I was commissioned to fly out to Los Angeles and to film ‘E3’ 2011 out there. What is E3 do you ask? It’s pretty much the worlds biggest electronic entertainment expo where the latest video games and entertainment systems are shown. In this blog post i wanted to share with you the experiences i had out there.
The Los Angeles trip was amazing for me for ‘two’ main reasons.
The first: was because it was Los Angeles – a place that I’ve always dreamt of going to whilst growing up as a kid, thanks to the help of Hollywood movies.
The second: was because of the E3 Event itself. Growing up as kid and before the days of the Internet I used to go into convenient stores and buy video game magazines where there covers were of that years E3 event. The articles would show photos of the event held in Los Angeles and it was pretty much a wonderland for video game lovers. As a kid reading these magazines and daydreaming away I never thought in a million years that I would have the opportunity to go and see E3 for myself, let alone be commissioned to go out there to document it.
Its funny how life works like that.
It was an eight-hour flight to Chicago where we were going to catch connecting flights with barely any sleep and only a one-hour transit time gap. If you have ever had connecting flights you will know that its a short amount of time especially if you end up having to deal with the ridiculous Chicago airport security like we did, we literally ended up running to catch our next flight and ended up just barely making it. It was an adrenaline pumped run to catch that plane; we didn’t even have the time to make a quick stop to the toilets. I assure you, hearing about the American airport security and experiencing it are two completely different things.
I took a breath of fresh air when coming out of LAX airport. We finally made it… we were in Los Angeles.
The E3 event was held in the L.A Convention centre which if you have ever seen the awesome movie ‘Rush Hour’ with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, its where they filmed the final scenes of the movie where Jackie Chan is hanging on the roof of the building and is saved by Chris Tucker when he falls down. I didn’t even realise it was the same location until I got there.
The queue on the opening day was immense! I was set up with the camera right in front of the main entrance to get a shot of the ticketholders when they first entered the expo. Their excitement could not only be seen on their faces but could also be felt in the air. When the doors swung open they poured into the expo exceptionally fast as if the games and consoles were going to miraculously sprout legs and run away and escape the building. Well then again I might as well admit if I weren’t there to do a job I might have felt the same way, but I had a job to do and it was one that I was really looking foreword too.
Filming something you personally enjoy is sometimes extremely hard. One of the hardest things was actually staying focused when filming, with all the games and excitement going on everywhere around us it was really easy to get distracted, to just drop the equipment and start checking out the latest games and entertainment systems. It took a great deal of willpower to make sure I finished up with the filming before queuing up for any of the booths. The event was on for three days anyway so I had plenty of time to capture exactly what I needed for the video.
After the three days of ‘E3’ was over. The crew and I decided to stay for a few extra days and explore LA even further. The expo was in the Downtown area and so that’s where our hotel was based. We decided move out to another place that we found in Airbnb. It was double room rented out by an elderly Jewish couple and the location was brilliant as we were really close to Santa Monica and Venice beach. Definitely a must see for anyone going to L.A. The atmosphere and energy along the beach is electrifying. There’s rows of busy basketball courts, people working out in outdoors style gyms, kids skating in the mini skateboard parks, people selling there own music albums along the beach walkway. The place was just teeming with every type of demographics you can think of.
After three days of checking out Hollywood boulevard, The bel air area, Sunset boulevard and eating at ‘In n Out burger’, which was the best burger I have ever tasted!..it was time to say good bye.
Los Angeles and E3 was amazing and I would love to come back here again. It definitely sums up the words ‘Good Times!’
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