This is my Friend Sara's pictures and round up of what happened at the Eclipse Premier. She was kind enough to share some of her Gorgeous Pictures with us for our viewing pleasure. Im not gonna cry but i was supposed to be there but thats another story. So Enjoy and please dont remove tags Love Alma
Can we say LUCKY MUCH??? i was supposed to be there:( OMG being just inches from him *sigh* no *THUD* i would have fainted maybe its a good idea i didnt go. lol
I want this
And this too.... well the chair. the wax Rob is freaky. lol
You ever have those moments in your life when you stop and think…holy fucking hell I’m actually standing in the middle of the biggest thing I can imagine and… I’m not dreaming.
Yeah, this is exactly what happened to me.
Like everyone else who logs on to twitter under a name that has anything to do with Stephenie Meyer’s world of vampires and werewolves, I am a devout, overly obsessed, sometimes borderline insane fan of this series and the movies. No, I’m not fourteen and yes, I’ll freely admit that I’m 28 and don’t give a flying fuck. This world of Twilight has grown beyond the little letters of YA that were stamped on the spine of the books all those years ago. Twilight is a community of people who share a love of these stories, the characters, the movies and the actors. But most importantly of all we are a community of people who care about each other and simply share a common enjoyment.
My love of Twilight dates back to the movies. Seeing the trailer for the first movie only months before the cast appeared at Comic Con in 2008 sparked my desire to read the stories.
Now, two years later, I’m a 24/7 Twihard who reads, writes, and breathes all things Edward, Bella and the gang. Going to the premieres is nothing short of second nature to me now. It’s just assumed, if the cast is going to be some place near where I live, I make arrangements to see them.
There’s this thing that happens to you when you enter a fandom. When you give up your individuality and join a group or community. People on the outside of that group look at you and call you strange. People scratch their heads and wonder why you are willing to give up comfort and showers for six days just to see people who are famous. Well see, that’s just the thing, that’s not what we are doing at all.
I arrived in Los Angeles on Friday, June 18th at two in the morning. My travel buddy and partner in obsession, @Rosalie_Black, and I slept in several parking lots that morning. I’ll admit, the first stage of Eclipse Premiere 2010 was …lacking in comfort… and possibly lacking in sanity, but we had a plan and we were sticking to it. We had stood in line for the New Moon premiere for five straight days. We were bound and determined to stand in line longer for this premiere if we had to.
After getting a little bit of shut eye in parking lots ranging from Anaheim to West Wood, we finally ended up in the downtown L.A. area in the afternoon and scoped out the location of where the “camping” area would be. At that time it was thought that we would get our wristbands on Monday and then we wouldn’t have to return until the day of the premiere. On Sunday night we, like everyone else wanting a coveted plastic band around their wrist, started circling the location of the wristband distribution area. Once a line was formed we did what everyone does at every Twilight event.
We waited.
Six hours was better than five days, right? We got in line a little after midnight and the official time of distribution of wristbands was set for six am. Regardless of whether or not we would be required to camp, we would have a guaranteed place at the premiere once the band was on our wrist.
At six am, the security team started escorting people over in groups of twenty starting from the front of the line.
Now…here’s where my defense of the Twilight nation being made up of people over the age of twelve dissolves. When the line moves ten feet, that doesn’t mean people from the back of the line should suddenly just start running and trying to cut the line to get a better position. I will rant right now..ignore me if you want. But what the fuck gives anyone the slightest inclination to do something like that is beyond me. If you want to be first in line, get your ass in line sooner. If you don’t want the security guards to scream in your face for you to get your ass back in line where it were before you ran…don’t get your ass out of line to begin with. Okay? Okay. So, after the security guard told everyone in line that he had until Thursday to hand out wristbands and that he could wait until then for people to get back to where they belonged in line, we were all back on track.
I would like to, again, thank the SEM security team for all of their hard work. They kept us safe, but also took care of us when people acted stupid.
So, I finally had my band on my wrist and then we were led into the “holding area”, tent city, camp ground, whatever you want to call it. I called it home for the next week. It’s really funny, how easily people at Twi events are just…comfortable with each other. It’s like Twilight is a family history and we are just coming together for a family reunion. We set up tents and chairs—recognizing people we had stood in line with at the New Moon premiere. Seeing people with familiar twitter names and blogs that we all read on a daily basis. You didn’t feel unsafe to leave your possessions in your tent and head down to Starbucks for some coffee. No one in the camp ground was going to bother it. Why would we? We all respected each other’s space and yet wanted to sit and talk to each other about the places we had visited. Wanted find out about the places they were going.
I was standing in line at Starbucks and met a fanficiton reader because she read my backpack and saw that my penname was on it. We talked about different fics, each name coming from us sparking a connection with finding someone who finally just understood the language you were speaking. She told me she lived on the other side of the country from me but here we were, standing in a coffee shop and talking fic like it was the latest headline in the paper. Outside on the street people were cheering the Lakers and their accomplishments in basketball, inside the tent barricades we were a city of Twilight. Wolf girls howled whenever the ten second trailer for Eclipse played on the big screen. People stopped and took pictures of posters that we had hanging on the sides of our tents.
It was a little world of Twidom tucked in the middle of a busy intersection of tourists.
The oddity that is a fandom is never lost on me. I know when I camp out for the midnight showing of a movie that people will walk past me and ask what I’m waiting for. If you don’t know why the line is there, you won’t find the reason all that interesting once you do know. I’ve been in lines for Twilight related events since before people knew what Twilight was. Waiting at the first Comic Con was fun. Seven thousand Twilighters stunned the rest of the Comic Con patrons with our dedication. But everyone knew why we were camped out this past week. People came by the plaza specifically to gawk at the line. You would rise with the sun at seven am and find people standing outside the barricades holding up their phones to take a picture of the tent city. You would be sitting in the scorching hot sun every afternoon and find reporters with hand held cameras zooming in on the inside of your tent. No one was ever mean or intrusive about it. In fact for the most part it was kind of funny. It didn’t feel odd to any of us to be “living” there. I couldn’t understand the appeal of having to take a picture of yourself in front of a sea of tents if you had no desire to be in it. But then…I started to realize something.
Twilight is more than a phenomenon like the commercials want to label it. Twilight in a moment in history. Maybe twenty years from now the next big thing will come along and Twilight will join the ranks of Trek to be just that community of over zealous fans who know what make and model of car Edward drove (the silver, shiny, S60r Volvo to be exact) but right now we were camping in the eye of the storm. The premiere of this next movie was going to be huge and those of us camped out in the blistering sun and having our pictures taken without showering for days on end, were a part of movie history in some small way.
Throughout the week there were companies that took advantage of the free publicity offered by our tent city. Vitamin water, Twilight Beauty and Burger King were former supporters with the New Moon premiere. Burger King went as far as handing out free tents to campers who did not have tents to sleep in.
On Tuesday night, Summit surprised the camp ground with a viewing of New Moon. Like stepping back in to my childhood and feeling like I was at the local drive in, I sat in my lawn chair right outside my tent and watched the movie with my fellow campers. We all whooped for each character’s arrival. Booed and hissed when Edward left. Wolf girls howled when the wolves arrived. And we all took pictures of the screen when Edward took his shirt off in Volterra.
The next morning at six am was rise and shine and move your tent time. The camp ground had been set up on the location of the black carpet for the premiere. We were all moved to a secondary camp ground in the street behind the Nokia for the last day of camping. We moved and we went back to sleep. Then at eight am I was awakened to the sound of people running and shouting “Boo Boo is here.”
Great. I looked like a freaking zombie and my hair was standing on end. But hell if I wasn’t going to head out and try to see if I could see him.
People often ask me why I want to go to these things. Why is it so important to me to meet the actors in person. There is a big portion of me that just wants to fangirl in person. To some extent we all do. You spend your time thinking about performers, obsessing over the work that they do. You want to meet them in person. Affirm that they are real. But mostly, I just want to thank them. I feel that by coming out and meeting them in person, showing up and screaming for them at the red carpet, I am showing them my support.
It’s like sports fans in the bleachers, I want them to know that I appreciate what they have done and that I support them in what they do. This cast is amazing. They are talented, compassionate, caring people. Most of them do charity work and donate their money and time to help others. If for a few minutes I can stand out there and make them feel like all that they do is worth it, then I’ll stand out there for a week many times over.
We were shocked and amazed to get to meet not only Boo Boo, but also Tinsel, Julia, Billy, Peter, Jackson and Charlie that day. They came down to the camp ground and signed autographs, posed for pictures and just said thank you to all of us fans willing to camp out for their premiere. Jackson even handed out burgers for Burger King while he signed autographs. Surprisingly that was not the most surreal part of the week for me. Though having him hand me one and call me darlin’ while he did was up there in the unfuckingbelievable hall of fame.
After that it was time to just break your stuff down and go get some rest. We were given times for each section of wristbands to return to be lined up for the barricades. We broke our tents down, those of us who had hotel rooms or who lived in town, and headed off to get some rest before the big day.
I was full of nervous energy all day when I got there Thursday morning. I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. You are never guaranteed your location. Where you will end up is all luck really. Our friends told us about a 100 Monkeys after show at the Roxy that night so we purchased our tickets for the show while standing in line for the barricades. I figured if all I got out of this week was the experience from the day before and getting to see the premiere and then the concert after I would be happy.
Let me tell you, happy was never an option—once I was led to my spot next to the edge of the barricade I was ready to die from elation. We were standing at the homestretch. The one spot that regardless of where they went before the theater, everyone who was going into the theater had to walk past us. And they did.
Everyone from the Dancing with the Stars dancers to Lance Bass passed by us. Everyone stopped to say hi, sign our posters and when they could take pictures. The stars made a point to head across the street and show some love to the people in the bleacher seats set up away from the black carpet. There was no fan excluded from some sort of connection to the actors that night.
Like kids wandering through a parade of lights at Christmas and pointing to our favorite displays as they caught our eyes—we would squeal and jump up and down as the celebs exited their limos and waved to the crowd. Jackson, Peter, Kellan, Ashley, Elizabeth, Bronson, Julia, Tinsel, Boo Boo, Cameron…you name them, they were there. And we got to say hi to them.
When Stephenie Meyer turned the corner and made a point to say hi to us, I really couldn’t help but shake my head at the monumental moment. This woman truly ruined and gave purpose to my life. Not ruined in the literal sense of me becoming some Greek tragedy, but ruined as in derailing any other future than one that included Twilight in it. And because of her words I had met some of the truest friends I would ever have. I talk to hundreds of people everyday because of what she started when she wrote that first book about the teenage girl and her sparkly boyfriend. And here we were. Looking each other in the eye.
Wow.
Now, I’ve met Mr. Pattinson a few times. Actually had a chance to look him in the eye and say thanks. So I am very familiar with that thing that happens when he shows up somewhere. Don’t get me wrong, when Kristen and Taylor show up people know. People scream. You see people follow them down the line and excitement is in the air over their arrival.
But nothing….I mean literally NOTHING compares to what happens in a place when he arrives.
Call it some form of celebrity induced psychosis. Call it hype that you know will die down eventually as the Twi movies get completed and he moves on to do projects that have less to do with making money and more to do with his true talent. But when Rob shows up, the air tingles with pure energy. I know. I know, I’m a fangirl and I’m an Edward-a-holic and I kind of a teeny, tiny crush on the guy. But it’s true.
When Kristen arrives you hear the crowd scream.
When Taylor arrives the screams get louder and the fangirls start to cry.
When Rob arrives…hell breaks out.
You don’t even have to tell me he’s there… I can look up and see the swarm of people surrounding him to protect him and hear the next level of screech coming from the fans to know he’s over there.
So as to where Xavier stopped and took pictures with fans and signed autographs, Rob just walks by with his Sharpie in hand and writes an R on anything in front of him. If you are lucky, you get him in a spot where he has a second to lean over and you can snap a quick picture with him in the general area of your face but for the most part it is letter R, letter R, letter R…and so on until he’s pulled back to he press and then returned to the fans again. Let me break it down for you- there were five hundred of us given wristbands on Monday morning and required to camp all week. We were the fans in the barricades along the red carpet. There were an additional three to four hundred people given wristbands by Tuesday who were also required to camp out and they filled up the bleaches across the street. By the end of the week, even the standing room only people who were standing across the street behind the bleachers had to have wristbands and we heard reports that the total number of us the Twilighters who were in attendance in all three groups neared the two thousand mark.
Two thousand.
There were at least, two thousand of us who just came out to see the actors as they walked in to the theater. And this guy, tried to sign a letter R for each and every one of us.
That’s not saying that all the actors didn’t try to do that. But Rob, Taylor and Kristen make a point to get through as many of us as they can in the short three or so hours that the black carpet part of the premiere runs. I can’t even imagine what it is like for them after they finally exit the carpet area. It’s intense to be in the middle of it. You no sooner thank one celeb than you see the next one coming around the corner. You don’t have time to downshift from talking to Stephenie Meyer before you are telling Heather Morris that Glee is a great show and she’s amazing on it. But Rob, Kristen, and Taylor have two thousand screaming, excited fans in their face with one expectation…give me proof that I met you.
And they deliver.
Somewhere towards the middle of the event the SEM security guards started quietly handing out tickets to certain rows of the stands. Eventually, all of the people who camped out all week to see the premiere were given tickets to go inside and watch Eclipse. I don’t know if it was ever an intention for Summit to supply us all with tickets. I do believe it was a very generous and gracious gift for the company to present to the fans. We were all standing there dressed in out Twilight attire from head to toe. Eating Burger King to get the toys from the kids meals and rushing off to report on the happenings on our blogs, twitter and other fansites. Giving us all tickets to see the movie a few days early was really an easy way to say thanks. But also a very huge and over whelming way too. I had just spent six hours meeting all of these big names and faces and now I was going to be sitting next to them while we watched this movie.
*insert gulp here*
One problem, you were not allowed to take in your autographed posters, cameras, or phones. So…I missed the first twenty minutes of the movie checking all of those things at customer service with all of the other fellow campers.
I won’t spoil anything about the movie other than to say I loved it. It captured the essence of the book, much like the previous two movies had. It also had a bigger budget and felt more like a blockbuster summer movie. I didn’t pay much attention to the movie though. I rather spent my time just looking around the room.
I was sitting at the world premiere of a movie. Not just any movie but the latest movie in a series that rules my life. I eat, breathe and live Twilight and here I was…sitting at the pinnacle of Twilight events for the moment. Sure, you could pay to go to a convention and meet some of the cast. I’ve done that several times. You could sit out in line for Hottopic and get autographs from other members of the cast, yeah been there. Hell, I’ve even been to Summer School in Forks. But nothing is as big as the premiere. It’s where the movie is “born”. Where the world finally gets to see it. People camped out for six days just to see people walk into this room, and here I was… one of the people sitting in this room.
I think that was the coolest moment of surrealism for me. We retrieved our checked items and headed down to the Roxy afterwards to end the night was some awesome music and an awesome band but nothing could beat the overall combination of everything coming together like that.
That moment in your life when you sit back and just see yourself from outside of your body and can’t believe you are actually experiencing what you are experiencing.
Unfuckingbelievable.
We stopped off in Hollywood the next day to end the trip off with a visit to Madame Tussaud’s and a hug with the wax Robert Pattinson.
I’m still trying to come back down to earth. Trying to get back in to my rhythm of daily life. But mostly, just trying to stop pinching myself and accept that that really happened. My mind just can’t wrap around it.
Just like a kid at Christmas…my eyes just keep twinkling looking at the signatures and pictures that are reminders of the most amazing week of my life.
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