Unfortunately, this is what the producers of these shows think the audience wants. They think the audience wants to watch people arguing over how to do something rather than actually doing it.
Obviously there is an audience for these argument shows. But couldn’t they also make some shows that aren’t thinly disguised soap operas?
You know, something just occurred to me. Maybe they were too afraid it would be just like Face Off, which, let’s face it, is about makeup and costumes. Personally, I think the convention aspect makes it different enough from that other show to distinguish itself. I imagine that the pitch for HoC probably played up the different conventions and cities and drama. Face Off is refreshingly free of drama, maybe SyFy felt they had to have their other costume show be full of it
In the cons I have seen, while they do have rules about that stuff, there is typically a caveat about [del]Masquerade[/del] Cosplay Contest and getting approval. They could have gone to the staff and sought approval for their design, limiting it to the performance, and demonstrating it. Of course that would require completing ahead of time. Or they could have done it and then been told after the fact that was technically a violation. We did not see anyone discussing or looking at the rules as the constraint. We saw a guy struggling with a design concept, and coming up with a completely different design concept.
It is possible the rules were a factor and edited out, but it is also possible the rules were not a factor, it was a struggle to come up with a working design. I do not see how a home-rigged air tank fired petal cannon would be substantially different if the air canister was that bread-loaf-sized tank, a CO[sub]2[/sub] cartridge, a balloon, or if the bellows were hidden in her armpit and she squeezed it herself.
Sure, there might be a distinction for the projectile force. But he didn’t say his problem was limiting the projectile force to be within bounds. His problem was “not blowing up on her”.
That is sadly true, so much so that they edit the shows to create those kinds of dramas and they often jigger contests to keep more “interesting” characters around longer. The sad part is they may be right. Lots of these shows are intensely popular.
The closest I have seen is Face Off. I did not watch season 1, but since then, the show has focused on the construction interactions and the judging on merits. The judges definitely focus on the results, and only point out personality issues from the standpoint of “Wow, you guys need to be more professional”. The personality issues get shown only to the extent they play in the results. When a team is at odds and cannot work together, that shows in the results that look disjointed and often incomplete.
Cosplay? Why not just call it what it really is, playing dress-up.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that (unless you take it to obsessive levels, as people on this show clearly do) but damn, stop inventing new terms that don’t have to be invented.
Cosplay is an Englishization of an originally Japanese word, where combining two abbreviated words to form a new word is common.
They should have gone to a magic supply store. “Make Flower Petals shoot out my sleeve” seems like something any decent magician could figure out for her.
It refers to a specific subgenre of fandom that is distinct from just dressing up. Most little kids playing dress up don’t create their own costumes from scratch or act like the characters they represent. Would you call rice and wheat just lettuce without differentiation?
Well, I saw the recent episode and then I decided to read this thread and was kind of surprised/interested to read about how the drama was overplayed, because at least in the episode I saw it didn’t seem to be that bad. I get the impression I happened to see an episode where it was muted.
“Playing dress up” is three words, cosplay is one word. It’s easier to say and easier to remember and easier to use.
Also, do you call it “playing dress up” when you go to a costume party? Trick or treating?
What about going to a Renaissance Festival? Is that “playing dress up”?
Some would argue the word was needed. They’re the ones using the word.
I’ve never seen it, but just read this article from one of the “real” (ie non reality TV) cosplayers - is it a fair representation of what happened?
It’s difficult to say because we only know what we were shown, which was some peole in the crowd shouting and the Dr. Who girl(s) getting all snippy, the reality Cosplayers crying and asking why can’t we all get along. Having said that it seems to me a lot of what she said is probably true, but there is a touch of sour grapes as well in her comments. The reality show contestants do make their own costumes, yet one of the “bad” girls said they didn’t even make their costumes, which is what I think upset the reality girls so much. They do work with larger budgets, but what are you going to do? Also, the reality cosplayers were not the only ones who had elaborate costumes, it didn’t seem to me like there were a bunch of lowly local teams with $50 in their pocket, and then the two Super teams.
Finally, its kind of funny that she kind of mockingly talks about how the group competition was only created for the show in the first place and then complains about the reality players from the show being there.
Well that does explain why the Fae group was so highly regarded. Their costumes looked very basic and the skit wasn’t anything interesting, but I guess they were well-known as a local performing group.
Well… yeah. But then, playing dress up isn’t a passion of mind and I don’t feel any need to try to validate it by changing the terminology.
I don’t really have anything against cosplay. But if I was putting together a Halloween costume or dressing up for a Ren Faire, I wouldn’t call it “cosplay”.
Wow, that’s a pretty damning writeup. As far as what we saw in the episode last night, it does present a different side of things. We did see Syfy placing the Dr. Who girls as villains, heckling one of the other girls in Yaya’s group. Creative editing made her seem like a total bitch, but I’m glad I have the other side now. I’m sure the truth is somewhere in between, but “reality” shows have serious issues with misleading viewers. I actually talked to a friend of some of the “Heroes” last night (she plays the same MMO I do and is in our guild) and she said Syfy’s fake drama is largely staged.
The article by the Dr. Who girl did touch upon something I think is less known, and that is at the Anime Expo at least, and I’m sure it applies to the bigger cons, they have separate awards for professional and amateur, and even different levels of amateur (some places don’t allow professionals).
For instance, Anime Expo used to allow professionals years ago because the market for professional cosplayers were so small. When it started getting bigger, they instituted rules that said you couldn’t have been paid for any cosplaying, that the competition is for amateurs only. Within amateurs, they have 3 ranks: novice, intermediate, and expert, and all 3 are awarded prizes. Because Syfy skipped that and the Dr. Who girl talked about it, I’m more inclined to believe her side of things
If you had to enter a competition based on costumes you made, or work for a company wearing costumes you designed, would you still just call it dress up?
Apparently last night was the last episode? Even with the faked drama, I’m still happy to see a niche genre I enjoy get shown on TV. Plus, Yaya’s pretty hot so there’s that too.
It seems like people are getting sick or injured all the time. Last week was the girl who was allergic to wool and this week was one girl in Yaya’s group and Becky who slept with her contacts in. I’ve done that before and it does hurt like hell, but usually when you take it out, your eyes get better within an hour.
I really wonder how much they exaggerated Yaya’s crown falling off, they made it seem like everyone was TOTALLY SHOCKED and it was a VERY BIG DEAL but that kind of thing happens all the time. We’re talking about most cosplayers who sew and craft in their spare time, so audiences are used to seeing these things. We just laugh at move on but Syfy had to include that in the previews and put a commercial break right after it (and come back from commercial to a replay of it and Yaya talking about it). Oh please, just pick it up and move on :rolleyes:
I’m surprised that the Iron Men group didn’t win anything, maybe Syfy doesn’t want to give Disney/Marvel any extra publicity. Those costumes looked really well done though, I would be surprised if they had not gotten anything at the convention.
By the way, the same girl I talked to about the manufactured drama also confirmed that a lot of the crowd shots are indeed from Anime Expo. Too bad they couldn’t get an episodes around that convention, they can get more than enough footage for another 6 episodes from that. Hell, the Masquerade itself has about 50 entries so there’s plenty of footage (there was also a wedding proposal too!), and there are like 3 different costume contests.
If that was the last episode, I hope they make more, but eliminate a lot of the bullshit stuff. What the girl said was true, cosplay is mostly about fun even if some people do it for a living. I’ve seen fat people cosplay as skinny ones and for the most part, people are respectful and fine with it. And maybe this was simply a small-town inferiority complex thing, but nobody at Anime Expo bitches about out-of-towners because LA is huge and everybody’s from somewhere. We’ll have people from Japan in our competition so I hope people who watched last night didn’t get the impression that cosplayers are that territorial. We’re all just here to have fun and wear pointy elf ears, no need for drama or backstabbing
Okay, I watched the finale last night. First off, I have to say Jinyo rocks. He knows his place in his relationship, he’s comfortable with it, and he came up with a totally cool way to propose to his girlfriend, something that she could definitely appreciate. Way kewl.
Thanks for that article. It is good to see the other perspective. What we were shown was a heavily edited sample tilted to cast the “heroes” in the best light. I certainly buy that the producers were pushing the angle that they saw develop from the locals. “Hey, someone is annoyed with our gang, let’s play that up!” And it’s interesting that the prizes are amped up by the show, and the “performance” angle was pushed on the con. Good to know. That helps explain why all the other performances were so lackluster.
I have heard of performances as part of the cosplay. I’ve seen groups pull skits, including the soundtracks and recorded audio. Most I’ve seen were very low quality, or just goofy stuff that didn’t make sense to me (Get off my lawn!). That said, the performance element is not out of left field. But that doesn’t mean that the performances were a required element from this convention’s group contest before.
I can understand the convention agreeing to be part of the show, and then having to require competition entrants sign permission to be used on the TV show.
I do understand a bit about the locals’ feelings on that. They don’t get to travel around the country attending lots of conventions. Their local convention is their one shot to show off their skills and have their fun. Being up against professional costumers is a bit unfair. My familiarity with how contests are run is limited, but most do use a scale of competition so competitors are ranked by skill level and compete within those skill groups. Best In Show may be most likely to go to the Expert level, but there are prizes for amateur and journeyman as well.
I know if I pulled together a costume and wanted to show it off at the convention, I would be intimidated by the rules asking about who made what and all that. I’m not a tailor or anything. My costume would definitely be an assemblage, probably consisting of things bought from other people. If I went all out, I could conceivably have a prop or two that I made and/or modified, but most likely it would just be the right combination of things I bought/found. Display on stage would be for the fun of showing off, but being quizzed on how it was made and all that would scare me off. Then realizing that my competition is a professional costuming group that makes movie props, and travels around the country to lots of conventions to compete? Yeah, I’d kinda think that unfair, too.
I think what she was saying is that the convention had a group competition separate from the individual competition, but SyFy came in and convinced the convention to make the group competition also require a presentation element, and judge on the competition part.
I enjoyed both their presentations. I could definitely see the effort that went into choreographing the Atlanta groups. It really was no contest from what we were shown on the performance angle. I thought the Crabcat group had a good presentation that looked great and well organized and did not reflect the characterization that they had not had time to rehearse. Great skit, great props, great flow of motion.
And yes, the show oversold the element of the crown falling off. I’m sure Yaya was embarrassed by it, but she really did the only thing she could - pick it back up, turn around, and put it back on while the Alice part was happening.
As far as “drama”, there was also the element of all the ladies going out together for drinks the night before, despite the fact that they all had tons of work, so they could hang out and then have that serious conversation about Monika’s comments. So Yaya could weigh in.
I enjoyed seeing the skills in trying to put together costumes, and make them accurate. I enjoyed the competition bits. I wish the show producers would make it more documentary and less stilted. I much more enjoy “this is what we’re doing and this is how we’re doing it” rather than “Oh my god I’ve only got five days to pull together the most awesome costume ever, when will I sleep? And now my prop cannon isn’t working, and I just don’t have time. Ack! I’ll have to use commercial horns gasp! My reputation will be ruined!”
What exactly does your negative opinion on cosplayers and unwillingness to read multiple explanations have to do with the show?
This isn’t just playing dress-up, it’s a series of regular contests with prize money. Competitive car driving is called racing. Competitive running is called track. So it’s not unusual for a special word to be used when a hobby becomes competitive. And, even using your example, dressing up on Halloween is called trick-or-treating, and dressing up on a stage is called theatre. The language does allow for specialized uses.
On other comments above: TV producers of “reality” shows always seem to focus on the conflicts, they think it’s more interesting. And (alas) the conflicts in some of these competitive shows is almost always time-management. I think every episode of Project Runway or Face Off involves someone in tears because they’re running out of time. It gets old, fast.
I also note that most of these cosplayers (and Face Off constestants) are trying to break into professional make-up/costuming, so I imagine that they would not allow filming of their professional tricks and secrets.
“Cosplay” was created by the anime crowd, all the kiddoes trying to be hip and edgy. There was already a grown up word for the activity - costuming. But cosplay is catching on, especially for the contests, because they’re trying to denote the difference between a “costume contest” where costumes are any old throw together, and the kind of activity that emphasizes the craft of building the costumes (all that sewing and hand crafting) plus involves a demonstration of the outfit on stage that involves an element of stagecraft, i.e. the presentation side, the performance as the character. The SF community had latched on to the term “Masquerade” for that activity, but to me, that was always a misleading title.
But don’t worry, if costuming isn’t your passion, the kiddoes aren’t playing on your lawn.
We’ve watched a couple of episodes now - I think I like it. I hated Yaya Han at first, but I have to admit, she does some excellent costumes that aren’t just about her incredibly overstuffed boobs. It was interesting seeing the discussion between the n00b (Chloe Dykstra) and the experienced, hardened old hands. Should cosplay be for fun, or should it be as serious as they make it out to be? I get that the old hands are using cosplay as a stepping stone to careers in these types of industries, but shouldn’t there still be some fun involved?
There’s a lot of stressing out over deadlines and the rush jobs to do good quality work in little time. How real versus artificially structured for the show I’m not certain.
By the finale they do make nods to the idea that it should primarily be about fun, whatever else is going on.
Unfortunately, all of these competitors are doing it for job reasons in one way or another. Yaya because she’s made a career out of being the best at cosplay and she lives on selling autographs for her reputation. Crabcat because they are doing costuming and props as a business. Riki because she wants to transition to real movie production, but needs a better portfolio. The guy because he wants to start a business and needs some credibility for his skill set to be able to get enough attention. Even Chloe because she runs a podcast talking about cosplay, so she feels she needs to participate to actually have credibility on the topic. The only one who I don’t recall having a business reason is the blonde.
While that motivation makes it easy for the show to tag them and follow them, it also makes their interest in participation a bit slanted.
The cosplayers I know don’t do it for prize money. They do it for fun, they enjoy dreaming up costumes and dressing up to show them off. Some like competing as a way to show off their results. Others just wear their costumes around the conventions, or a few use them LARPing.
Even the ones I’ve talked to who are trying to make a living at it (steampunk costume and prop production) do it because they enjoy the mentality and the work, and they want everyone to have fun. They promote people learning the skills they have, even if that means less work from them in the future.