Lookback: Tournament of Champions II

Welcome to another edition of Lookback, with me, The Mistress! In this issue, we’re laying our Piattos-encrusted fingers on the recently-held Cosplay Mania 2011 and its main attraction: Tournament of Champions II (TORCH II). You might’ve read the rest of the Otakultura team’s take on Cosplay Mania 2011, so I won’t let you go through that again. I’ll instead use this time and space to provide you readers (and aspiring cosplayers) with some tips, tricks and constructive criticism from the 8 groups who participated in TORCH II. For each skit, we’ll go through a lot of the important things to consider in organizing and executing an award-winning performance. Take out your handy dandy notebooks, because this will be a long ride.

We’ll feature the winning team and the runners-up first. The other teams that follow will be in no particular order.

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TEAM MARCH Ω : Tournament of Champions II Winning Team

A choreographed introductory video can best capture the audience’s interest in watching your skit. This means you have the confidence to act out your characters well on camera. The video also serves as a great audiovisual cue (most likely audio, because I doubt the contestants can see anything from backstage) to enter into the stage. That one’s a bit obvious right? The hard part is maintaining the choreography live. There are no retakes, and improvisation / ad-libbing should be reflexive, in case things go south. When organizing a skit, always remember that your moves are like dance steps. You and your partner dance to the beat of the audio (and video) you chose. It’s a combination of timing and flexibility. A short second of missing a beat is quite excusable, but it does require compensating and improvising by thinking forward and sacrificing a few steps in order to get back in sync. Stunts are well-received too, as long as the safety of both cosplayers and the audience is assured. It means you are confident about the durability of your costume, and know full well that any damages incurred on your costume is part of the act.

With choreography, of course, comes practice. Just like any play, dance routine, or song, a cosplay skit requires intensive practice. I’ll emphasize it this much. Staying in sync requires both cosplayers to have fully internalized their role. Of course, you also have to consider the ambient noise generated from the venue. There will be inaudible moments in your recording, thus it is also recommended to internalize the timing and order of your skit. Always know what’s coming next, and be ready to anticipate.

Team Vostel: Tournament of Champions II Runner-up

Special modifications in a costume a novelty, but the addition of such a feature (with an easily-accessible switch) adds points to creativity and cosplay creation skill. A durable and flexible costume is well-accepted in cosplay skits. Do not forego detail and intricacy though. It should be visually pleasing as it is mobile. There will be times of distress due to a part of the cosplay getting in the way. Like what Clive Lee said in the Monster Hunter skit, don’t let the costume get in the way. It’s alright if the costume breaks down. Just continue on with your act. Remember: the costume is just a part of you, but the character it represents is YOU. It’s possible to find a way in your skit to improvise the removal of the malfunctioning costume part. Should that prove to be difficult to pull off, continue with the skit as if nothing happened (unless your sight is being obscured… then it would be reasonable to remove your helmet).

Another variation to the video part of your skit is cutting and editing parts of an anime/live-action episode. Re-enacting parts of an episode makes it easier to choreograph and memorize your skit. Not only do you have to take audiovisual cues from an already-prepared episode, merely watching the episode continuously is also considered as practice. You can easily mirror the actions and script from the episode.

Team Code 33

Team OTL

It takes imagination and enough willpower to pull off “imaginary” scenes, such as getting struck down by invisible laser beams or talking to “someone else” other than your skit partner. It’s easier said than done, actually. But when you get on stage and start pretending things for the sake of your skit, there’s this afterthought of looking really… stupid. It’s a matter of also pretending no one’s watching you, or if they do, you’ve blocked them out of your mind. Again, this is easier said than done. You might need to practice in front of a mirror, or in front of friends first, to boost your confidence. It’s a matter of visualizing things, just like when you reconstruct a scene from a manga or novel. Or sometimes, it only takes a facial expression to let your body follow through with the act. Try practicing your expressions first, like anger, sadness and laughter. You’ll notice that your body might reflexively move with the expression too. All these help in building up a nice act with your partner during practices and on the day itself.

Team Zoids Battlefront

When cosplaying, it’s always best to consider a certain ratio: flexibility/movability and costume complexity. Oftentimes, the higher the complexity of your costume, the harder it is to move. Such is the case with mecha-based costumes. It leaves little to no range of motion, and the sheer weight adds more encumbrance. You get plus points for commandeering a heavy costume, but it sacrifices the points you should get for performance. I’m not discouraging you to don mecha suits. Instead, if you wish to go down the mecha / heavy costume path, find ways on how to integrate your suit fully with the skit. Like what judge Clive Lee said, don’t rely on the video to do your skit. Granted, your heavy costumes will slow you down. However, this doesn’t mean that choreographing a skit is out of the question. Remember, skits like in TORCH are like a dance, relying on a set number of moves and aided by audiovisual cues. Also, not all “dances” are fast and flexible, there are slow and synchronized ones too. Try to choreograph a skit that requires only a few steps forward/back/sideways, but still provides a great deal of emphasis on body movements like sticking your chest out or lunging your mecha arms towards your “opponent.” Make sure you and your partner are within each other’s line of sight AND range. It will be hard to compensate for your actions if you or your partner suddenly strays out of your comfortable radius.

Team .hack//GU

Team Bankai

Timing is everything, I cannot stress that enough. This includes in-between scenes where you and your partner have to don secondary costumes. Whenever putting up secondary costumes, try to put in sufficient joints to connect with your initial costume. Should this be impossible, allow a lot of room to install belts with easy-lock mechanisms in it. Don’t panic during the in-between scenes. Just make sure you’ve got the fitting timed well, with at least a few more seconds to spare, at least to double check your new costume and compose yourself before re-entry.

Team Enigma

Since we’ve already talked about choreography and syncing your moves with the audiovisual cues, reaching a certain level of interactivity between you and the video isn’t hard to reach. The next best thing you can also do is take over the whole stage. When competing in a cosplay battle with required skits, it’s possible to ask the organizers to hold rehearsals on their stage. Try to take advantage of this opportunity in order to measure your act parallel to the stage. It would also be best to make modifications during these rehearsals as well. However, make sure that your modifications do not require additional work from your audiovisual backup, or else, lose precious time in practicing instead. If rehearsing on-stage is not possible, take the extra effort to ask the organizers about the stage dimensions and hold your rehearsal elsewhere.

In the end, these are the things to remember in these events such as TORCH II:

• Timing: Your skit is like a dance; internalize your steps, and improvise by reducing steps to remedy de-sync’d parts
• Cues: Always remember audiovisual cues and its related move/act; flow will be established when this is done perfectly
• Mobility to Complexity ratio: the more intricate/heavier/more complex your costume, the harder it is to move
• Practice: it takes a lot of rehearsals to perfect the skits you see here
• Murphy’s Law: If things go wrong, they will go wrong. Should something unexpected happen with your props or costume, CONTINUE with your skit as if it’s part of the act!
• Costume: Last but not least, make sure your costume is worthy of being on-stage! Don’t forget detail, add a touch of creativity, and do dress rehearsals with it. Research your materials well, and find what’s best suited for your building skills!

I hope this article is helpful in building and directing your next cosplay skit. Good luck out there. We’ll be watching from the sidelines!

Otakultura’s Cosplay Mania 2011 Coverage
Otakultura’s Facebook Galleries of Cosplay Mania 2011: 1, 2, 3
Cosplay Mania Facebook page
Cosplay Mania official site

Tags: Anime & Manga, cosplay, Cosplay Mania, Cosplay Tournament of Champions, cosplay.ph, events, Torch