2006 Masquerade

[sharsachan]

I thought every person who just walked around to music was waisting our time for their own ego's (unless their costume really required attention, such as Nightmare). I just think masquerade should be more of a performance only.

you realize that the masquerade is seperated into two categorys, right? performance and craftsmanship. many of the craftmanship contestants do a simple walk on to show off their costumes because its a requirement of the competition rules. they are all pre-judged during the days before the masquerade and the stage is simply to present it to the audience for most of them. they are not wasting anyone's time, simply following the rules of the contest they entered.

every con i've ever been to has people who do skits for performance awards and people who do walk ons for craftmanship awards.  

if you find that a waste of your time, perhaps you shouldn't go to the competition anymore.

[Gaurrer]

I thought every person who just walked around to music was waisting our time for their own ego's (unless their costume really required attention, such as Nightmare). I just think masquerade should be more of a performance only.

you realize that the masquerade is seperated into two categorys, right? performance and craftsmanship. many of the craftmanship contestants do a simple walk on to show off their costumes because its a requirement of the competition rules. they are all pre-judged during the days before the masquerade and the stage is simply to present it to the audience for most of them. they are not wasting anyone's time, simply following the rules of the contest they entered.

every con i've ever been to has people who do skits for performance awards and people who do walk ons for craftmanship awards.  

if you find that a waste of your time, perhaps you shouldn't go to the competition anymore.

I do agree with that person though, i think they should like have the first half the walk ons and the second the performance or the other way around. that way if people wanted to come see performances, no walk on to bug them. they come to see craftmanship, they see the beuty in it. then again it could get boring watching walk ons and good to throw them here and there. I donno I'm still n00bish to fanime 0.-

[AnimeEmperor]

I thought every person who just walked around to music was waisting our time for their own ego's (unless their costume really required attention, such as Nightmare). I just think masquerade should be more of a performance only.

you realize that the masquerade is seperated into two categorys, right? performance and craftsmanship. many of the craftmanship contestants do a simple walk on to show off their costumes because its a requirement of the competition rules. they are all pre-judged during the days before the masquerade and the stage is simply to present it to the audience for most of them. they are not wasting anyone's time, simply following the rules of the contest they entered.

every con i've ever been to has people who do skits for performance awards and people who do walk ons for craftmanship awards.  

if you find that a waste of your time, perhaps you shouldn't go to the competition anymore.

Of course I knew that, otherwise I wouldn't have a right to criticize it. But it was so horribly done and alot of them didn't even have very nice costumes. They should have at least been grouped together or not forced to do it. The way they did it was a waste of time. Of course the rest of it was good enough that i'd still watch it again.

[Eurobeat King]

I think it was fine for anyone's costume that was truly excellent. I'm just not going to list them all because that's practically saying if you aren't on the list you sucked.

You take the good with the bad when you sit down to watch a masquerade at a convention..

[Kokuu]

I was a little dissapointed by the quality of performances this year, since while there were several good performances, there wasn't anything that really stood out in my mind.  But maybe that was because those seats in the civic center were really uncomfortable and made me rather cranky for sitting in them for so long.  XD  

I was really happy with the judging this year.  I liked seeing a wide-array of awards for both performance and craftsmanship, since I think that it's important to have a balance of both in the masquerade.  

A suggestion for next year: 2 minute time limit.  I felt like a lot of the skits dragged on for way longer then necessary.  If you can't get your point across in 2 minutes, then there's something wrong- since any longer and you'll lose the audience's attention.

[angeljibrille]

A suggestion for next year: 2 minute time limit.  I felt like a lot of the skits dragged on for way longer then necessary.  If you can't get your point across in 2 minutes, then there's something wrong- since any longer and you'll lose the audience's attention.

I agree. 2 minutes has always been my time limit, but I was ecouraged to extent that for Fanime as Fanime has had this long tradition of long skits and stuff. Soooo ... I decided to go with the 3 minute skit.

The problem is that, as I expected would happen, 3 minutes seems way too short when it's a really great skit... and WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too long when it's a really, ah, questionable skit or performance.

Hrm. Maybe I should switch it to 2.5 minutes? That's usually the length of a TV-Size version of something (if someone wants to sing), and yet not too long?

People need to remember the golden rule of cosplay: Get on stage, do your thing, then get the heck off the stage. If you go on too long, people get bored.

Of course, if it's too short (yes I am talking to you, walk-on haters) people complain too.

It's a no-win situation for the coordinators @_@;;

Let's try 2.5 minutes next year, and if that doesn't work either, I'll drop it back to 2.

I'm also upping the max group size to 10 this year due to MULTIPLE requests to add extra people... and all the people who asked for a special exception actually did really well with the bigger groups.

I'm thinking maybe we should have a skit clinic area, where people can come practice, get advice on their skits, discuss ideas, etc. We will try to brainstorm about that for next year...! :)

Marisa

[Mach5Motorsport]

I agree. 2 minutes has always been my time limit, but I was ecouraged to extent that for Fanime as Fanime has had this long tradition of long skits and stuff. Soooo ... I decided to go with the 3 minute skit.
snip
People need to remember the golden rule of cosplay: Get on stage, do your thing, then get the heck off the stage. If you go on too long, people get bored.

Of course, if it's too short (yes I am talking to you, walk-on haters) people complain too.

It's a no-win situation for the coordinators @_@;;

You plan the best you can. Tough spot.

Yup..It's really up to the participants.  After all, they are the ones performing.  I've bit my lip in years past making suggestions to some entries.

I'm thinking maybe we should have a skit clinic area, where people can come practice, get advice on their skits, discuss ideas, etc. We will try to brainstorm about that for next year...! :)

Marisa

But will people listen, that is the question.

[swordman85]

I don't know, I think they should be allowed three minutes but they need to make sure that what they do is worth all three minutes and not to try to force to make it longer.  Personally I'm thinking of a skit for next year and I'm not sure how long it will take...I'm still working it out in my head.  Oh by the way I was wanting some brutally honest opinions on my performance this year.  I was the Ed Elric who did the monolougue shirtless with the symbols on me.  I couldn't watch myself so I need some feedback

[angeljibrille]

I don't know, I think they should be allowed three minutes but they need to make sure that what they do is worth all three minutes and not to try to force to make it longer.  Personally I'm thinking of a skit for next year and I'm not sure how long it will take...I'm still working it out in my head.  Oh by the way I was wanting some brutally honest opinions on my performance this year.  I was the Ed Elric who did the monolougue shirtless with the symbols on me.  I couldn't watch myself so I need some feedback

The ladies liked it ^_^ ( heard a lot of screams). I thought you looked really good, though I was watching it from the side stage at that point. The lighting went really well with the spot for your particular skit.

I still haven't seen that episode yet (I'm watching the DVDs as they come out... I think I told you this at check-in...) so I am not sure how it synched up with the series itself.

Visually it was very impressive though!

^_^

Marisa

[swordman85]

Cool that's good to hear?  Anyone else with an opinion? Oh and by the way when will I be able to buy a copy of the masqurade?  I really want to see it myself and watch everyone elses skits without having terror racking my body.  It was my first con and I'm definatly not the kind of person to be able to talk in front of audiences...I have enough trouble in a class of 30 much less an auditorium of 3,000.  Oh but for anyone else reading this don't let it affect your judgement on my performance, I want to know how it was...I don't want to hear stuff like "great for your first try" or stuff like that.  Pretend as if it weren't my first try :) ok thanks

[Leishu]

Perhaps instead of a 2-minute time limit you could hold tryouts. That would seem more practical to me. Having staged and been in several skits myself I'll say that two minutes is a very, very short amount of time. Three is too, but at least it's more practical.

[Mach5Motorsport]

Holding "tryouts" is very troubling.  An event such as a masquerade with 50 entries will have a long running time.  That is without question. This is the fan's event.  You are proposing to pre-judge convention attendees for participating in an event, which is composed of attendees. No matter what you think is "good" or "bad" as a skit shouldn't be screened (unless there is questionable content).  imho.

[angeljibrille]

Holding "tryouts" is very troubling.  An event such as a masquerade with 50 entries will have a long running time.  That is without question. This is the fan's event.  You are proposing to pre-judge convention attendees for participating in an event, which is composed of attendees. No matter what you think is "good" or "bad" as a skit shouldn't be screened (unless there is questionable content).  imho.

IMHO as well. :)  This is a fan event by fans for fans, and I think 99% of the people want to keep it that way. If you would like to see the professional events, I suggest going to MusicFest. This is completely and utterly amateur -- think of it like the try-outs for American Idol. There are a few great performances, a few good ones, and the ones you don't like (even if other people do like it). Even if we did hold try-outs to even get a spot (which is absolutely impossible given our limited timeframe-- plus we just filled the spots as it was with our pool of entrants), that is no guarantee that the "pool" of entries can give you the show you are looking for. A lot of these people literally come up with their idea a few minutes or hours before they get on the stage, the big Bleach group was an example of that and so was the Resident Evil skit. To have a polished professional production you need to: a. pay people to be in it, b. have professionals. This is just for fun, think of it like the high school talent show (do they even do those anymore?) or improv. There is just no way that we can provide this polished show for you, even if we wanted to.

And, as for costumes being recognized... that's why the people on the stage are participating. They honestly see skits as secondary. They are getting into this competition to have people see their uber-cool costume that they spent 1000 hours making. We aren't going to be able to change that, it's traditional. Over the years, because of the addition of skits (which was actually secondary to the original costume contests which were more like Fashion Shows) have caused the Masquerade to get bigger and bigger audiences... but the quality of those skits is up to the cosplayers who may actually be better at sewing than they are at improv, dance, or singing. That's just the way it works, and in the end it IS a Costume Contest, not a Skit Contest.

Sorry! We can change things like spreading out walk-ons and such, but we are not willing to change the nature of the contest.

Thanks,
Marisa

[L-Lamb]

It's a touchy subject. There's never going to be a con where all the skits are 'perfect'. Everyone has different tastes and will like different things. When it comes to writing a skit, I bet you a lot of the 'not so entertaining' skits looked really good to the people who preformed them.
It's just really hard to say. I think setting a time limit of around 2 minutes would be best because some of the best skits are the short and sweet ones. Also maybe some suggestions can be posted when the masquerade sign-ups begin to help those that might need it?
Otherwise, like someone said, you take the good with the bad. It happens all the time. It takes a lot of guts to get up there in the first place, let the people have their 2 minutes. I personally thought the masquerade was fine but thats just me.

[DayDreamerNessa]

me and my bf decided for our skit 2 minutes was our max, in the end ours was about minute 1:40-1:50, and ours had 10 people in it.

I also agree that a 2 minute max could be a good idea, but maybe if your going to implement a shorter time make it 2:30 like you said.

I really enjoyed this years masquerade, so coming on here and hearing so many people say they disliked it, really surprised me =/

[Mach5Motorsport]

Some people forget over the years that I really encouraged people to not exceed two minutes for their skit/performance because the intent is for the participant to have the stongest stage experience possible and not just monopolizing their given stage time.  

Of course it would degrade and impeed the overall intent  of the event itself if the stage crew had to "yank" people off stage for going way over time.  It doesn't look good and it just isn't a fun thing to occour for everyone: staff, participants and audience.   Sitting off stage with a stopwatch isn't really a fun thing to have inplace for an event like a masq.

In the end, the entry participants themselves must bear the brunt of praise and critical comments from the audience.  (be it valid or not)  I just hope most comments are not of the crude variety, which sometimes happens in large group events.

[Leishu]

I agree...

On changing the nature of the show. I believe that the nature of the show has significantly changed almost every year I've been in it. It's almost an unavoidable factor, when venue, cast, crew, or administration are changed. One would be hard-pressed to call this year's Masquerade a similarly natured-show to last year, especially if one was in both, and further pressed to say that last year's was extremely similar in nature to, say, the first year at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Changing the nature of the show is a process of constant trial and error and, hopefully, an overall improvement for all involved.

[angeljibrille]

I agree...

On changing the nature of the show. I believe that the nature of the show has significantly changed almost every year I've been in it. It's almost an unavoidable factor, when venue, cast, crew, or administration are changed. One would be hard-pressed to call this year's Masquerade a similarly natured-show to last year, especially if one was in both, and further pressed to say that last year's was extremely similar in nature to, say, the first year at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Changing the nature of the show is a process of constant trial and error and, hopefully, an overall improvement for all involved.

Nodnod. Even in professional shows, if you have a different cast and location-- they can be singing the same songs and doing the same dances, but you are going to see a different show.

With cosplay contests set up the way they are, it's always going to be free form.

[angeljibrille]

I agree... On changing the nature of the show. I believe that the nature of the show has significantly changed almost every year I've been in it.

As a note, by "changing the nature of the show" when I said it above, I meant that we are not going to change it to be "all skits" or "first fashion show, then skits" as it's just impossible to do that being that you get a mixed bag of entries when people register. Also, I'm not willing to change the show by screening entries first to pre-judge if people are worthy to be in the performance -- that's just not fair. This is supposed to be for fun.

[EternalMalachi]

Oh by the way I was wanting some brutally honest opinions on my performance this year.  I was the Ed Elric who did the monolougue shirtless with the symbols on me.  I couldn't watch myself so I need some feedback

Should have ended the skit w/ lights going out and the walk off the stage in darkness.

Also, perhaps have your spoken part timed to the music, and have the moment you place your hands on yourself have that big electric noice you hear whenever transmutation takes place.