Reality Competition Show: Masters Of Cosplay

Hello everyone,

          Like many of you, my day revolves around waking up, going to a job I’m not truly satisfied in, coming home and turning on the TV while the dinner process occurs. Over the years this routine has resulted in me and my wife watching many shows together. The shows that we end up watching together are generally TV series or reality competitions. The competitions we have become most fond of are RuPaul's Drag Race, Ink Master, and Face Off. While I’ve seen countless other competitions (some of which I’d not like to admit) these named shows have inspired an idea within me for another competition show.

Background Information

I’ve been a gamer for a majority of my life. I was lucky enough to be born in the era of gaming advancement and by the age of five I was experiencing the Atari and Nintendo. Fast forward to today and I’ve pretty much played every console system and not missed a single day of gaming for many years. Gaming has become my outlet and I’ve enjoyed the endless creations from hardworking people. I’m confident enough in myself to say that I have/had emotions for characters in these stories, movies and games. I think most people have experienced this with a particular movie, TV or book series. I’d describe it as an attachment to an artistic creation. We become emotionally attached to these creations and it is why when people like George R. Martin decide it’s time to kill off one of our favorite characters, it hurts just so damn bad.

This past year I joined twitter and began following people in the gaming industry. Every once in a while these people would tweet or retweet pictures of amazing cosplays of characters that I’ve grown attached to over the years. I’m usually blown away by the cosplayer’s ability to turn imagination into reality.  My wife is an avid crafter so I know the talent, determination and abilities it takes to create things with just a tableful of supplies. My brother in-law is also an actor in the Portland, OR theater scene so again I’ve seen firsthand what kind of qualifications it takes to perform for the general public. My observation is that cosplay is a mixture of creating and performing. To the cosplayers who make and showcase their creations, I have a large amount of respect and admiration for you. Keep living your passion and showcasing your talents!

All of this led to a random idea while I was working. Where is the reality competition of cosplay? I did a little research and apparently SYFY has a docu-series about cosplay and there are cosplay competitions, but I was thinking more of a full-on TV competition. So I asked myself, if a show like Project Runway exists (aimed at showcasing fashion designers) why can’t a show about cosplayers who design and model characters from billion dollar businesses (movies, comics, games, etc) exist? I came to the conclusion that it should exist and this is what I have come up with.

Masters of Cosplay

Description: A weekly-hour-long show that consists of male and female cosplayers whom make and model characters from the entertainment industry in a competition to earn the title “Master of Cosplay”.

Rewards for winning: With the title, hopefully a cash reward and unique cosplay opportunity could be sought. Competitors at the bare minimum would be able to promote themselves on a major platform.

Show breakdown:

-         Intro

-         Mini Challenge

o   Competitors are tested and judged by the week host

o   Announcement of mini challenge winner and reveal of that week’s core fundamental (what it takes to be the “Master of Cosplay”)

-         Competitors creating costumes/props

-         Presentation to Judges

-         Judgment

o   Feedback is given by the judges to each competitor and scores are revealed. The lowest score is eliminated.

o   Elimination: “I’m sorry but you are not this season’s Master of Cosplay”.

 Judges:

Many of the reality-competition shows have their judge panels be comprised of nothing but experts in the industry. While I believe this is important, I believe the core demographic watching these shows are general viewers. I would classify a general viewer as a fan but not a hardcore fanatic. I believe most shows miss delivering the general viewer perspective. Therefore I would have the first two judges be general viewer judges. I would also recommend one judge being male and the other female so as to diversify the judging (provide all perspectives).

For the third and forth judges I would mimic the general viewer judges (with male and female) but I would recommend expert cosplayers; who are able to give in-depth analysis and critical insight into what takes to create the costumes and present them.

The fifth and final judge I believe would be the most interesting and have a huge impact on what the cosplayers would showcase each week. This judge spot would be a different judge each week and hopefully be a key person in the entertainment industry. An attempt would be made to have the air date of the episode tie in with a project release date of the person’s affiliation. Take for example the upcoming movie “X-men: Days of Future Past”. The goal would be to get someone affiliated with the film and have them participate as that week’s industry judge. Not only would this help promote the guest-judge’s project but the guest-judge’s project would also dictate the type of cosplay the competitors would be making and modeling that week. In the X-men example the cosplay for that week would have to be from the X-men series. 

Judgment Criteria:

          Again this is where I would deviate from the typical reality competition. A key issue I have with a lot of the reality competitions is I do not fully understand why one competitor stayed and one left. I personally believe a scoring system would need to be created and made available to the audience after initial airing.

My scoring system would have three categories:

1)   Execution: quality of costume/props, decision making, practicality, creativity, innovation

2)   Portrayal: was the inspiration character captured by the competitor in mannerisms and actions

3)   Weekly fundamental: which competitor most successfully demonstrated the week’s fundamental

Competitors would then be ranked in the categories by each judge. Each rank would then be assigned a point value and the ranks would be converted into points. The scores of judges would be added together for each competitor and the competitor with the lowest score would then be eliminated.

Judge 1 Score Card Example
Competitor/Criteria/Point Total	Execution	Portrayal	Fundamental	Point Total	Rank to Point Value Key
Competitor 1	3	1	3	1+3+1=5	1	3
Competitor 2	1	2	1	3+2+3=8	2	2
Competitor 3	2	3	2	2+1+2=5	3	1

Repeat for each judge and add all judges’ point total to determine highest/lowest scores.

I think a season should consist of 11 weeks with 14 competitors who are slowly reduced down to the top three. The top three will then compete at the finale (12 week show).

Finale

For this type of competition, I believe there is only one place for the finale, the San Diego Comic Con. The top three competitors would make their ultimate cosplay and showcase them at the event. I believe the audience of that event should be the ones to choose the winner of the competition. The judging criteria would be eliminated and instead have the audience just vote for one of the three-final competitors. This would leave the decision of the “Master of Cosplay” title in the hands of the people.

The power is yours…

Yep, I just hit you with a Captain Planet reference; anyways I leave this show idea in your hands. A friend of mine recently hosted an event where there was a charity element to the event. The friend tried to get media coverage as he believed the charity element had reasonable cause to be covered by media. However, his initial attempts did not work and it was not until after the event that he truly had success. After the event he and his community began to go viral with the charity act and within a few days the media began to inquire about the charity act and publication soon followed. For once it wasn’t the media informing us general people about what was important but rather us, the general people informing the media what was important.

I believe if this show truly has merit and should come to fruition that we the people need to tell companies like Spike-TV (who already has affiliation with gaming in their GameTailers programing and VGA’s) that this should exist. So if this show sounds appealing please take to twitter #MastersOfCosplay, join the facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/MastersOfCosplay/, share on reddit and other communal sites. With a little effort we can all reap in the rewards of a new show that captures the abilities and talents of a unique group of people who make and model our favorite characters.

Anyone interested in pursuing this, I would be more than happy to discuss further show ideas.

Thank you for your time.

-         Jeremy ‘McCl0udY’ Muller