WCS 2010: Skip Beat Journey!

And so with procrastination and life, this entry comes unbelievably late. I really ought to have posted this before the guide to korea.
Anyway, just thought that even though we didn't win, I should still chronicle and share our wcs journey. Afterall, it is part of my life journey too =)

So gin and I only decided on the series a month or so before the competition. In fact, we only thought of joining the competition roughly around that timeline too. Gin wasn't super keen but with 'cosplaying skip beat' as a bait, i managed to lure her in. Muahaaaahahaa *kaika evil spirits loiters* After that, it wasn't until another 2 more weeks before we started our actual script details and practise.
<<-- My ultimately not used “Fuwa Sho“ Poster
The delay was due to our over imaginative ideas in the beginning. A lot of time was spent conceptualising the script and figuring out how to do the special effects without any stage ninjas. We had many big ideas for the script and we brainstormed endlessly for a solution to solve the technicalities.
For one, my initial idea was to create a 'spirit hand' , well, kyoko's famous spiritual power, and grab gin with it. We also thought of creating gravity defying spirits like how it should look. But they all had to be scrapped for obvious reasons. Sigh.

You know, sometimes its really challenging to only having 2 cosplayers in the skit. There is just so much storyline limitations!!!  And telling a story to a group of audience who probably don't know who the heck you're cosplaying is .... Just "Icing on the cake".
And seriously, choosing to cosplay Skip Beat in a competition that judges very much on your costume is suicide. Yes, we know… but we couldn’t resist the urge to cosplay a series both of us so dearly loved. And having the chance to acted out a skit AS the character was another offer we couldn’t turn down. So we choose to overlook our chances of winning and go ahead with Skip Beat. And I guess reality has showed how wrong(results) we were but… overall, I’m still really happy we did Skip beat.
Off tangent with my rants again, sorry.     

After altering the script to have lesser or no 'special effects' . The next step was voice acting and audio mixing. Gin came over to our place and recorded with my pc microphone which i then mixed together. After getting the first audio draft out, we started working on the props and acting.
We tried to paint the signboards but it didn’t work out so we just got them laser printed.

Gin’s ultimately not used “rugby ball”  (lower left)

In the skit, there was a 'stripping' scene where gin will hide under a big black thrash bag and change under it. We had spent a lot of time decorating that bag with wordings and kyoko's spirit so that when she shakes the bag, the spirit tail will sway too. Sadly, we forgot to highlight that to the stage crew and the thrash bag ended up facing the wrong direction ToT.
It was a very very upsetting part in the skit.... After all, we didn't spent so much time on those props to have it hidden. But what's over is over =(

A lot of time was spent fine tuning our skit actions. We wanted to make sure we performed everything to perfection so every time we rehearse, we'd film it down and review later on.

Bruise on my knee from all the falling at 3:04. I love how Zeratul’s video angle captured the impact of the grabbing most xD

Argh the wig >.<

Almost every gesture, every movement and every expression was scripted/planned. Like the change from 'happy' to 'angry' mode at 1.00, i specially choreographed my body to tilt at an angle and have both arms lifted up to my face area so as to enhance the dramatic-ness of the arms dropping and dangling.

I like how Gin did her arms and face expression at 3:04 to match her voice over. Her disgust for the “Love Me” section and Kyoko (my character) is portrayed so interestingly xD

I love Gin’s acting here XD 

3:50 has got to be one the most fun part to act out xD I truly enjoyed intimidating Gin here MUAHAHAHAH. It took us some time to figure out how we should position and move our body posture here. In the actual manga, Kyoko was supposed to rise from hugging Kanae’s calf and then caress Kanae’s face with her hand.

But obviously we couldn’t do that here because I’m 2meter away from her. So we decided to go for a ‘side tilt intimidating’ effect .

 

Disgusting dance ahahhahaa . Well, I had to do something to distract the audiences while Gin changes into her uniform right XD?

_o_
\|_
   

Can you spot Kyoko’s spirit and curses on the thrash bag T_T?

Marionette wahahahhaa

This still is really comical to see. Kyoko looks so freaking happy while Kanae is shocked outta her mind xD

  

Lalalala ~~ *prances around the summer field*

 

Marionette 2. GUAGUAGUA XD

We found it hard to synchronise both our actions at this section. So we decided to let Kyoko take the lead and turn Kanae while Gin (kanae) will just allow herself to be turned around :D
Argh stupid wig and pouch kept running around =_=

We wanted to highlight Kanae’s OTLness so we designed for Kanae to lean over to the sides to look like she’s dying/fainting/spirit coming out from her body.

Blah! I had too much fun screencapping. Sorry for flooding you guys with our fugly and caught-in-action pictures. I just HAD to caption and share them xD.
Apologies for being off topic and going on non stop about the little details. Hope you guys enjoyed this entry nevertheless. Leave me a comment and share your thoughts ne ^_^?

.

.

.

.

NE?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!