Sunday, February 3, 2013

Cosplay Special on King of the Nerds! - USA, reality TV



King of the Nerds, an indie reality TV show featured a Cosplay segment with the contestants dressing up as RPG characters and be judged by awesome celebrities - Adam Bush, Yaya Han and George Takei



It looked like tons of fun I reckon




Yaya also talks about her experience on the show when she filmed last year in LA on her Facebook

"I was hugely flattered that they came to me first regarding this guest appearance... But I actually declined, because I just wasn't sure what the appearance would entail, and because they had to shoot during San Diego Comic Con where I already had a plate full! The production company was super nice and kept asking me over several days hahaha, including explaining to me in details what the shoot would be, and finding a way to jet me up to LA from San Diego the Friday of SDCC. The entire crew was extremely professional and kind.

I found out later who my co-judges would be (to my delight).
I asked the hard questions regarding portraying cosplayers in a positive light. They answered them all.
The deliberations were actually much longer. I insisted on looking at the costumes up close, as I always do during every judging. Later I realized that request probably took the crew by surprise lol, but they indulged me and all 3 judges walked onto the stage to look at the craftsmanship up close.
We talked directly to the contestants, from our chairs, and gave them a lengthy critique. I liked Danielle's costume the most because there was so much hand work done on it, compared to some of the other costumes being put together from found pieces. Yes, Celeste's cube was also well constructed, and I said more than 1 sentence about her lol.
I was thoroughly impressed by George Takei's and Adam Busch's professionalism and respect toward cosplay. Thumbs up, gentlemen!
Once my portion of the shoot was done, there was so little time that I RAN to change and was rushed to the airport, as I had a booth appearance at SDCC that afternoon. I think I still had bits of the costume on at the airport lol. Made my flight by mere minutes, phew!

I've gotten many tweets and comments about the show and my tiny mini pop in. Most are so sweet, my heart melted. LOVE you guys. But! I KNOW some of you have serious apprehensions about the overall show, and that's ok! There are plenty of blogs for you to disuss those thoughts on. I just want you to remember that reality TV shows have to be made a certain way, and editing can change everything, from expressions to sentences said. Even my favorite completion show - Project Runway, devotes many minutes of its program to inter-contestant relationships and not the fashion designs. That's the TV reality we live in right now.

All I know is - an episode about cosplay could have been all kinds of out of this world, in all kinds of freaky manners. Just from web media coverage, you can see that cosplay is viewed in a million different ways. I appreciated the effort all the contestants put into their outfits, performances and the hours they must have stayed up rehearsing. And their efforts showed on camera! Hurray!

Since cosplay is an extremely personal passion, LARP-ing does interject with cosplay for some. Just remember, there is no wrong way to cosplay :)"
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