strange_doings (
strange_doings) wrote2018-08-01 11:43 pm
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Improving Walk-On Performances
This is going to get lengthy, because there's actually a lot to be said about spicing up masquerade/cosplay contest performances overall. First, though, some terminology so that we're all on the same page.
I've directed, judged, and emceed contests of all kinds at conventions of all sizes. I've also competed for a long a time, so I've seen masquerades from every angle. For the sake of shorthand, I default to the term "masquerade" for the cosplay contest, costume contest, whatever it's called at various cons. The term originated in the 1960's when the traditional masquerade ball - aka costume party - at major sci-fi cons morphed into more of a stage show and the party gradually faded away. In the 1970s every sci-fi con had adopted this new format, but still called it the Masquerade, even though it was now a stage presentation of costumes and contest to judge their impact and workmanship. Since most present-day genre cons owe their existence, format, and traditions to those established in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, I still call it the Masquerade. Many anime cons call it the cosplay contest, but it's the same thing.
Smaller cons, and newer ones, tend to have a different idea of what makes a good cosplay contest than what I've become used to through larger, longer-lived cons. The best, most entertaining shows I've either been a part of or watched were ones that kept everything mixed - skill levels, performance types, nothing is segregated, everyone in the pool. The only way the audience knows which costumes are being presented by which skill level is through the emcee, and when they're mixed together, you could have Novices and Masters back to back with equally amazing costumes, and even if they're not being judged in the same category, it helps the show flow more smoothly. It absolutely makes for a more interesting show for the audience, when the director can put performances they know are going to have a larger impact at certain points and end on a real show-stopper. But the last few shows I've judged and emceed, in the past two years, have had a different format, and while they're entitled to run their show however they see fit, I find it a lot less interesting. They split "walk-ons" and "skits" into separate categories, and then divide the walk-ons by skill level, putting all the Novices together one after another, then the Journeymen, then the Masters, then the skits. I don't like this format because it basically puts all the people in the same category back to back with each other so there isn't much of a surprise. And, even if the audience isn't well-versed in cosplay and what goes into it, they've come to expect that the "Masters" are the big, flashy costumes, so they sit there bored waiting for the Novices and Journeymen to get done with so they can see what they really came for. Since the Novice category at most smaller cons, especially anime cons, tends to be jam-packed with easily triple the entries of either Journeyman or Master, it can be very discouraging for the Novices to all stand there together in a group, compare themselves to each other, and realize none of them are going to win anything.
I bring this up as relevant to the actual topic because, if you're entering in a contest like this, where you're not planning to do a dialogue skit and therefore get shunted into Walk-On, how do you stand out from the crowd? What are the best ways to punch up your performance and do something different?
Some of it depends on the contest and its rules. Some smaller cons don't have much of a staff for audio and lighting, and relying on volunteers means sometimes all they can get is someone to push a button to turn a mic on, rather than a team of audio engineers who can edit music and mix on the fly. So, the rules may not allow for things like having your own music, asking for special lighting cues, etc. Take that as a caveat up front, but even without custom music or lights, there are things that can be done.
1. Forget the Three Pose Spots
For a while in the middle 00s, new, smaller cons found themselves struggling with their masquerades, because rather than bring in people experienced with the concept who could help punch things up, they were inundated with newbies who had no idea what to do on stage. Most of them were so new to cosplay that they didn't even know what the contest was or why they should enter it, except that it was there and they were wearing a costume so why not? So for a while, a lot of cons were plagued with boring masquerades where cosplayers either just stood around in one spot on stage in dead silence for way too long, or they bolted across in five seconds or less out of stage fright. In order to combat this, some directors started suggesting one of two posing methods to keep people on point: one, the figure eight, or two, the three poses. It did help, but what a lot of directors and judges didn't consider was that when they were giving that advice, it was meant for the people who had zero plan and zero idea what to do, not the people who'd had some experience in masquerades and had ideas already in their pockets. So, instead of offering an option to the completely clueless, that advice ended up becoming the standardized way that everyone doing a walk-on did their thing. Even worse, some directors began to rely on that same crutch, actually instructing their competitors to do this figure-eight or three-pose route and never deviate from it.
The gist of both routes is giving the inexperienced cosplayer a path that is easy to remember, easy to manage no matter how terrified they are, and keeps them on stage long enough for people to really see their costume but not so long that the audience gets bored of them. With the figure-eight, the cosplayer enters the stage, walks across to the far front corner, stops to pose, then walks back across the stage to the opposite corner (near where they entered), stops to pose again, and then turns fully to cross the entirety of the stage to reach the exit. It's a good way to let both sides of a full Mainstage room see the costume, and includes a turn so that they can see the back of the costume. The three-poses route came up as a simplified way to just slow cosplayers down so they didn't go out, pose once, and leave. Three spots are identified - stage right, center, and stage left - and the cosplayer is encouraged to march to the first one, stop and pose, then go to the center, stop and pose, then move to the last one, stop and pose, and then exit. There is a simple linear progression that even the most nervous or distracted cosplayer can remember, though it doesn't really allow for doing turns to show all sides of the costume, and on very small stages it's very hard to cram three poses in when each spot is literally two steps away from the last one. Either way is an excellent plan for someone who enters the masquerade on a whim without preparing anything more elaborate, or complete first-timers who have no idea what they're getting into and need that direction, but the downside? It's boring.
After about the fourth or fifth person coming out on stage, the audience will catch on to what every single one of them is doing. When you have 30 Novices all doing the exact same thing, it gets super boring super fast. Some directors think that the three-pose route benefits photographers, but does it really? I have photos of myself on stage doing various kinds of performances, including dances and choreography, and the "real" photogs get good shots no matter what I'm doing. They don't need the cosplayer to stop and hold a pose for ten seconds. Regular joes in the audience trying to quicksnap photos with their phones might appreciate the pause for a pose, but the further back they're sitting, their photos are going to be shit anyway. If they really want the cosplayer's picture, they can ask for one after the contest. From the cosplayer's perspective, they may have a hard time coming up with poses, especially for characters (or costumes) that look better in movement rather than standing still. We all know it's boring, and for a cosplayer, that can be embarrassing and discouraging.
So, my first piece of advice is to completely forget this. Don't do the Three Poses. Don't even do the Figure-Eight unless you really don't have anything else you can do. What should you do instead? Well, there's lots of ideas and they all follow.
2. It's Still Walking
There are a ton of things that can be done that aren't walk-pose-walk or skit-with-dialogue. Those aren't the only two options, there's a world of beauty in the middle of these two extremes. You don't have to be Master level, you don't need a load of stage props or sets, and depending on what the audio techs can do, you may not even need your own music.
Most masquerades in the present age are as much of a mix of interests as the conventions themselves. Even if they're billed as anime or comic cons, cosplayers and non-cosplayers alike have wide ranges of interests and the cosplay seen in the halls and on stage reflects that. No one has strict rules like Japanese-media-only anymore, thankfully. What this means for the masquerade is that even if there's one or two super-popular series or movies that everyone is cosplaying, that's not the only thing they're cosplaying. People like to take their dream costumes to competition, meaning it could be an original design, a mashup, or an obscure character that they always wanted to do but didn't try it out back when the thing was popular. So, they can't just rely on the emcee reading their name and "Character from Series" for the audience to get who they're supposed to be. If it's original or really obscure, just posing doesn't mean anything to an audience who wouldn't know the character's classic pose from a hole in the ground.
Presenting a character on stage should be a step up from just posing for a photo in the hallway outside. It doesn't require acting or special talent to briefly embody the character, though it might take some pep talks and psyching yourself up for it. The key is to know the character's personality, their movements, and their iconic moments and prepare yourself to "act" for a mere thirty seconds or less. Use your arms, your shoulders and back, your hips, your neck and head. Even if the audience past about the third row or so can't really see the expression on your face well, the judges can, and the judges are the ones who decide who wins! Make facial expressions, convey emotion. Use body language to tell the story to the entire audience, but don't forget to use facial language to convey the extra nuances of the story to the judges and the first few rows. Those people waited in line a long time to get those good seats, you might as well give them a show.
Is the character a fighter? By all means do some fighting moves, as much as you know them. Don't just pose with the weapon but show that you know how the character would use it. Safety first, and don't go overboard with a complex fight choreography if you're not experienced in stage combat, but even a few simple swipes of a sword, a twirl of a staff, or some ninja creeping can go a long way toward spicing up the presentation. There's more on proper handling of weapons in another point below.
Is the character royalty, with an impressive formal outfit? Back straight, head high, prowl across the stage and show with body language and facial expressions whether they're a haughty royal or a gentle, floaty, affable one. Are they a magical girl? Twirl! Are they a military type? March! Kawaii characters can get away with moe body language like bowing, throwing the V-sign, covering their face and pretending to giggle, etc. Fantasy characters with magic can pretend to summon or conjure. Don't be afraid to pantomime invisible side-characters and interact with them - a Victorian lady can flutter a fan and coquettishly flirt with suitors, a superhero or shounen fighter can punch invisible enemies, ranking officers or royalty can confer with nonexistent courtiers around them. The audience itself can also be treated as an invisible character with which to interact, essentially fourth-walling them and letting them in on the performance.
To make this kind of extra-walking walk-on interesting, tell a story. Set a scene. A magical girl going through her transformation, a swordsman encountering enemies, a queen preening before her mirror, a soldier injured and trying to escape, a video game protagonist searching for treasure or encountering a boss, a pirate drunk. It doesn't have to be a long story, but it has to be easy to tell with body language and minimal choreography. No sets, props, or even dialogue is necessary, and it is especially impactful if the audience understands and appreciates your character without you needing to speak or lip-sync a single line. Use that to your advantage, and work the audience - tug at their heartstrings, make them cry, make them laugh, make them scream and cheer, make them gasp in awe. Even simply presenting something beautifully on stage may not get the immediate gratification of a huge audience reaction, but if you do it well, I guarantee they will be talking about it all night long and maybe for months and years afterward. "Remember that really gorgeous X? Man that was so neat to see."
Performances like this can go up another level if you have at least one other person entering with you. With two or three people at most on stage, there are even more options, playing on how the characters would interact. Moreover, there are better movement options, because people can move around each other, circle and spin, cross one another's paths, and otherwise keep the movement dynamic and never boring. But, even with just one person on stage, the walking path does not have to be a straight line or a figure-eight. Given twenty to thirty seconds for a performance, you will quickly come to realize that that's a LOT of time! Depending on the character's personality and the scene, the walking path can be a series of small circles, a large circle, some X or crossing paths, a box, even a back and forth that ends with a center-front pose. It does require more preparation than deciding on a whim to enter, but if you put all that time into the costume in the first place and are already asking yourself if maybe you want to enter the contest when you get to the con, why not plan for it? If you end up not entering, you already have a plan shelved for a future attempt, and if you never compete, well, it's not like you're a worse person for having come up with the idea and practiced it in your living room a few times.
3. Use Your Own Music
This is one that absolutely depends on the rules of the particular masquerade, because some have a good audio tech who can rip submitted music and prepare it to be in order and ready to go for the show, and some...don't. If you have this option available to you, take it! Nothing punches up a performance like having your own music, particularly if the director does not provide music for entries at all and so everyone around you will be walking on in dead silence.
It doesn't have to be the most widely-known theme song from the series, or iconic BGM, or even from the actual soundtrack. What's important is that the music fits the scene you're setting. Fight scenes need dynamic, exciting music. Gentle ladies floating along in ballgowns being pretty need softer, fluttery music. A dramatic or angst-evoking scene needs darker, moody music. A character pantomiming some kind of performance, like singing opera, playing an instrument, and so on should have appropriate music, all the better to pretend-sing so you don't expose your flubs in public. Choosing the right music can even inspire an idea for the performance. Say you're listening to a soundtrack or a live mix and you hear something that reminds you very much of the character, and you can even envision them doing their iconic fight moves or re-enacting some scene from the show/game/movie to that background music. Use that snippet of music and allow it to create the choreography rather than plan out the choreography first and then struggle to find the right music for it.
If that's too much extra for a first-time, at the very least use a piece of music that fits the character and their source. Using opening songs or theme songs works fantastic for very iconic characters, nostalgia callbacks, and fourth-wall breaking when you expect to just get a huge audience reaction in anticipation the moment they hear the music start. But consider well! After all, the Star Wars Main Theme works for pretty much any Star Wars character, but wouldn't the Imperial March work better for Darth Vader, Duel of the Fates for any prequel Jedi and Sith, or the Force Theme for Luke or Rey? Each piece of music is iconic, but each sets a different mood and evokes a different response from the audience. Mad cheering for something they recognize is sort of a low-hanging fruit, it's really easy to evoke and sometimes they're just cheering for the song or the source material and don't give a shit about you and your costume. Is that the reaction you really want? Even worse, as an emcee I once saw the audience completely turn on a cosplayer because they thought the music meant they were getting one thing, but the cosplayer came out as something completely different and the cheers just died. It was quite disheartening to watch.
4. Use the Emcee
It can be difficult when you're new to a particular convention and don't know how they run their masquerade, and even worse when they've got a couple of clowns up there who steal the show from the cosplayers by making it all about them and their crude jokes, often at the expense of the contestants. But when you hit one of those shows that has a decent emcee who's there to read your entry title and anything else you provide, milk it for all it's worth.
Don't just use the emcee to read an opening script for you, or provide an opening line, sometimes you can even interact with the emcee, and it makes for a more fun presentation. A good emcee will not only allow it, they'll encourage it, and the more the emcee interacts with the contestants in general, the more fun it is for the audience. It can also be a big encouragement to have one person out there on stage already who's on your side, ready to help you look and feel your best.
5. Props and Weapons
Full fight choreography is an option for performance, but it takes experience and tons of practice, so you don't see it done very often. Having sat in on and helped with Chris Ayers' stage combat for cosplay workshops, I've seen just how difficult it is to properly plan and execute fight choreography. But it doesn't have to be that over-the-top to still be interesting. What's important is playing to your strengths, playing to recognizable character moves, and practicing enough so that it doesn't come off awkward or impossible.
Another point with weapons is safety. I see a lot of people point their weapons straight at the audience, and it makes me sad, because there are several reasons not to do this. One is safety, the other is appearance. So, if you're not interested in changing how you handle a weapon for the sake of other people and their safety and comfort level, consider changing because it will make you look better on stage.
Guns are the obvious no-no, for many reasons. Step outside yourself for a moment and consider the other people in the audience. You don't know any of these people, you don't know what their life experiences are. You don't know if they have police or military backgrounds and are trained to react to having a gun pointed at them. You don't know if they have PTSD and are triggered by having a gun pointed at them. You don't know if they've suffered some trauma in their past and are uncomfortable with guns. You simply don't know. Why not err on the side of not being a jerk and point the gun somewhere else? It really doesn't take that much, it's the same amount of effort and muscle movement as pointing it straight into people's faces.
But if you don't care about other people, care about how you look on stage. When you point any weapon, gun or otherwise, straight into faces, all people see is the tip. With prop guns, that means all they see is the required orange safety tip. With swords and spears, that means they see a foreshortened view with mostly just the tip of the blade. It's not all that interesting and impactful. Posing to an angle - three-quarters turned away, especially pointing a little higher than the audience's heads - allows the whole audience to see your entire weapon. If it's a magnificent prop that you worked hard on, you want them to see it! On top of that, think about all the movie posters and video game covers you've seen. Most of the time, including with guns and blasters, the characters in the promotional material or cover are posing with their weapons held at an angle so you can see most of the weapon, as well as the character's dynamic body posing. That's the pose you know so well, the iconic image of the character: it's always at an angle so you can see most of their body, all their special features and costume bits, and the broad side of the weapon. Obviously, the marketing departments of your favorite media know how well this works, so use it on stage.
6. Lip Sync For Your LIFE
It's a good rule of thumb for skits to have all the audio pre-recorded and then lip sync along to it on stage, but walk-ons can make use of this too. If the director doesn't automatically designate everything involving lip-sync as a skit, that is. If you have the wiggle room to add to your performance, see what happens when you throw a single line of spoken dialogue into the music, or a single verse of a song.
If you're going to lip sync, though, take a cue from RuPaul and lip sync for your life! Don't half-ass it, don't forget the words, don't cover your mouth. Really lip sync like a drag queen - big mouth movements, enunciate the words, use facial expressions to enhance the performance.
7. Beware of the Talent Show
It can be tempting, especially for masquerades where they might actually allow you a microphone on stage (which I personally consider a huge mistake) to perform as if you're in a talent show. That is, to find an excuse to sing, to recite a soliloquy from the source material, to play an instrument, juggle, ride a unicycle, etc. It seems like a good idea at the time. But remember that masquerades are first and foremost a costume contest. They're there for the cosplay. If it wasn't about the cosplay, you could go up on stage in a garbage bag and perform and get awards, but you can't, because it's not about the performance. The stage portion of the contest is so that the audience can see the costume, and so that the judges who previously looked at it up close can see how it moves and how you offer it to them. The judges don't want to be the only people who've seen you in your costume, and you don't want that either, you're there to show it off to the whole con. It's really not about talent.
But if philosophical reasons aren't enough, consider the practical. Mainstage rooms at most cons are the biggest ballroom in the convention center. These rooms are not built for stage performing, the acoustics are terrible, the PA system most cons have to rent isn't state-of-the-art, and the chair setup around the stage makes sound issues even worse. Even if you're a seasoned hardcore professional who's performed on Broadway, that ballroom will make you sound like shit. Add in even the slightest bit of nervousness, and trying to sing (a cappella or over a track) will most likely not turn out as nice as you were hoping. Audiences can be cruel and unforgiving, even the slightest waver in your voice or falter in your pacing and they will judge you harshly. When it comes to instruments, the stage is not set up for it, and chances are good that the tech doesn't even have the right mics or mixing board to mic amplifiers, hand instruments, or anything else. You would be simply relying on an enormous ballroom with a thousand bodies in it being dead quiet for anyone to hear the violin or ocarina or what have you. And, again, any nervousness causing the slightest falter in playing and the audience will not forgive you for not being a professional.
There is also a huge problem of not realizing how much time is being taken up, and how bored the audience is getting. I've seen people attempt to a cappella perform an entire five-minute-long Broadway song and it's frustratingly awkward. That soliloquy of your favorite character's eight-minute-long speech from the middle of the movie is, I guarantee, interesting only to you. A good rule of thumb is to never make the audience feel awkward, uncomfortable, or second-hand-embarrassed for you. If they feel bad, so do the judges, and that's not going to win awards.
8. Being Totally Extra - Set Pieces, Dances, Going Big
I've directed, judged, and emceed contests of all kinds at conventions of all sizes. I've also competed for a long a time, so I've seen masquerades from every angle. For the sake of shorthand, I default to the term "masquerade" for the cosplay contest, costume contest, whatever it's called at various cons. The term originated in the 1960's when the traditional masquerade ball - aka costume party - at major sci-fi cons morphed into more of a stage show and the party gradually faded away. In the 1970s every sci-fi con had adopted this new format, but still called it the Masquerade, even though it was now a stage presentation of costumes and contest to judge their impact and workmanship. Since most present-day genre cons owe their existence, format, and traditions to those established in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, I still call it the Masquerade. Many anime cons call it the cosplay contest, but it's the same thing.
Smaller cons, and newer ones, tend to have a different idea of what makes a good cosplay contest than what I've become used to through larger, longer-lived cons. The best, most entertaining shows I've either been a part of or watched were ones that kept everything mixed - skill levels, performance types, nothing is segregated, everyone in the pool. The only way the audience knows which costumes are being presented by which skill level is through the emcee, and when they're mixed together, you could have Novices and Masters back to back with equally amazing costumes, and even if they're not being judged in the same category, it helps the show flow more smoothly. It absolutely makes for a more interesting show for the audience, when the director can put performances they know are going to have a larger impact at certain points and end on a real show-stopper. But the last few shows I've judged and emceed, in the past two years, have had a different format, and while they're entitled to run their show however they see fit, I find it a lot less interesting. They split "walk-ons" and "skits" into separate categories, and then divide the walk-ons by skill level, putting all the Novices together one after another, then the Journeymen, then the Masters, then the skits. I don't like this format because it basically puts all the people in the same category back to back with each other so there isn't much of a surprise. And, even if the audience isn't well-versed in cosplay and what goes into it, they've come to expect that the "Masters" are the big, flashy costumes, so they sit there bored waiting for the Novices and Journeymen to get done with so they can see what they really came for. Since the Novice category at most smaller cons, especially anime cons, tends to be jam-packed with easily triple the entries of either Journeyman or Master, it can be very discouraging for the Novices to all stand there together in a group, compare themselves to each other, and realize none of them are going to win anything.
I bring this up as relevant to the actual topic because, if you're entering in a contest like this, where you're not planning to do a dialogue skit and therefore get shunted into Walk-On, how do you stand out from the crowd? What are the best ways to punch up your performance and do something different?
Some of it depends on the contest and its rules. Some smaller cons don't have much of a staff for audio and lighting, and relying on volunteers means sometimes all they can get is someone to push a button to turn a mic on, rather than a team of audio engineers who can edit music and mix on the fly. So, the rules may not allow for things like having your own music, asking for special lighting cues, etc. Take that as a caveat up front, but even without custom music or lights, there are things that can be done.
1. Forget the Three Pose Spots
For a while in the middle 00s, new, smaller cons found themselves struggling with their masquerades, because rather than bring in people experienced with the concept who could help punch things up, they were inundated with newbies who had no idea what to do on stage. Most of them were so new to cosplay that they didn't even know what the contest was or why they should enter it, except that it was there and they were wearing a costume so why not? So for a while, a lot of cons were plagued with boring masquerades where cosplayers either just stood around in one spot on stage in dead silence for way too long, or they bolted across in five seconds or less out of stage fright. In order to combat this, some directors started suggesting one of two posing methods to keep people on point: one, the figure eight, or two, the three poses. It did help, but what a lot of directors and judges didn't consider was that when they were giving that advice, it was meant for the people who had zero plan and zero idea what to do, not the people who'd had some experience in masquerades and had ideas already in their pockets. So, instead of offering an option to the completely clueless, that advice ended up becoming the standardized way that everyone doing a walk-on did their thing. Even worse, some directors began to rely on that same crutch, actually instructing their competitors to do this figure-eight or three-pose route and never deviate from it.
The gist of both routes is giving the inexperienced cosplayer a path that is easy to remember, easy to manage no matter how terrified they are, and keeps them on stage long enough for people to really see their costume but not so long that the audience gets bored of them. With the figure-eight, the cosplayer enters the stage, walks across to the far front corner, stops to pose, then walks back across the stage to the opposite corner (near where they entered), stops to pose again, and then turns fully to cross the entirety of the stage to reach the exit. It's a good way to let both sides of a full Mainstage room see the costume, and includes a turn so that they can see the back of the costume. The three-poses route came up as a simplified way to just slow cosplayers down so they didn't go out, pose once, and leave. Three spots are identified - stage right, center, and stage left - and the cosplayer is encouraged to march to the first one, stop and pose, then go to the center, stop and pose, then move to the last one, stop and pose, and then exit. There is a simple linear progression that even the most nervous or distracted cosplayer can remember, though it doesn't really allow for doing turns to show all sides of the costume, and on very small stages it's very hard to cram three poses in when each spot is literally two steps away from the last one. Either way is an excellent plan for someone who enters the masquerade on a whim without preparing anything more elaborate, or complete first-timers who have no idea what they're getting into and need that direction, but the downside? It's boring.
After about the fourth or fifth person coming out on stage, the audience will catch on to what every single one of them is doing. When you have 30 Novices all doing the exact same thing, it gets super boring super fast. Some directors think that the three-pose route benefits photographers, but does it really? I have photos of myself on stage doing various kinds of performances, including dances and choreography, and the "real" photogs get good shots no matter what I'm doing. They don't need the cosplayer to stop and hold a pose for ten seconds. Regular joes in the audience trying to quicksnap photos with their phones might appreciate the pause for a pose, but the further back they're sitting, their photos are going to be shit anyway. If they really want the cosplayer's picture, they can ask for one after the contest. From the cosplayer's perspective, they may have a hard time coming up with poses, especially for characters (or costumes) that look better in movement rather than standing still. We all know it's boring, and for a cosplayer, that can be embarrassing and discouraging.
So, my first piece of advice is to completely forget this. Don't do the Three Poses. Don't even do the Figure-Eight unless you really don't have anything else you can do. What should you do instead? Well, there's lots of ideas and they all follow.
2. It's Still Walking
There are a ton of things that can be done that aren't walk-pose-walk or skit-with-dialogue. Those aren't the only two options, there's a world of beauty in the middle of these two extremes. You don't have to be Master level, you don't need a load of stage props or sets, and depending on what the audio techs can do, you may not even need your own music.
Most masquerades in the present age are as much of a mix of interests as the conventions themselves. Even if they're billed as anime or comic cons, cosplayers and non-cosplayers alike have wide ranges of interests and the cosplay seen in the halls and on stage reflects that. No one has strict rules like Japanese-media-only anymore, thankfully. What this means for the masquerade is that even if there's one or two super-popular series or movies that everyone is cosplaying, that's not the only thing they're cosplaying. People like to take their dream costumes to competition, meaning it could be an original design, a mashup, or an obscure character that they always wanted to do but didn't try it out back when the thing was popular. So, they can't just rely on the emcee reading their name and "Character from Series" for the audience to get who they're supposed to be. If it's original or really obscure, just posing doesn't mean anything to an audience who wouldn't know the character's classic pose from a hole in the ground.
Presenting a character on stage should be a step up from just posing for a photo in the hallway outside. It doesn't require acting or special talent to briefly embody the character, though it might take some pep talks and psyching yourself up for it. The key is to know the character's personality, their movements, and their iconic moments and prepare yourself to "act" for a mere thirty seconds or less. Use your arms, your shoulders and back, your hips, your neck and head. Even if the audience past about the third row or so can't really see the expression on your face well, the judges can, and the judges are the ones who decide who wins! Make facial expressions, convey emotion. Use body language to tell the story to the entire audience, but don't forget to use facial language to convey the extra nuances of the story to the judges and the first few rows. Those people waited in line a long time to get those good seats, you might as well give them a show.
Is the character a fighter? By all means do some fighting moves, as much as you know them. Don't just pose with the weapon but show that you know how the character would use it. Safety first, and don't go overboard with a complex fight choreography if you're not experienced in stage combat, but even a few simple swipes of a sword, a twirl of a staff, or some ninja creeping can go a long way toward spicing up the presentation. There's more on proper handling of weapons in another point below.
Is the character royalty, with an impressive formal outfit? Back straight, head high, prowl across the stage and show with body language and facial expressions whether they're a haughty royal or a gentle, floaty, affable one. Are they a magical girl? Twirl! Are they a military type? March! Kawaii characters can get away with moe body language like bowing, throwing the V-sign, covering their face and pretending to giggle, etc. Fantasy characters with magic can pretend to summon or conjure. Don't be afraid to pantomime invisible side-characters and interact with them - a Victorian lady can flutter a fan and coquettishly flirt with suitors, a superhero or shounen fighter can punch invisible enemies, ranking officers or royalty can confer with nonexistent courtiers around them. The audience itself can also be treated as an invisible character with which to interact, essentially fourth-walling them and letting them in on the performance.
To make this kind of extra-walking walk-on interesting, tell a story. Set a scene. A magical girl going through her transformation, a swordsman encountering enemies, a queen preening before her mirror, a soldier injured and trying to escape, a video game protagonist searching for treasure or encountering a boss, a pirate drunk. It doesn't have to be a long story, but it has to be easy to tell with body language and minimal choreography. No sets, props, or even dialogue is necessary, and it is especially impactful if the audience understands and appreciates your character without you needing to speak or lip-sync a single line. Use that to your advantage, and work the audience - tug at their heartstrings, make them cry, make them laugh, make them scream and cheer, make them gasp in awe. Even simply presenting something beautifully on stage may not get the immediate gratification of a huge audience reaction, but if you do it well, I guarantee they will be talking about it all night long and maybe for months and years afterward. "Remember that really gorgeous X? Man that was so neat to see."
Performances like this can go up another level if you have at least one other person entering with you. With two or three people at most on stage, there are even more options, playing on how the characters would interact. Moreover, there are better movement options, because people can move around each other, circle and spin, cross one another's paths, and otherwise keep the movement dynamic and never boring. But, even with just one person on stage, the walking path does not have to be a straight line or a figure-eight. Given twenty to thirty seconds for a performance, you will quickly come to realize that that's a LOT of time! Depending on the character's personality and the scene, the walking path can be a series of small circles, a large circle, some X or crossing paths, a box, even a back and forth that ends with a center-front pose. It does require more preparation than deciding on a whim to enter, but if you put all that time into the costume in the first place and are already asking yourself if maybe you want to enter the contest when you get to the con, why not plan for it? If you end up not entering, you already have a plan shelved for a future attempt, and if you never compete, well, it's not like you're a worse person for having come up with the idea and practiced it in your living room a few times.
3. Use Your Own Music
This is one that absolutely depends on the rules of the particular masquerade, because some have a good audio tech who can rip submitted music and prepare it to be in order and ready to go for the show, and some...don't. If you have this option available to you, take it! Nothing punches up a performance like having your own music, particularly if the director does not provide music for entries at all and so everyone around you will be walking on in dead silence.
It doesn't have to be the most widely-known theme song from the series, or iconic BGM, or even from the actual soundtrack. What's important is that the music fits the scene you're setting. Fight scenes need dynamic, exciting music. Gentle ladies floating along in ballgowns being pretty need softer, fluttery music. A dramatic or angst-evoking scene needs darker, moody music. A character pantomiming some kind of performance, like singing opera, playing an instrument, and so on should have appropriate music, all the better to pretend-sing so you don't expose your flubs in public. Choosing the right music can even inspire an idea for the performance. Say you're listening to a soundtrack or a live mix and you hear something that reminds you very much of the character, and you can even envision them doing their iconic fight moves or re-enacting some scene from the show/game/movie to that background music. Use that snippet of music and allow it to create the choreography rather than plan out the choreography first and then struggle to find the right music for it.
If that's too much extra for a first-time, at the very least use a piece of music that fits the character and their source. Using opening songs or theme songs works fantastic for very iconic characters, nostalgia callbacks, and fourth-wall breaking when you expect to just get a huge audience reaction in anticipation the moment they hear the music start. But consider well! After all, the Star Wars Main Theme works for pretty much any Star Wars character, but wouldn't the Imperial March work better for Darth Vader, Duel of the Fates for any prequel Jedi and Sith, or the Force Theme for Luke or Rey? Each piece of music is iconic, but each sets a different mood and evokes a different response from the audience. Mad cheering for something they recognize is sort of a low-hanging fruit, it's really easy to evoke and sometimes they're just cheering for the song or the source material and don't give a shit about you and your costume. Is that the reaction you really want? Even worse, as an emcee I once saw the audience completely turn on a cosplayer because they thought the music meant they were getting one thing, but the cosplayer came out as something completely different and the cheers just died. It was quite disheartening to watch.
4. Use the Emcee
It can be difficult when you're new to a particular convention and don't know how they run their masquerade, and even worse when they've got a couple of clowns up there who steal the show from the cosplayers by making it all about them and their crude jokes, often at the expense of the contestants. But when you hit one of those shows that has a decent emcee who's there to read your entry title and anything else you provide, milk it for all it's worth.
Don't just use the emcee to read an opening script for you, or provide an opening line, sometimes you can even interact with the emcee, and it makes for a more fun presentation. A good emcee will not only allow it, they'll encourage it, and the more the emcee interacts with the contestants in general, the more fun it is for the audience. It can also be a big encouragement to have one person out there on stage already who's on your side, ready to help you look and feel your best.
5. Props and Weapons
Full fight choreography is an option for performance, but it takes experience and tons of practice, so you don't see it done very often. Having sat in on and helped with Chris Ayers' stage combat for cosplay workshops, I've seen just how difficult it is to properly plan and execute fight choreography. But it doesn't have to be that over-the-top to still be interesting. What's important is playing to your strengths, playing to recognizable character moves, and practicing enough so that it doesn't come off awkward or impossible.
Another point with weapons is safety. I see a lot of people point their weapons straight at the audience, and it makes me sad, because there are several reasons not to do this. One is safety, the other is appearance. So, if you're not interested in changing how you handle a weapon for the sake of other people and their safety and comfort level, consider changing because it will make you look better on stage.
Guns are the obvious no-no, for many reasons. Step outside yourself for a moment and consider the other people in the audience. You don't know any of these people, you don't know what their life experiences are. You don't know if they have police or military backgrounds and are trained to react to having a gun pointed at them. You don't know if they have PTSD and are triggered by having a gun pointed at them. You don't know if they've suffered some trauma in their past and are uncomfortable with guns. You simply don't know. Why not err on the side of not being a jerk and point the gun somewhere else? It really doesn't take that much, it's the same amount of effort and muscle movement as pointing it straight into people's faces.
But if you don't care about other people, care about how you look on stage. When you point any weapon, gun or otherwise, straight into faces, all people see is the tip. With prop guns, that means all they see is the required orange safety tip. With swords and spears, that means they see a foreshortened view with mostly just the tip of the blade. It's not all that interesting and impactful. Posing to an angle - three-quarters turned away, especially pointing a little higher than the audience's heads - allows the whole audience to see your entire weapon. If it's a magnificent prop that you worked hard on, you want them to see it! On top of that, think about all the movie posters and video game covers you've seen. Most of the time, including with guns and blasters, the characters in the promotional material or cover are posing with their weapons held at an angle so you can see most of the weapon, as well as the character's dynamic body posing. That's the pose you know so well, the iconic image of the character: it's always at an angle so you can see most of their body, all their special features and costume bits, and the broad side of the weapon. Obviously, the marketing departments of your favorite media know how well this works, so use it on stage.
6. Lip Sync For Your LIFE
It's a good rule of thumb for skits to have all the audio pre-recorded and then lip sync along to it on stage, but walk-ons can make use of this too. If the director doesn't automatically designate everything involving lip-sync as a skit, that is. If you have the wiggle room to add to your performance, see what happens when you throw a single line of spoken dialogue into the music, or a single verse of a song.
If you're going to lip sync, though, take a cue from RuPaul and lip sync for your life! Don't half-ass it, don't forget the words, don't cover your mouth. Really lip sync like a drag queen - big mouth movements, enunciate the words, use facial expressions to enhance the performance.
7. Beware of the Talent Show
It can be tempting, especially for masquerades where they might actually allow you a microphone on stage (which I personally consider a huge mistake) to perform as if you're in a talent show. That is, to find an excuse to sing, to recite a soliloquy from the source material, to play an instrument, juggle, ride a unicycle, etc. It seems like a good idea at the time. But remember that masquerades are first and foremost a costume contest. They're there for the cosplay. If it wasn't about the cosplay, you could go up on stage in a garbage bag and perform and get awards, but you can't, because it's not about the performance. The stage portion of the contest is so that the audience can see the costume, and so that the judges who previously looked at it up close can see how it moves and how you offer it to them. The judges don't want to be the only people who've seen you in your costume, and you don't want that either, you're there to show it off to the whole con. It's really not about talent.
But if philosophical reasons aren't enough, consider the practical. Mainstage rooms at most cons are the biggest ballroom in the convention center. These rooms are not built for stage performing, the acoustics are terrible, the PA system most cons have to rent isn't state-of-the-art, and the chair setup around the stage makes sound issues even worse. Even if you're a seasoned hardcore professional who's performed on Broadway, that ballroom will make you sound like shit. Add in even the slightest bit of nervousness, and trying to sing (a cappella or over a track) will most likely not turn out as nice as you were hoping. Audiences can be cruel and unforgiving, even the slightest waver in your voice or falter in your pacing and they will judge you harshly. When it comes to instruments, the stage is not set up for it, and chances are good that the tech doesn't even have the right mics or mixing board to mic amplifiers, hand instruments, or anything else. You would be simply relying on an enormous ballroom with a thousand bodies in it being dead quiet for anyone to hear the violin or ocarina or what have you. And, again, any nervousness causing the slightest falter in playing and the audience will not forgive you for not being a professional.
There is also a huge problem of not realizing how much time is being taken up, and how bored the audience is getting. I've seen people attempt to a cappella perform an entire five-minute-long Broadway song and it's frustratingly awkward. That soliloquy of your favorite character's eight-minute-long speech from the middle of the movie is, I guarantee, interesting only to you. A good rule of thumb is to never make the audience feel awkward, uncomfortable, or second-hand-embarrassed for you. If they feel bad, so do the judges, and that's not going to win awards.
8. Being Totally Extra - Set Pieces, Dances, Going Big