other celebrities that were around David Duchovney and Jillian Anderson were there to promote the new X-Files movie, Jon Favreau was there talking about Iron Man. I made my way back to the booth and Ari and I met up with Jenny and Dan again, we decided to get lunch and then headed back to the convention, and as we were walking back we met up with Serena Valentino the author of "Nighmares & Fairy Tales" and "Gloom Cookie". She was really nice to talk with, and it was cool to just hang out with her for a little while. After getting together with her we ran back to the theater for Ari's showing of his film. The showing ran a little long as they decided to put 3 films in that were 22 minutes each, and then they put Ari's film in last. After the film ran the Q&A went really well, a lot of people asked about his film and what he is working on next. Once we finished with the Q&A we met up with Dan (the director of the fest) and he told us to head over to the Thirsty Bear for an after party. We hung out there for a few hours talking with a number of other directors and just had a good time. It would be around 1am when we would get in, and being that Ari's flight out would be at 6:30 we would have to leave the hotel by 4am to go to the Airport. My flight wasn't until 7:50.

Sunday - The airport
We made it out of the Hotel at 4am and had to call a cab because none of the other transports were running at that time on Sunday. Apparently they run that early most days with Sunday being the exception. We got to the airport with plenty of time to check in on the flight. Ari got to his gate and we grabbed a drink and relaxed while waiting for him to be able to board. His flight was soon ready and he was on his way back to Minnesota. I headed to my terminal and waited. Making some calls to people back home knowing that it was now 10 - 11am there it was safe to know I wouldn't be waking anyone up. As the time got closer, my gate changed to a few gates down, so I moved there, and found that things were not going to have an easy flight out. The readout on the flight plan started showing Memphis then Atlanta. As it turned out the winds in San Fran were much higher than they would normally be, so they said they needed to lighten the plane to make it easier to transport. So instead of cutting the number of passengers they decided it would be better to reduce the amount of fuel and then land some where else to refuel and continue. At 7:30 we were on board the plane preparing to go to Memphis and then on to Atlanta.... at 8:30 they were telling us that we were still to heavy and that we would be now landing in Kansas City. By 9:30 they were telling us that we were still too heavy and that we were still landing in Kansas City.... by 11am they told us that we were still too heavy and that we would be landing in Denver Colorado. After sitting on the tarmac for 3 hours (with a child 2 rows behind me that was screaming her lungs out) we finally took off, before we took off I called Delta and rearranged my connecting flight. Because I knew that I would never make it to Atlanta on time to catch my regular flight. We landed in Denver and then after refueling about 1 hour later we were able to take off again (the kid continued to scream the entire flight... 6 hours of flying 4 hours total on the tarmac... 10 hours of non stop screaming, I was happy to get off that flight). We arrived in Atlanta around 7:30 eastern time, I ran to my next gate which was almost done boarding and expecting to leave at 7:45pm. 20 people from my flight showed up on my heels and they each tried to change their tickets from the previous flight. I handed them my ticket and they told me that I had a ticket waiting for me (good thing I knew to call ahead). There were about 4 seats on the flight and I got one. I was back in Florida 2 1/2 hours later. I got back to my apartment at midnight, and passed out right away.

While I wasn't happy to be waking up for my Monday morning meeting at work, I can say that this trip was definitely worth every minute. In fact I have already put in for my time off for Comic-Con. I don't know what to expect out of Comic-Con but I can say that Wonder-Con brought in roughly 20,000 - 25,000 people on that weekend... Comic-Con is expected to average 120,000+ people.... this is going to be great!