Cosplay Documentary Research and Pitch

Cosplay’s Webster definition is as followed: the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, especially one from the Japanese genres of manga and anime. However dressing up in a particular costume is just one part of cosplay. Once you put on the costume, the person actually acts as and becomes the character that they are portraying, hence the “play” aspect. Cosplay started, like most things do, very small and was only talked about in small circles. It is commonly thought that the cosplay originated in japan as a result of Japanese anime fans but in reality the first use of the word cosplay was simply coined by a Japanese reporter named Nov Takahashi, while he was doing coverage for World Con in Los Angeles, C.A. in 1984. In reality, cosplay started as the masquerade contest for World Con in 1939, and slowly, more and more people would dress up in the years to come with the emergence super hero comics and the growing sci-fi and horror film genres. By the mid 80’s, with the help of Marvel and DC comics, Japanese Anime, and sci-fi phenomenon like Star Wars and Star Trek, the geek culture was booming and cosplay (in those small cirlcles) was as well. Fast-forward 30 years and the cosplay culture is almost becoming mainstream. With the help of conventions becoming more and more prevalent in countries all around the world, the cosplay culture has room to grow and is slowly becoming more and more accepted.

From personal experience I can say that there is a lot that goes into making a cosplay. Not just the time and money, but also all of the emotion and nerves that come into play while making it, especially if it is your first attempt at such a feat. I can remember making my first costume and having no idea what I was doing, feeling lost but excited all at the same time, struggling to stitch together the costume piece by piece, and then being overcome with pride and an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as I put it on for the first time and realizing that I had created this work of art if u will. I can remember the nerves, and the feeling of my heart in my stomach as my friends and I arrived at the con and not knowing if I would be laughed at or not, for my creation; a feeling that was quickly erased by the immense sense of belonging and fellowship as my nerdy brethren accepted me for the geek that I am. In this documentary I want to try and capture all of these emotions as our subjects goes through the experience of building his or her first costume and then unveils it at their first con, not knowing what the response will be. By doing this I hope to show cosplay in its purest form, as a novice just entering the cosplay community. In contrast to this perspective I also want to investigate the process of a veteran cosplayer, specifically one who goes to conventions for the purpose of entering costume contest or has some financial stake in the community. I am curious to see if someone from this side of the spectrum is still as passionate about cosplay as someone just starting out, or if by making cosplay a source of income, has corrupted his or her reasons for doing cosplay at all.