GDC07 FOR REAL (NO BS HERE)
I was thinking the other day about how much more often I used to write in this thing. It's fun to look back but I think I wrote a lot of dumb crap that should have never been comitted to text. I think it's a shame, though, that I never really wrote about a lot of important/fun/crazy things, because even though I always feel like my memories are enough... sometimes my memory really sucks. So I thought right now I'd write about one of the craziest experiences of my life- Game Developers Conference 2007.
First of all, the weeks leading up to the event were, off and on, pretty hellish. Nintendo's people (who were surprisingly so gung ho about Miyamoto doing a skit with us from the very beginning) just couldn't commit to saying he'd be there for filming, and that kinda messed with me. See, I'm really picky about topping myself. I'm never content with staying at one level of anything for a very long time (which I think has helped me achieve a lot of cool stuff in my life, but at the same time, I'm never really content, and it kinda sucks sometimes in some departments). Working with Miyamoto on a video was on such an insane level that I was willing to risk anything to make it happen. A while later they got back to us and said that he just might have an open slot during his keynote rehearsal, Tuesday from 11 to 2. Our plane tickets were already booked, and we were to land around 11:45 or 12- Right smack in the middle of it, which was juuuuust nerve-wracking enough for me to lose sleep over it. What kinda eased my mind, though, was Meggan from GDC just constantly reminding how uncertain this whole thing would be at all. Even down to the last minute, he just might find he doesn't have the time to work with us. Whatever, then. I figured it was out of my hands and it wasn't worth killing myself over.
We flew to San Francisco, and even when we stepped off the plane, nobody knew anything. We waited at the airport for a little bit, and then eventually got the call- Meggan with a resounding "You're in." We booked it over to the Moscone Center where we waited to meet Meggan. She let us past security and into an empty room where we were to change into costume and await Nintendo's orders. We scouted out a perfect alley on the side of the building, and waited there in our stupid costumes.
After what seemed like an eternity, Meggan comes through the door, and she looks at us with this grin on her face, that same glowy smile that someone gives you when they're about to bring you your new puppy, or your new baby brother. She knew how epic this was- Mr. Miyamoto and his entourage was right behind her.
As soon as Shigeru walks through the door, he sees us in our stupid costumes and just starts cracking up. And then we all started cracking up. I think that little moment was one of my favorites ever in getting to work on this crappy little show of ours. Just thinking back to Derrick and I hiding under the West Hills bleachers in our Mario costumes, the first thing we ever filmed, all the way to this moment, was just nuts. It doesn't get any more full-circle than that.
We shook hands with him and got right to work. Bill Trinen of NOA translated our directions to him, and he just went all out. He was gung ho for anything. It was really cool. He couldn't do anything serious without cracking up, though. Some of the raw footage we have of him just cracking up is pretty entertaining actually!
We thanked him and shook his hand a thousand more times, he signed some of our stuff, and he was on his way. It couldn't have gone any smoother. We filmed a few more shots of us messing with people, then headed back inside Moscone, where we learned we only had an hour or two to edit the video. That was a tense message, but it wasn't terribly hard to pull off. I don't really enjoy editing on a Mac as much as a PC (sorry), but it was stable and error-free, I'll give it that.
Just as things were wrapping up, one of the producers informed me that there was a problem with all our videos- the audio was out of sync. There was an immediate pit in my stomach. I walked into the main hall and they showed me the clips in question- A couple Sam and Max FMV clips provided by Turner. There was no problem with any of the Mega64 clips, they called in the wrong person. I informed them that this snafu proved we were better than Turner, and headed back.
That night we went to a party at Jillian's by the Metreon just on a whim. It was pretty insane. I was actually surprised at how many people I knew there. I was even more surprised by who knew me! Tetsuya Mizuguchi was there and apparently knew of Mega64 (whaaaat). He seemed like he spoke pretty decent English, so I attempted to lay some humor on him and told him he "had a few decent games, I guess." I got this vibe that he didn't get it, though, and I felt like a jackass the entire rest of the week.
I talked to Tommy Tallarico that night too. We were cracking jokes and riffing on stuff right and left. It's so funny- I never would have guessed in a million years that we would be friends with Tommy. It just still seems so out there to me. But I love him.
The next morning we woke up for the Sony keynote wayyyy too early. We were there before anyone. We got free breakfast across the street (thanks again GDC) and came back to find that now there was a monster line. Great. We got to see Raychul though, she's super nice. And while limited, the keynote was pretty cool.
We stopped by the Ziff Davis offices to join Shoe and Crispin from EGM for lunch. The 1up crew is like, the one group of people I've met in all this where I really like every single person there.
That night were the awards. I had caviar for the first time. I got more excited about that than I should have.
I was so happy to see the guys from Behemoth win a bunch of awards. They deserve it. I love those guys. I was also excited to go with Derrick to their table and tell them about how Sony's new LittleBigPlanet was totally ripping off an Alien Hominid minigame. Boom. Dramabomb.
I got goosebumps when they honored the inventor of Tetris. I'm not the kind of person that wells up when meeting famous figures, but dude... it's Tetris. The game that's on every electronic device ever invented.
We slumped in our chairs every time one of our videos came on. Jane Pinckard sat next to me and she was very supportive, but it didn't help me much. They still went over really well though! i thought we lost them on our Feel the Magic XY/XX skit, but the ending brought it home. Following it up with the SMB/Miyamoto skit didn't hurt much either. I don't ever think anything I'm a part of will ever get that much applause again, ever. It was so insane.
We talked to a million people afterwards. I bumped into Reggie from Nintendo. I told him he was my brother and I loved him. He said "alright my man" and complimented Shawn on his part in the video. That was pretty cool. He had a surprisingly soft handshake, though.
The next day we did the Nintendo keynote, and then Shawn, Derrick, Garrett, and Raychul went to see the sights in SF, while I stayed at the expo and checked out stuff with Mariel. I've never really been big on sightseeing stuff- I was here for the game industry. I actually really enjoyed Aonuma's Zelda panel, it was pretty much an hour of Wind Waker company drama.
At one point that day I believe we ran into Geoff Keighley again. Anyone want to tell me how that guy knows
everything? Every time we see him he zips out some fact about us that I SWEAR I never told anyone.
We went to a bunch of parties that night. 1up's party was totally fun, and then at some other party down the street, I was introduced to the creator of LocoRoco, who communicated to me by doing an impersonation of our Mario skit. That image will be forever engraved in my brain.
A minute later as I was reaching for a drink, one of the guys from the Shadow of the Colossus team flagged me down too. I was floored. How the hell did this happen? Seriously. How did me and my friends acting stupid get me to be able to breathe the same air as these dudes?
I had a great time chilling later while the other guys played pool. It was just us guys. Was it fun? You bet. Was it gay? Always.
Mariel at that point had gone off to some other party across town called "GAMECOCK." We were fairly certain she would be raped at said juncture. She ended up going to some other rape-free gathering at the head GDC dude's suite, so i guess it worked out.
The next day we had lunch with a guy who might potentially be our business manager in the near future. That was really exciting. Some of the stuff we talked about was pretty nuts! He took us to a pretty fancy pants restaurant where we sat right beside the chick from Punch Drunk Love. The food was expensive but actually really delicious, only marred by the waiters that stood behind you and kept trying to take your plate from you every time you set your fork down.
We went to Video Games Live that night. I was most excited to see Koji Kondo, but that part was just okay- The best performance of the night was a guy shredding through Contra on an electric guitar. It really could have been two hours of that.
We woke up the next day, checked out of the Westin St. Francis, discovered that since we touched things in our minibar it automatically charged us hundreds of dollars, argued a little, got it taken care of, and went down to the Metreon and saw 300. Neat looking flick but oddly enough it didn't really do much for me.
We headed to the airport after that. The whole flight home was kind of a bummer to me. It was like a gradual plummet back to reality. The whole week of GDC I felt like I was walking on air, and now it was back to everyone having to go back to their part time jobs and other lame crap. But the more we talked about the stuff coming up that we're filming, I got excited again.
This has been such an insane journey. I'm proud. I'm proud of all my friends. I say it all the time, but I really can't believe what's happening sometimes. It feels like too much. I try not to ever take it for granted. Right now I feel like, even if Mega64 were to end tomorrow, I'd probably just look back on the week of GDC 2007, think about all the little moments that made it what it was, and be pretty darn content with how far we made it.
And for me to be content for once? Maybe that's something I can live with.
Current Music: salame 
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