In June, I had a fun time shooting production stills and behind the scenes images of the AARP/ESA Social Connection GameJam finale, which took place during the 2016 E3 Expo in downtown Los Angeles. Taking a cue from Shark Tank, the show pitted the top three groups of contestant teams against one another as they took turns pitching the video games they’d invented to a panel of judges. Most of the judges held some standing in the world of gaming, such as Robin Hunicke, Sid Meier and Freddie Wong, which I’m sure was very exciting for these young developers. Not a gamer myself, I was more excited that the celebrity judge was the none other than John Ratzenberger, the creator of everyone’s favorite bar know-it-all, Cliff Claven, and who also happens to have voiced a character in every single Pixar film to date. I realize, unfortunately, that despite being a spry 37-year-old, being excited about this puts me in the category of people AARP was trying to appeal to by adding him to the panel. I doubt most of the contestants, who are current college students, knew who he was, as they were — if even born yet — probably crying in their cribs on the Thursday nights I was watching Cheers with the family. I’m sure they recognized his voice at least. Anyway, I didn’t let that thought bother me and enjoyed watching the students sweat it out in front of the cameras before the winners, Trainwreck Games from UC Santa Cruz, were presented with their $10k prize. Click Continue Reading to check out more images from the shoot.
