Masquerade and Documentary Experience

A few years ago I entered my first costume Masquerade competition and was asked if I would like to be a part of a documentary that was being recorded for the convention. I spoke in depth with the producer of the document and agreed to take part. The film crew would follow 3 of the contestants over the few days of the convention.

I had never taken part in one of these competitions before let alone a documentary at the same time. As you can expect it was a whirl wind of a week end. I met with the producer day one when we arrived at the hotel, and the filming started right away. He wanted to get some footage of me arriving at the hotel and then unpacking in our room. Here is part one of the six part mini documentary.

The film crew went through the same motions with the other two costumers that they were following. Two great girls and very talented costumers. Here is part two and three of the mini documentary.

If you haven't taken part in one of these Masquerades you have no idea what is involved from the contestants stand point. Friday you have to check in and do rehearsals, make sure your cues are marked on stage and your digital media its handed in and cuing up correctly. Then Saturday you have to be back stage hours before the show starts for the pre-judging, which is a close up inspection of the costumes for craftsmanship and to be sure everything and everyone is on time and ready to go. Then the show begins and you wait back stage for your time to shine on stage. It gets very warm back stage in costume so they had lots of fans blowing trying to keep us comfortable. Here is part four and five of the miniseries.

After waiting for what feels like forever I got my cue to make my way to the stage for my performance. Let me tell you walking back stage in the dark, up a ramp and to the stage it self in a helmet you can't see much out of was interesting. I made it in one piece and hit all of my marks perfectly. The lights went down and I now had to make the trek off stage and back down the ramp to back stage area in, you guessed it, the dark.

After my performance the rest of the contestants did there bit and it was intermission time to give the judges the opportunity to deliberate. Back stage a select number of us were told to line up to re take the stage at a certain point. No one was told why or if they had placed or won a category. When I was announce the winner of my category it was like being in a dreamscape, I was honored, surprised and humbled to off been chosen over the other amazing contestants. Here is part six of the series.

I had so much fun with both the filming and taking part in the Masquerade, but it did take up the whole convention and I did miss a lot of other fun stuff. I may not compete again, but I did have fun doing it. Here is my on stage performance as "The Last Cyberman"