Cosplay conventions

I've Just been scrawling through the web and found a number of cosplay convention websites that I found pretty interesting. A few are conventions that I've already mentioned, however I still thought it would be relevant to review them all now.

London MCM expoThe first, and arguably the biggest cosplaying event is the London MCM expo. Held twice a year, the MCM expo holds a wide variety of shows and exhibitions aimed at not only anime fans but everything from star trek to rainbow brite. The MCM expo is not directly a solely cosplay convention as it covers a whole range of games, films and comics spanning a wide range of platforms and mediums.
The MCM exp plays host to quite a number of stalls and shows, and puts on a number of events each day. The MCM expo is also one of two English cosplay events which are hosting this years 'eurocosplay' competition; An event which challenges the best cosplayers to pitch against others throughout Europe in order to win prizes and recognition for their work.

Amecon

Amecon is another large cosplaying event. With other 1,000 attendees, Amecon is one of the most popular conventions in the U.K. Unlike the London MCM expo, Amecon is purely for anime fans, catering to their need through showings, bring and buys, and of course cosplay! Amecon is held once every two years, rotating with it's sister convention, Ayacon.
Amecon is well known for it's cosplay and anime fan tailored events. A few events that will be re held at this years convention include;

• Cosplay Triathlon
  
• Catwalk
• Omake
• Cosplay ball
• Cosplay workshop

It is apparent at the list of activities that Amecon is more suited for the cosplayer directly instead of being more varied.
This year Amecon will be held at the end of August and is the 2nd of the two conventions this year that will hold the Eurocosplay event. As well as this event, Amecon hold the unique cosplay ball. The cosplay ball entails the attendees dressing up and creating their own 'formal' cosplay wear, which often results in flowing Disney princess ball gowns. Here at the ball cosplayer have the opportunity to be professionally photographed.

AyaconAyacon is Amecon's sister convention, each held on rotating years. Ayacon is very similar to Amecon, hosting the same events and principals. Being a convention that was held last year it's much easier to gather more in-depth information on events held at these conventions. After doing a bit of research into this convention I found various and interesting events that were used last year, a few include;

• Wig styling
• Taiko drumming workshop
• Trading card room
• Gaming room
• J-pop lounge
• karaoke
• Japanese tea ceremony

It's interesting to see such a nice implementation of Japanese culture being introduced into the conventions as that is what anime and mange stems from in the first place. As well as these workshops there were other cosplay related sessions such as emergency cosplay repair rooms for cosplayers in turmoil!

TokonatsuTokonatsu is a annually held festival unique to others as it is held outside, as opposed to being held in a building. Tokonatsu holds many open air events, including the 'open air masquerade' as well as many other outdoor themed events. Events such as treasure hunts and others encourage participants to work together to win. I wasn't really able to dig up to much information on this event due to it being canceled recently, however I did discover that because Tokonatsu is an open air event no accommodation is offered, instead a fee is introduced for the ticket holders which allows them to pitch a tent on the conventions grounds.

Kitacon

Kitacon holds a similar layout to both Amecon and Ayacon, however instead it is held each year in concession. Kitacon is a fairly new convention available to cosplayers. 2009 was its first year being held in the U.K, and due to it being so successful is being continued this year.
Kitacon holds it's own omake 'variety show' event, renames 'Kits got talent' where participants get up on stage and showcase their talents. Kitacon allow anyone to enter this competition with any talent, which doesn't necessarily have to be anything to do with cosplay or anime.
Like the other conventions, Kitacon has guest speakers and guests which come from many professions. Voice actors from popular animes have been know to show up as well as Japanese vocalists and bands.

There are other smaller events in the U.K, however I felt that keeping this blog entry relevant to the more larger of the conventions was more suited to the information I needed to find out.

To do list for the upcoming 2 weeks

This is just a quick list of things to do in perpetration for our final hand-in in a few weeks time.

• Gather real-time cosplay footage: Victoria is currently at a cosplay/anime convention and is gathering live interviews from fellow cosplayers, as well as gathering images and general footage of the convention in full swing.
• Gather footage of cosplay production: In the upcoming week Victoria and I plan to travel to Leeds to buy fabric for several planned cosplay costumes. Here we plan to gather further footage to use in our mini documentary. Key shots to gather are buying fabric, a pan of the fabric store, and the selection of the materials.
• Footage of cosplay in production: The third piece of footage we plan on gathering will be of us both creation out cosplay designs. We hope to here include images in the documentary of both our cosplay costumes on and the fictional characters we represent next to it. We also hope to gather a few shots of us on the sewing machines and adding detail to the costumes.
• Narration: Including live recordings we plan to produce a script to narrate over the top of the finished piece. This includes general introductions to our idea, a breakdown of cosplay, interviews and the fandom.
• Technicalities: After the above have been completed we will need to look into joining all of our assets together to construct the final piece. We do need more discussion on how this will be presented but the current idea is a kind of fly on the wall episode looking into the whys,hows and whos of cosplaying.

After completing the above tasks we will be able to create the final documentary to an official standard like we originally planned.

Current Progress: Tutorial

Today Victoria and I went and had a one on one tutorial with Oksana to report on our current progress and which direction we intend to move in for our final assignment in this module.

After talking it through we have decided to focus our project entirely on cosplay (or costume play), a particular area of FF fandom that bares relevance to both Victoria and I, and one we feel quite passionately about.

In terms of creating a final piece of work for marking we have also decided to progress from the original screen cast that we firstly intended to create. Instead we have decided to produce two pieces of work to evaluate. Firstly is a straightforward report aimed at identifying, discussing and summerising cosplay. The second piece will be a more creative piece in which we intend to produce a short documentary on cosplay. In this documentary we will include interviews of actual cosplayers at a convention in which Victoria will be cosplaying at herself. We also intend to include information from online itnerviews as well as clips of fabric shops, screen shots and myself and Victoria actually producing cosplay outfits.

I am pleased that was have come to this decision for what to do for a final piece as it appeals to Victoria and I as a general area of interest, allowing us to become more enthusiastic about it :)

Final Fantasy 13: Advertising and release

With the new Final Fantasy title being premiered within the last week, I felt it fitting to just post a blog on the advertising following up to the release of the game, as well as it's initial reception by the public.

As with Final Fantasy 7 and it's successors there has been much hype during the build up to the release of Final Fantasy 13. Ever since the announcement of the game back in August 2008 there has been plenty of speculation within fan communities. Everything from the re-vamped, real time battle system to the blockbuster graphics has been discussed in great detail, however SquareEnix seem to have gone into great lengths to promote the game, seemingly to draw in new gamers.

Final fantasy 13 seems to pop up frequently up to its subsequent release in various mediums. Even walking through the city this is apparent posters are plastered across the sides of buses. Televised adverts are also cropping during prime time hours advertising the games amazing beauty. The below links are examples of the T.V ads to air in both the UK and the USA;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLOi5gXRYfY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDR-gJKKJlQ&feature=related

In Japan FF13 adverts have even been flooding the radiowaves, with frequents commercials popping up on a daily basis leading up to its release in the East.

After going to so much effort in trying to hype up the series, it would be interesting to see if this has benefited the games sales in any way. It is certain that this part of the FF franchise is by far the most advertised, but has this lead to an expanding fanbase?

This is defiantly something I would like to look into in the proceeding weeks after the release of FF13. I hope, after giving sufficient time for sales data to be gathered, that I will be able to record this research into some sort of graph that will help me determine weather or not the advertising campaign for FF13 has boosted sales.

Progress

Just a quick blog to represent what work myself and my group member, Victoria Inman, have achieved so far.

From the beginning of the module we have been looking into possible outlets to do with the Final Fantasy franchise to expand upon. We initially narrowed down our research to the fandom side of Final Fantasy and how the fans spur SquareEnix to produce more content, specifically aimed at the FF7 universe.

After identifying the area of research (and interest to both of us!) to fans we decided to delve into this further and explore SquareEnix's involvement in producing medium for their fans. We have also decided to explore how this is apparent cross-media as well as applying transmedia to the case.

During the past few weeks we have written and produced a brief diagnostic screencast aimed to 'trailer' our research and present our preliminary findings at this point in the module. Since producing this we have presented it to the class in draft form and received feedback which allowed us to make the necessary changes to gain further marks in the final hand in.

During this weeks session we have also taken into account our final screencast and have started making draft preparations for this as a finished piece.

For next week I plan to have completed my groups diagnostic screencast and be well into devising my final screencast, as well as continuing any research I have yet to provide to back up the questions me and Victoria have identified.

To do list!

Just a quick blog to line out what I need to do on the run up to my screencast and final report/screencast.

• Conduct further preliminary research into the fandom of the Final Fantasy series. Looking at fandom outlets such as cosplay, fan-fiction, fan-art and online communities
• Look further into transmedia and crossmedia. Once done compare the theories to the final fantasy brand and see where they fit in
• Publish further blog posts in relation to the core weekly readings.
• Identify what section of the Final Fantasy franchise would be most appropriate to look into. Narrow research down into sections ie Fandom, Globalisation, transmedia/crossmedia.
• Write up research ie 'Why the FF franchise has proven to be so popular between fans' ' Do the FF fans carry the brand as the series expands'

No i have identified several tasks and areas of my research to close in on, I will be able to focus on putting together a screencast as well as think about constructing a report.

Espen Aarseth's article

In this Blog I plan to explore how Aarseth's article on cross-media production can apply to the Final Fantasy Franchise.



Aarseths's journal 'The Culture and Business of Cross-Media Productions' can certainly bare some relevance to the FF franchise. Aarseth identifies that in today's Media industry companies can capitalize on their product by co-launching it throughout multiple Media outlets, such as books, comics, films and video games. This can also be correct in terms of marketing other products in tune with the central medium, examples such as action figures, garments, cosmetics and recreational items can also be apart of the 'co-launch' providing a business assault from all angles.



Final Fantasy is a prime example of what Aarseth has discussed. With the new title 'Final Fantasy 13' being released throughout Europe recently it's relatively easy to see just how SquareEnix have assaulted the consumer with a barrage of products, both non-media and media. In cohesion with the game SquareEnix have produced and marketed everything from wall posters to life sized replicas or the main characters, all released to build hype and minimize risk to the company. Aarseth quotes " The risk has to be spread across media to secure the bottom link" In this case the 'bottom line' is the Final Fantasy brand and the 'risk spread' is the accompanying media released with it.



If we explore further into the Final Fantasy series we can also apply Aarseth's theories to other titles. Final Fantasy 7 was released over 10 years ago and was seen as the most successful of the series to date. As a result of this success many other medium have been marketed baring the FF7 titles to expand on the game. Included in this medium was the feature length cinematic Advent Children, a sequel to the game that proved to be just as successful. In Aarseth's article he states that pre awareness reduces risk. As SquareEnix has already marketed the FF7 brand, and thus it had proven a success the initial risk was removed, opening the door for the company to expand on the title and reap the rewards without fear of it backfiring. SquareEnix also back up Aarseth's claims that companies start with a relatively 'low risk' situation to test the industry waters before launching their product. By 'low risk' SquareEnix launched the more produce able game before taking advantage of the success. As SquareEnix market productions that progressed sequentially they played the market well generally releasing cross-media commodities well.



In contrast to the above the Final Fantasy 7 series proved that it is possible to cross-media produce with a game title before a movie. Aarseth made the general link between cross-media production as book to comic to film to game. However in the case of Final Fantasy 7 the game was released with the movie in tow afterwards disproving that the cross-media 'flow' must follow that direct route.



Aarseth concludes his article stating that in business the easiest way to reduce risk is to simply follow the money. This again can be comparable to Final Fantasy 7 as SquareEnix continue to reap the rewards of the initial game be releasing prequels, sequels and general merchandise.