And You Thought Cosplay was Only for the Young

For the past weeks, my mom had been stressing herself out trying to perfect the Soroptimist International's United Nations Day celebration. She was the Chairperson, you see. And I was her sidekick (and secretary and digital artist and runner and moral support. hay.)

And so finally, the big day came.

What mom wanted was, instead of the usual sosyalan, they would have something meaningful and substantial for this year's UN Day celebration. So she organized a forum. The Soroptimist Governor said to add the UN Day Parade of Costumes as the second part of the program, anyway. Many people are going to complain if that tradition is taken away. So, we went with that. And guess what? No one really paid attention to the forum. The highlight of the event for them was the costume parade!

Mom insisted we come in costumes, too. So, fine, I went in an Ao Dai I bought when I was in Hanoi earlier this year. Nothing fancy. It was beige raw silk and could pass for any local formal wear. Tan Gan had something of a similar style. And I paled in comparison to most of the little old ladies there! They really took their costumes seriously.

There was a seventy-something woman who came in an Indian Costume. Two came in Egyptian costumes (one of them had to rush out for a while, in full costume mind you, because a patient of hers was giving birth!) There were women in Spanish costumes, complete with fans and headdresses! But the best was a woman in a Mongolian costume. She looked like Queen Amidala! See the pic? (Sorry, blurred. I only had my phone camera)

So if you thought only the young people cosplay, think again. Age doesn't matter. Golden girls cosplay, too. And since they have more money, their costumes sometimes turn out more elaborate than the youths'. :-D

Cosplay Mania 2008

My sisters and I got a booth at the Cosplay Mania 2008, which was held in Megamall last October 12. It wasn't a Talecraft booth. This time, we were promoting Baby Moon Lifestyle, selling gothic and lolita products. Maita's heading the project this time. Talecraft was piggybacking, though. And I asked the assistance of one of my friends, Martin, to help document the event. But he ended up helping promote the booth, too. He even went as far as wearing our cat ear headbands and claw rings to show the products to passers-by. And his call-center training of being polite came in handy, too.

It was a great event, especially for Maita. We sold about 75 hats out of the 100 that we brought. They also loved the ears. They were sold out quite quickly! Both kitty and bunny ears. The bonnets were sold out, too. Black gloves all gone. Black arms warmers all gone. Sold a lot of chokers. And though we didn't sell too many fluff balls, they were great to have around the booth. People can't help but touch them. :)

Aside from all the selling, it was fun to watch the cosplayers. I don't cosplay, but I do like looking. You could see people's creativity and resourcefulness in the costumes they make. I saw at least three renditions of the Joker's hair. I saw a Hiei whose hair was made of foam and had a dragon made of trash bag. I saw Saitou again. :D He kind of disappeared for a while. And suddenly yesterday, he was there (or I just haven't been to these events in a long time). I know what these cosplayers were feeling. And I miss that feeling. I used to make costumes for my sister, Jade, too, when we were younger. I know how you could be "into" something to a point bordering obsession (bordering lang. I don't cross over). And, the truth is, I miss that feeling. I haven't felt that in a long time. And it's boring. The last thing I was really into was the Takarazuka Review. But that was when I was still in Japan. And after a while, it kind of became repetitive, and the feeling went away.

My love of anime kind of toned down after I went to Japan. Ironic, isn't it? I'm finally there, then it goes away. Probably because anime was all over the place and not quite rare there. Anyway, I may not be getting the high the cosplayers were getting, but it's fun to watch them and remember.

At around 2pm, after we had lunch (we could hardly leave the booth. There were so much people), Martin and I went around and took photos and videos, and did interviews. The cosplayers were not all just students. Many were already working. They said it was a way to unwind. All this pop culture hype of being oneself... but I want to be someone else for a change, just for a while. During cosplays, they said, you can be who you want and no one will ridicule you for that. And people are more open in cosplays, says one who was dressed up as one of the Gundam Seed characters. You can approach people, talk to them and make new friends, and they won't mind.

Yup, I miss the feeling.

Around 3:30, Martin left for home. My sisters and I stayed on, but it wasn't too overwhelming anymore because after 4, which was the cosplay proper, people started going home. We met some interesting people ourselves. I met A. R. from Vitas Game Development, who told me about their MMORPG (first Filipino MMORPG, apparently). And Maita met a woman from GMA Networks, who was looking for Gothic shops to include in her upcoming segment.

So when we arrived home at around 11pm, we were quite happy despite our aching feet.

8:30am the next day, I get a call from Martin. He said something 'interesting' happened after he left. When he went down from Megatrade, he noticed people were smiling at him. Not quite sure why, he just smiled back and went on his way. He got to the bus stop, and still people looked at him, smiling. He was beginning to really wonder when, on the bus, a child points to him and goes, "Mommy, I want that!" And then he remembered that he was still wearing the kitty ears headband. Imagine, a serious-looking burly man in a green polo... wearing kitty ears. Slowly, he pulled off the ears and stuffed them in his backpack. But he was already almost home.

A Tour of Cutting Edge's Studio

Nowadays, everyone believes blogs are a very effective form of advertising. Especially for Filipinos, whose family and friends lists on average reach the hundredths place (thousandths if one is not too discriminating when it comes to friend requests), having a substantial audience for one's blog isn't too difficult to achieve. But then, like a Pandora's Box, bloggers are also the worst critics. Having no publisher to answer to, bloggers can put up derogatory posts that can hurt a person, product or business. No matter if the posts are warranted or not, those posts can influence their readers who, as I mentioned earlier, are composed mostly of their friends and family. And more often than not, you always take the side of the person you personally know.

What was a company to do to get these double-edged swords on their side? Invite them on a tour of their facility, of course! Oh, and don't forget to feed them, too. Food, as we all know, is a very effective disarmer.

And so Cutting Edge Production, a fully-digital animation company in Makati, invited a bunch of bloggers to visit their studio and give them a sneak preview of their upcoming movie, Dayo. AND they remembered to have lunch catered for them, thereby getting the movie low-cost but effective advertising, and at the same time, silencing their critics. What fed blogger can possibly diss a company who gave them an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what was said to be the the first Filipino full-length digital film?

So devious... So cunning... So ingenious! I love it!

And oh so kainggit! Just looking at their equipment makes me want to drool. They have these cool Wacom Cintiq Tablet/Monitors for roughs, clean-ups and in-betweeens. Their computers are quad-cores with a terabyte of hard disk space each. And they use the Toon Boom software. Definitely mouth-watering.

We talked to some of the animators. All of them are freelancers, meaning they jump around from one animation company to the next, jumping around from digital to traditional. But a lot of them do prefer this paperless environment over the traditional cell and paint way of doing things. For one, digital has cut and paste. For another, it has an undo function.

After this part of the animation process, there was paint and ink. There's another Toon Boom software called Harmony that they use for coloring. This room, though, didn't have the Wacom tablets. The mice did the job just fine.

During the later part of our tour, we were brought to this quaint little music room where we watched the Dayo trailer. The music was fantastic. We met the executive producer and sounds guy of Dayo, Jessie Lasaten, who treated us to some Dayo snippets. We also met the director, Robert Quilao, who showed us their post production room (a replica of the music room), and treated us to some more Dayo clips.


And, to be fair with Cutting Edge, Dayo did have something to boast. And I'm not talking about the title of being the first Filipino fully-digital full-length film. I mean, anyone can just make a title for themselves. All I've watched of Dayo so far are their trailer and some snippets. But based on what I've seen so far, this movie's got promise. For my review on what I've seen of Dayo so far, see my other blog, Inkedblood.


Dayo, by Cutting Edge Production, is coming out in December 2008. Watch out for it. :)