Last week we were at the San Diego Comic Con because Awkward Animals got to have a booth for the first time. We all went and had a super successful time selling the merchandise and introducing tons of new people to Awkward Animals, Nice Guy Design, and Wong Fu Productions. But knowing that we were going to be at the world’s largest comic convention, we decided that we just HAD to shoot something there.
In similar fashion to our older shorts or The One Days series for example, we gave ourselves one day (in this case, 1 afternoon) to shoot a story that used the amazing setting we were in. All the costumes, the people, the characters…we wanted to show it all.
The decision to shoot a skit was made just a few days before we left for San Diego so we felt a bit of pressure to come up with something. We played around with a few different ideas. At first we were going to do something about a boy and girl, but with “Away We Happened” just finishing up, we wanted to get away from a cutesy “love story” for a second. This idea of a guy who loses faith in his costume, and himself, came up and we decided to roll with it.
REALLY WISH WE HAD “BEHIND THE SCENES”
We had just one day to get all the high tech material for Phil’s costume. Unfortunately we don’t have any “behind the scenes” footage from preproduction or the afternoon of the shoot, just because it was so last minute and we had to rush, but I wish we could show you some of the hilarious scenarios we were in. First, calling a sporting goods store asking if they had ski masks (preferably with 3 holes). And then 3 guys walking in to the store and buying one ski mask. After that, going to “Claire’s” [a preteen girls' accessory story] to buy a headband. 2 guys (Chris didn’t wanna walk in w/ us) in the middle of all these tweens, to buy one black headband. lol
Those were the only things we had to buy, the rest we had lying around, and the costume was taking shape!
Trying on the mask, ears, and cape for the first time at the office.
The final costume ready to go the night before! The great thing about making a crappy costume is that, we didn’t have to try to make a good costume. If it looked bad, “it’s ok, it’s supposed to!”
Chris used the extra materials to make a ghetto Robin. lol
Cheap Batman, and some weird Robin, TEAM UP!
One thing that has to be stressed is how awesome the crowd at Comic Con was. Everyone had such a good attitude. We literally went up to strangers and asked them to act for us and they were all down and friendly. Even finding the daughter at the end was relatively easy. So this is just one big dedication to the group of people who enjoy comics…because they’re way cool!
