Soundbites

I joined the good folks of the Game Developers Conference last night to do some videotaping for the upcoming GDC Awards. We met up at the Metreon, a building I know well and am quite fond of (because it’s owned by Sony, and it’s architecturally interesting and modern). The Gamer Nation folks were doing the session, and they were great. Gamer Nation is a local, San Francisco Bay-area videogame show.
It’s been awhile since I’ve done any video interviews, so I was a bit nervous about it, but they were quite pro in the way they worked. They put me through a little hair and make-up (a good thing), then Jamil and I warmed up a bit out by the catwalk on the 2nd floor. Then we basically just ran through the questions Susan Marshall had sent us out ahead of time. What I discovered is that I’m not very soundbite-friendly! At least, not by default. I like to go into detail and explain my vision of things. Kerry-itis, perhaps you could call it. 😉
Back when I was doing Landmark stuff, one of the exercises we used to do was practicing speaking in front of a mirror. That’s powerfully helpful, and I’ll do that again when we get close to GDC this year. It’s so useful to become comfortable with what you look like speaking, and also to practice your responses so that you know what the heck you’re going to say! I had written out some thoughts on my responses but they weren’t exactly at my fingertips.
It was pretty fun even though I was a bit rambly. And going out with Susan, Jamil, and Chris Melissinos afterward for dinner at the XYZ Bar was pretty damn fun too. Guess I should have taken some pictures. Sorry about that! 🙂