Next to the judging you are also busy with interviews, making your introduction video, weighting and measuring your props etc etc. Because we got our judging in the evening we started with our introduction video.
Introduction Video:
You have about 20 seconds to introduce yourself in your own language. To tell which team you are, your name and something about yourself or your country. The introduction video will be played during the championship right before your performance.
Because this year you have the Semifinals and finals you were supposed to make 2 different videos in case you manage it to get to the finals.
We didn´t know that and practiced only one video. So we just thought about something the day before.
| Recording and translating |
You really have 20 seconds, not more not less.
This makes it sometimes very difficult to time your introduction.
We needed 3-4 tries for our 1st video and 2 for our 2nd.
You only have about 10-15 minutes to finish you video and to translate everything for the staff.
After finishing the videos, you have to tell the staff what you said during what phrase. Normally they translate it for you into Japanese. But I translated it directly for them.
Interview:
After filming the video you went to the interview room. I heard that the last year the interview was a paper, where you write down your answers and that it was verbal the year before that.
This time we got a laptop and a word sheet with questions.
I think you got about 15 questions? (Not sure anymore) Mostly about the Cosplay culture and fans in your country.
They told me, that this sheets are used for study and research purpose. Not for introducing the Cosplayers.
Chiko had some problems with their PC, because it always turns into Korean. She also wasn’t used to the English keyboard. Some of the other participants had the same problem. It took more time than the WCS calculated and caused some delay (although we were one of the first).
Weighting and measuring:
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| Props |
Normally you are weighting and measuring directly after the technical meeting or craftsmanship judging. But this means you have about 2 minutes to get your costume off and weight it. Because it wasn’t possible for us and we had some spare time till the judging we went there earlier.
Normally you need to build up your whole stage props. But because we made pictures at the rehearsals of the props standing next to each other we only needed to put out one “plate” and the WCS stuff calculated the measurements (our props are made our of square plates).
You are allowed to have 40 Kg max with all your championship stuff. We were at about 23-25 Kg. So even with the luggage´s we were under the 40 Kg mark.
Some teams were near the 40 Kg mark and needed to put everything out.
This took some time and we were happy that we were done after 2 minutes.
Getting ready:
Our video appointment was at about 12 am and our judging at about 18-19 pm.
That’s why we had a lot of time to get ready and got some lunch with Iris, German Alumni and organizer. She also showed us where to go and helped us in any matter.
She was a really great support!
Official pictures:
Afterwards we had about 2 hours to get into our costumes. While getting ready Iris got us a Porenta (the Pokemon you can only get in Asia). <3
When we finished changing we went into the waiting room in the 2nd floor until the room for the official pictures was free.
They had a small studio with a white background for the official pictures. The photographer was a famous Cosplay photographer in Nagoya.
We took some pictures and checked them. Afterwards we went back and waited for the costume judging.
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| Pictures and judging |
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| Construction report |
We had so much stuff to present. 3 costumes, 2 props, 3 small handprops.
I wrote the presentation already 1,5 months ago and just tagged it into my brain because I cannot read with colored lenses. So I was very afraid that I forget what to say and waste precious presentation time. The other thing was that the organizers looked so exhausted that most of them didn’t smiled. The Australian organizer Kenny saved me… I swear. And when the WCS staff asked if there were any questions, barely some asked anything (we got 1 question), so I panicked more and more. Someone told me that they judged since morning and were just dead after listening to 24 teams.
So I kind of understand know, why they looked so tired (more than disinterested).
But at this moment I just panicked…. (I though OMG our costumes were just too boring ToT)
But my organizer told me they were talking about, Germany showing their panties (it’s a show of panty so it’s ok. XD I made it for this purpose, because I moved a lot during my skit.).
Technical meeting:
The last part was the technical meeting.
We talked about the stage setting, how to handle the props and about the light rider.
They asked us some questions about the prop setting, I asked them some questions and than we went through the light rider.
| Light and setting rider |
This was the most comfortable part. You were just sitting there, listening and just correct them if they misunderstands something.
After a long long long day, we went to an Japanese Pub with all the other teams and went dead into our bed.
We could finish the next step, costume judging.