You know the end of the Independence Day fireworks show, when they shoot off half their rockets in a booming, fiery frenzy of celebratory ecstasy? This post is nothing like that.
I did take one more video at Comic-Con, and then I'm done. Mostly for my own curiosity and fun, I started recording at one end of the Exhibit Hall and walked straight through the center--the belly of the beast--to the other end, just to see how long it would take. The answer was about 14-and-a-half minutes. Our tour starts in Artists Alley, goes through the dazzlingly loud and flashy movie and TV section, and slowly eases into the quieter west half of the hall where people still buy, sell, and talk about comics.
I promise, you'll only find this video interesting if you're a patient person extremely curious about the Comic-Con experience. Even then, although I panned from side to side to capture what I could, I didn't catch a tenth of it. There are two or three other aisles paralleling this one that would have provided entirely different tours, plus an equal area dedicated to panels upstairs and more events happening off site. My apologies for the jiggles and poor aiming; I was holding my camera over my head and trying not to crush or be crushed.
After getting back home and reading other people's Comic-Con reports, I found that Scott Edelman had had exactly the same idea, and posted his march in two parts. His took 14 minutes, about the same as mine, so I think we can define that as an official benchmark. Interestingly, he started at the opposite end of the hall than I did. I don't know when he shot his video, but how cool would it be if we passed each other somewhere in the middle? Someday I may watch all of his and look for myself.
I can't recommend anyone sit here for 15 minutes to watch mine (or 30 minutes to watch Scott's and mine). But if you want a sense of what Comic-Con is like, just expand this video to fill your wide-screen monitor, turn your speakers up as loud as they'll go, choke down a big stale soft pretzel, and pound your feet with a hammer until it hurts to walk. It's almost the same as being there.
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Yes, it would have been hilarious if we'd run into each other in the middle of the floor! I filmed mine on the afternoon of the 24th. When were you there?
ReplyDeleteAlso -- I see you waited to post your clip until after YouTube increased its limit to 15 minutes. I wish I'd waited, too, because then I wouldn't have had to break mine into two parts.
Scott, great of you to drop by and comment! We both had a fun idea. I recorded mine around noon on Saturday the 24th, and I think we missed each other by a bit. I see some of the same people in both our videos, but they're in different locations. The 15-minute thing was dumb luck--I was about to break mine into two parts like yours when I figured I'd try uploading it and see what happened. I was as surprised as anyone that it worked.
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