San Diego Comic Con International 2014 – Part 2

Friday kicked off with an early meeting to go over the schedule of events to photograph. This year I was working on assignment covering the Fox / FX shows.

My schedule for Friday looked like this:

Archer – Booth Signing
Bones – Press Line
Wayward Pines – Press Line
Bob’s Burgers – Booth Signing
Bones – Booth Signing
Bob’s Burgers – Press Line
Bob’s Burgers – Panel
Archer – Panel
Wayward Pines – Booth Signing

Look at all the people standing in line… That is the line to Hall H. Crazy long and most of those folks had been there for hours. Some overnight.

There are lines everywhere at the Con. Some are longer than others but the only place I didn’t see a line was for the restroom.

There were lots of Bob’s Burger costumes and since I am a fan of the show, I photographed them all. Ok, that’s not true, but I did photograph a lot of them. Might have something to do with the fact that I have been photographing the cast for years now. But first up it was the Archer booth signing.

A booth signing is where the cast of the show sits at the Fox / FX booth on the expo floor and signs a poster for the fans that were lucky enough to get a ticket. The tickets were handed out at 8am that morning. My job was to document the whole thing. Here is the poster that the Archer cast signed, and yes, photographing the poster is part of the job.

Here you can see the view from the top of the booth. It was still early and the crowds hadn’t filled in yet. I usually have to work in the line around the video crew and any social media photographers.

Once the signing was finished, I made my way over to the Hilton and the press line for Bones. I do tend to stop and take photos on the way if I see someone dressed up and have the time.

The press line or press rooms are actually the most boring part of the job and I try to do them as little as possible. They are the smaller conference rooms set up with the Comic Con logo across one wall. Then the cast of a show gets their photo taken and interviewed. There are no fans in these rooms and the access is pretty tight. When I started out covering the event for the wire services, I really wanted to be in these rooms, now I find them to be rather dull. It’s a lot of sitting around and waiting.

Once the Bones press line was over, I headed to the room next door for the Wayward Pines press line. Much bigger group including Matt Dillon and M.Night Shyamalan.

Then is was time to head back over to the convention center and spend some time in the booth with Bob’s Burgers cast. Some cool costumes on the return walk.

I really enjoy Bob’s Burgers and so it is great to meet the people responsible for the show. I have been photographing the cast at Comic Con for years now and they are just great.

Right after the Bob’s Burger signing was the bones signing and since David Boreanaz was not in the press room earlier I made sure to get some extra shots of him here. Both David and Emily Deschanel were great at the booth and the signing went very well. Since it was just the two cast members and producer Stephen Nathan, the line moved fast.

Once the Bones signing was done, it was time to head over to the Hilton for the Bob’s Burger press line followed by the Bob’s Burger panel and the Archer Panel. All of these events took place at the Hilton and I photographed some great costumes on the walk over.

H. Jon Benjamin is the voice of Bob in Bob’s Burgers and is the voice of Archer in Archer. He doesn’t do the booth signings so I made sure to get some stills in the press line and during the two panels.

Photographing the panels can be tough. this is where the 70-200mm f/2.8 comes into play. Some of the best shots are when the talent are introduced and walk out on stage. They are usually quite animated.

Before the Archer panel was over, I had to run back to the booth to cover the Wayward lines booth signing. Since this was a much larger signing, it was pretty slow going. They were a great group and even posed with the air freshener giveaway. Yes, it really did smell like pine.

A very long day was drawing to a close. Just enough energy left to take a couple more crowd photos as I made my way over to the Hilton to drop off my memory cards and then home.