I attended Anime Los Angeles (ALA) for the first time this year, and had an extremely fun time. It was by far the best small/medium convention I’ve attended in a long time, and I look forward to attending again next year.
Travel
Because the convention hotel is less than a mile from LAX, early on I made the decision to fly down instead of driving. I’ve always hated the long, boring drive down I-5, followed by fighting through LA traffic while navigating a maze of freeways, so flying seemed like a much better option. As the date got closer, though, I began to worry. The attempted Christmas-day attack and the sheer amount of camera/lighting gear I wanted to bring down started to worry me. Could I make it all fit? Would I spent hours trying to get through security?
When it came time to pack, I dragged out our biggest suitcase, and found that the lighting gear exactly fit in there, while leaving just enough extra space for clothes for me for four days. I also managed to (barely) fit all the camera gear I wanted into my rolling camera bag, including my brand-new Canon 70-200 f/4L IS USM lens that I had received a few days prior as a birthday present. After the issues flying to Dragon*Con, I remembered to pack items that security may flag (wrench, flash bracket, etc) into my checked suitcase.
Flying turned out to be pretty painless. All my bags went through x-ray once, I did not get pulled aside for a secondary screening, and nothing got stolen. My flight out to LAX was delayed, but so was the previous flight, so Southwest rebooked me without even being asked, and I ended up arriving earlier than my original flight. On the flight back, things went so smoothly I ended up waiting at the gate for two hours for my flight. This was my first time flying Southwest, and I was very happy with the experience.
Hotel
I took the free shuttle from LAX to the hotel. When I arrived at the hotel, check-in was painless, and then I took a look around. All the indoor areas had low, white-color ceilings, perfect for ceiling bounce flash. Ceiling bounce is my favorite way to soften my on-camera flash, and works great for hallway cosplay photography, but it’s frequently not an option. Fanime, for example, has 20+ foot high ceilings, making ceiling bounce impractical.
In addition to the lobby & convention areas, the hotel had a pool deck with lots of trees, a bridge, and a stream, and a separate patio area. This was great for shoots in the evenings after the photo room had closed.
Overall, the hotel was not too bad. It was a Marriott, which in my book ranks below Hyatt and Hilton, but I’ve seen so much worse. The staff were generally friendly and helpful (even though Hotel Security looked very nervous when surrounded by cosplayers). I did get pulled aside once the first night and asked by Security whether the convention had permission to be taking photos (I, of course, said yes), but that was very minor. The food in the hotel restaurants ranged from pretty good to excellent, but the service was awful. From getting orders wrong, to slow refills, to generally poor service, it was what I would expect at Denny’s, not at a business-class hotel. It was overpriced, too, but that’s expected for hotel restaurants.
Convention
I was extremely impressed with how well the convention was organized and run. I skipped the masquerade due to the long line & general exhaustion, so I can’t speak to that, but everything I did attend or participate in went well. There were some glitches, of course, but they were dealt with efficiently and with a minimum of fuss. Even registration, which is normally the bane of any convention, was very painless, and was immediately followed by ice cream for everyone who arrived Thursday evening, making for a great first impression.
It seems that other people were fairly happy too. At the end-of-convention “gripes”/how-can-we-do-better panel, a lot of valid suggestions were raised; however, they were, for the most part, relatively minor. I do not recall any complaints about major issues or disasters, and, somewhat unusually for this type of panel, there were a number of compliments.
Due to my photography schedule, I only attended one panel, on how not to run an Anime Convention. I was struck by how much running an Anime Convention is like running a small business/start-up. From the financial discipline, to the people management, to project management, the skills required are very similar. I think I ended up learning a bit on how to better run my business at that panel. The end of the panel also featured a hilarious story about cups, which I really regret not recording. Hopefully someone else who was recording will post the video soon.
Photography
Of course, what would a convention be without photography? I had several photography goals for ALA.
First, I wanted to exercise my new 70-200 lens as much as possible, to see if it works well for both hallway photography and shoots. I brought my 24-105, just in case it didn’t work out, but I never used it. In fact, since I didn’t go to the masquerade (and thus didn’t need my 100-300), the 70-200 was the only lens I used the entire convention. That did make some hallway large-group shot a bit awkward, but other than that I was incredibly happy with it. Wide-angle hallway shots generally do not look that great, and using this lens prevented me from making that mistake, forcibly improving my hallway photography.
Second, I wanted to test out my second PocketWizard receiver by doing two-flash shoots. With some help from Bekalou, Hellangel, and Blueskad00, I was able to accomplish this. I put the first flash in my softbox and put it on a light stand. I put the BigBounce on the second flash, and had one of my lighting assistants hold it in position. This worked out well because Bekalou was cosplaying different series from everyone else, so there was always someone not in the shot who could hold the second flash. The dual flash photos turned out beautifully; so much so it’s hard for me to look at the photos from my single-flash photoshoots. I look forward to more two-flash shoots in the future!
Finally, I wanted to get better at posing cosplayers. I think I did better than in the past — I provided more posing feedback and suggestions than at previous convention shoots — but I think I still have a lot of room to improve in this area.
ALA was also the first time I requested model releases from cosplayers in photoshoots. (I didn’t ask for model releases for hallway photos.) I chose a short, half-page model release, designed to be easy to read and not scary. I was pleasantly surprised that only one person expressed any serious concerns about it, and everyone signed it.
Wrap Up
I had a great time at the convention, in no small part due to the very fun people I sent time with. Many thanks to all the cosplayers who let me take their photos, and an especially big round of thanks to everyone who booked shoots with me ahead of time. Extra super giant thanks to Bekalou, Hellangel, Athena, and Blueskadoo, for holding flashes, helping me move my lighting gear, and generally helping out! I’m already looking forward to next year!
