Comic-Con 2011

Comic-Con 2011. What can I say? It's always such a fun time to get caught up in the energy of the event as all of Downtown San Diego turns into one big nerd-fest, myself included. This year had all the expected elements from costumed zombies to celebrity panels to all the cool booths in the trade floor area.
As a working journalist though, it is one of the most difficult events of the year to cover. I was talking to Getty entertainment staffer Kevin Winter one morning as we waited to get into a movie panel and he seemed to summed it just about right. He said the folks who started Comic-Con have never been really comfortable with the whole Hollywood element and as a result, they could give a hoot less whether we in the media cover their events. Also, they don't feel any need for us publicize the event as it generates plenty of buzz throughout the blogger, social networking world,hence the enormous crowds it draws every year. As a result, we are not let into many events or have to wait hours in line for some of the panels that our editors have assigned us. It might sound a little spoiled on our part but when you have people breathing down your throat to get shots or interviews of certain folks, all the while trying to meet a deadline, it can be extremely frustrating. One example is on Thursday, I was assigned to photograph the Twilight Breaking Dawn cast, as I asked the security guard where the media line was, he said "back of the line buddy" Now, as you might have expected, people had been camping out since Monday to get into this thing and they were turning people away. I was forced to do something I'm not too happy about. I went to a cordoned off area reserved for the disabled and pretended I was with a family with a crippled kid. I know, I'm probably going to burn in hell for this but sometimes you just have to improvise.