Film lovers like Keep Youth Doing Something’s dance teacher Andrea Rodrigruez, came together to participate in various activities and watch a screening of the “Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III” at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School’s (DPMHS) first Pearlapalooza.
“It has a fun atmosphere with a diverse range of people and activities,” said Milo Boyriven, a freshman at Calabasas High School. “Although relatively small, there’s plenty of room for everyone there.”
Pearlapalooza, an event sponsored by the Parent-Teacher Student Association (PTSA), was held on May 31 in place of PearlCon, an annual school event. The event was similar to ComicCon and featured various comic book showings, vendors and cosplay. PearlCon will no longer be held at DPMHS due to the Los Angeles Unified School District no longer approving the event due to stricter policies regarding what vendors and events they let into their schools.
For Pearlapalooza, students and staff made a group effort to showcase the departments of DPMHS through different activities offered, including math, video and photography competitions. The music and video departments hosted workshops to teach students how to play on instruments such as the guitar and live-stream events. Additionally, the music department’s students performed live covers of songs, including “Do I Wanna Know” by the Arctic Monkeys, “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5 and “Chest Pain” by Malcolm Todd in the grove.
“It was a success on many levels. The biggest success that there was is that we got it to happen and we’ll make it better next year,” music teacher Wes Hambright said.
Pearlapaloozas also included a raffle, face painting and a basketball toss carnival game. General events occurred from 2 to 6:30 p.m. At the end, raffle and competition winners were announced, the former receiving gift baskets with items like candy and books and the latter receiving gift cards for fast-food restaurant “In n’ Out.”
“Pearlapalooza was my first impression of Daniel Pearl and it blew away all of my expectations,” said Eliot Wolynez, a freshman at Cleveland Humanities Magnet High School. “During the event, I got to witness a warm community working together to make the event special and it really paid off.”
An online auction offered more than 30 items, including theme park tickets, original “Star Wars” episode sketches and Funko Pops. At 7 p.m., a showing of “Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III” was followed by a panel featuring director of Star Wars Robot Chicken episode three Chris Mckay, fabricator & customer Becky Van Cleave, editor Garet Elkins, DPMHS’s video production teacher and Star Wars Robot Chicken episode three animator Tennessee Reid Norton and head of character fabrication Rob Ronning.
“The screening of ‘Robot Chicken’ was really funny,” Rodriguez said. “I loved the animation and being able to hear from the creators of the show themselves, it was fun and interesting.”
