Wednesday, May 23, 2012

I had my first Internship interview

I had my interview yesterday and it was for Event Management company Verve. They are based in Dublin just off the city centre. Susan who interviewed me was very nice and it was lovely doing the interview in Herbert Park. Thankfully here in Dublin we are finally getting nice weather. Verve won best Event Management company of the year and they work with big multi-national companies such as Facebook, Ebay and intend on working with MircoSoft. If I got this internship I would be working for three months so it would be good to get experience and they most likely will keep people on. I will know next week if I have it. If I don't get it all is not lost and I know something relevant will come up. I will stay postive though. :)

What went well with the interview was Susan said she was impressed with my C.V. and experience. She was also interested in the 'cosplay' as I mentioned that I run cosplay events for Eirtakon and for the Experience Japan Festival on my C.V. She said I seemed artistic and I could be good for coming up with the creative ideas end of the job. As events are competitive it is important for event managers to always come up with new ideas to keep things fresh, I suppose it is the same with business with keeping products appealing. Susan also believes that costumes are a growing market and event managers are always looking for costume designers for events. Costume designers are in the demand! So that makes me want to focus on getting into costume making and is good news for cosplayers. ^^ What really striked me with the interview was I was told that my C.V. should be very visual and that I should put in images of my cosplays, of Eirtakon, Experience Japan and other events I worked at. This really shows that times have changed! I feel alot has changed since I left primary school which was nineteen years ago. This also reminds me while in college for Human Resource Management creative employers prefer to use Facebook or youtube for C.V.s as it is visual and they really get to see the applicant. I now have my Facebook on public and I think it is fantatsic to show people what I do with the images. I will attach my Facebook on the side of my blog. I am thinking of using my Facebook as my 'colourful' C.V. :P

 As for other things coming up, I have a meeting with photographer Stephen Hedley all thanks to Jay aka Mechanic Geisha. The meeting will be on the Cosplay project which could be the beginning of the preparation for CosArt. The meeting is tomorrow. Then on Friday I will be doing some waitressing for Maho who is from a cultural organisation the Visual Munch. It is the Paddy Jolly family remembrance dedicated to a film director. The event will be in IMMA the Museum of Modern Art. I will have to be there at two and I know I am in for a long day but I am getting experience and networking, can add this on to my C.V. and can ask Maho if anything else comes up can she let me know. It is also turns out that Maho is a big fan of Anime. :P IMMA is a lovely gallery and is one of my favourite museums. As for shoots? Yeah there will lots of them! As well as getting professional event experience and a job, I also think it is important to focus on my modelling and cosplays as they will all help and will be part of the dream. :) I am looking at doing a dressmakng course over the summer but how am I going to find time!

Friday, May 18, 2012

Many people may only look at a cosplayer's physical structure as opposed to the way she thinks.

I found this article while I typed in "the pressure of being beautiful" in google. I was wondering what type of images came up. I found the article very relevant. How about you read the article replacing beauitful women with Pro-Cosplayers and replace society with the internet or cosplay world. They are amazing and talented people out there and they get trolled mostly because of jealousy but just because they are "perfect" you don't know what they go through or have been through.
The struggles that beautiful women face in society There are many struggles that beautiful women face in society. They have to face a lot of jealousy and criticism from other people which includes other women who are not as beautiful as they may be. Society can be very harsh when judging beautiful women, and some people will never be able to believe that a beautiful woman has made it on her own . Many people will never believe that beautiful women has a brain and can think for herself. This can cause her to loose confidence within herself, and this also be a cause for her to have very low self esteem. Beautiful women are expected to remain groomed. They are expected to act in a certain way, and have the best take on fashion. Practically this is not possible all the time, as beautiful women are also human beings, and they need to be able to focus on other areas of their lives, like normal people. Supermodels are usually photographed in the public eye using their normal clothes and with no make up. This usually makes them look unprofessional in the public eye, but unfortunately people fail to realize that beautiful women are only human and have physical flaws like everyone else. These unrealistic expectations of the public when dealing with beautiful women can put a lot of pressure on them. Beautiful women are used to receiving compliments. If their looks are taken away from them as they age or due to some physical aliment then they can become very insecure, and this can lead to mental conditions like depression, and some other conditions. Beautiful women are usually judged solely on their looks. Many people miss the fact that they may be intelligent or good at a certain sport. People may only look at her physical structure as opposed to the way that she thinks. Men may commit to a beautiful women solely on infatuation, and when this passion fades then he may leave her for someone else. The woman may fall hopelessly in love with the man and this can cause a lot of emotional problems and bad love choices. It is not always a '' walk in the park'' to be a beautiful woman. These women are forced to conform to society, and behave in a certain manner. Beauty can be a curse to a beautiful women and she may be locked into herself, and not be able to go beyond her physical beauty. This can leave her with no personality, and can be more of a hindrance in her growth.
Source
Listening to: Knights in White Satin - The Moody Blues

CosArt - Showcasing the influence of Japanese visual art an Irish artists and performers

I finally got there in the end. This is my final end of year project which was a cultural handbook on an event you aim to run in the future. I choose to focus my handbook on CosArt which will be a cosplay and anime art exhibition expressing cosplay and Anime as artistic. I aim to run this event in Dublin and hopefuly will soon. CosArt will be the Cosplay Ireland launch event. There has been cosplay art exhibition held in other places in the world such as Geekology 101 in the Philippines and a Cosplay Art exhibition in Moscow. Here you can see the CosArt slogan "Showcasing the influence of Japanese visual art on Irish artists and performers." The idea of CosArt will portray how cosplay and Anime influence Irish individuals. Promoting Japanese culture with an Irish twist. The images I used there are from the Cosplay art exhibition in Moscow. I got the images of a very talented cosplayer Neko_tin who kindly gave me these images and helped organise the event.
I apologise for the images being upside down. I tried fixing it but couldn't get around it. Here are images of Irish cosplayers from Eirtakon and other anime conventions. I had to explain what cosplay is and explain about the Irish cosplay/Anime scene.
Yep lots of graphs which were a pain to do. On the right is the Gantt Chart which is a Project Management tool when you put up in a table all the tasks you need to do to prepare for your event eg "On this date I must create a CosArt web presence.." Then you have your critical path the tasks you really need to focus on.
This is the floor plan of the Helix the home of Eirtakon. We had to do a floor plan of the venue for our event, mark where everything is going to go, fire exits and the photostudio. In the project I said I would run the event in the Helix as we have contacts with the Helix from running Eirtakon and the Helix staff are a gem to work with, but giving this is a fresh and new idea and would like many to come I would ideally like to run CosArt in the Dublin city centre.
This is the work breakdown sheet and Project Logic Diagram. You have to think logically about planning for your event like every little step. Funny enough I found this quite fun to do.
The Evaluation part of my project.
I have an image here of two excellent cosplayers from Eirtakon last year. The Pokemon cosplayer in white is Orla. She was going to be one of Ireland's representives for the EuroCosplay in London but unfortunely she can't take part. Hopefully another opportunity will come to her.
On the left you will see images of the Geekology101 Cosplay exhibition which was ran by cosplay photogrpaher Jay Tablantes. These images are to show what I am basing CosArt on. On the right there is the cosplay stageshow from Experience Japan.
Awh this is the staff call sheet. The timetable I had to design for my volunteers. You might spot your name there. ;)
I am so glad the course is over. It was very intensive. My class were lovely and it was fantastic that all our passion came out. The course really did put me into a direction as I want to now tackle and join Japanese cultural groups, network and get the idea out there. I was also thankful that my tutors supported my CosArt idea and said it would be a success. I need to now apply for internships in event management and try get some experience and can get a job in my field. I also want to really focus on my cosplaying, Cosplay Ireland and do artistic shoots so it is going to be very differcult multi-tasking lets just say.. My passion would be to promote and run Anime, cosplay Japanese pop culture events through education and the like as my career and do costume design if I have time. I just really hope things work out for me now and I would love to make CosArt into a reality. :) Listening to: Sims Soundtrack

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Otaku over running Sakura Matsuri

I quickly checked my tumblr and came across an interesting article from MangaTherapy's Tumblr on an article referring to the growing 'Otaku' concerns with a Japanese cultural Festival Sakura Matsuri held in New York. Here is the link to the article.
As my background in events is 'Otaku' related and I do run the cosplay and Japanese fashion events at the Experience Japan Festival which I blogged about I wanted to share my insight into this topic. :)

I do see the concern here of growing anime interest at a traditional Japanese festival. Over the last two years Experience Japan want to encourage more Japanese pop culture as in the past the festival was mainly focused on traditional culture. I remember last year I got a phonce call from an Experience Japan committee member asking me to be on the committee to run the cosplay events as they would like cosplay to be exposed. I was a good person to be asked as they knew my cosplay reputation from Eirtakon. I was delighted to be asked yet somewhat surprised as I thought they would of looked down on cosplay. Cosplay is very well percieved by both the Japanese and Irish community that attend this event. Cosplay was one of the main focus at our festival and people really appreciate the craftmanship that goes into the cosplays. We also had a graffiti wall which you may have seen in my earlier posts which had Anime art.

I personally think it is good that a Japanese cultural festival aims to promote all aspects of Japanese culture and not just focus on the one area. Cosplay is seen as an art in Japan and they take it very seriously so that is why I try to be careful to keep that high standard while doing the cosplay showcase so people don't look down on it and see it as "fancy dress." I see no reason why cosplay shouldn't be promoted as well as Anime at a Japanese cultural event if they are part of the pop culture. I understand the concerns though that you wouldn't want one to over write the other and you must keep the balance. You also don't want the event to lose it's meaning which is a big flaw with niche events that grow more broad eg San Diago Comic Con (which was originally a comic convention but extended into film, anime and other media and now lost it's original meaning) and Electric Picnic and Oxygen which are two major music festivals in Ireland. Oxygen is mainstream which has many of the mainstream bands performing and Electric Picnic ran on a large scale but has niche bands and is more educational focused. They are plans of merging both of these music festivals into one which target different audience. I see this as a big flaw. When promoting cosplay and Japanese fashion we are very careful how we do it and stay away from using Anime convention activities eg a cosplay masquarade. We just do a stage show where cosplayers of high quality were chosen to show off their costume to the audience and Fiona and I interview them on the culture so people can learn about it. We make sure to keep the balance of both culture generations.

I have to say I was alittle offended by the article as it made out that cosplayers were loud hooligans. They could of been as I wasn't there and can't say but if that was the case then that is not on as people need to respect others around them. I felt the article made it out that anime fans and cosplayers should not be welcomed at a Japanese cultural event. If they were no harm then I see no problem having them there. The main thing again is to keep the balance and keep the meaning of the event. The article also had me thinking of an artistic cosplay and Anime exhbition I want to run in Dublin it is the event I am working on for college. I will go more into detail about that another time. :)

Friday, May 4, 2012

Anime Dublin

I think I have abit of spare time to post about Anime Dublin which was a new Anime comvention held in Dublin by two of Ireland's top Anime and Manga conventions Eirtakon and Nomcon. It ran back around Easter. It was a one day event which had alot of people. There were party games, seminars, a gaming room and an Easter themed cosplay competition. I really had fun at it talking to people and really enjoyed doing the cosplay workshop with a few other cosplay experts. Here are the images of us doing the cosplay workshop. On the far left is Batman (real name classified ;), Teri cosplaying as female Butters from South Park she is the Cosplay Coordinator for Nomcon, Fiona my cosplay colleague from Eirtakon cosplaying as Mikuru from Haruhi Suzimiya, me and two ladies from a craft website tog.ie who spoke about fabric and where in Dublin was the best place to buy materiels for costumes.
It was good that each cosplayer spoke about their area of expertise as here you will see Batman showing images of masks and armour he makes. There were very impressive! Fiona spoke about make up and eye shadows and how they draw attention to your best features. I don't look impressed but I did enjoy her talk! :P
Now my turn talking about contact lenses.
There were quite a good few at our workshop.
Here are images of the party games. Unfortunely the venue was very small so it was abit tight but was enjoyable. At least next year we know to get a bigger venue.
This is Natasha cosplaying as Bulma in a fine bunny outfit. You regonise her? She done the C.C. Christmas shoot with me that David Kennedy took.
Colin as Archer and C.C.
Random shinagans at the con.
That is Ash in the red t-shirt who is on the Eirtakon committee. He is managing the queue I think. The waiting list queue was crazy there were 40 people on the waiting list. The venue was small that we had to cap the quantity of people and the people who wanted to buy a ticket late had to wait outside incase the people who paid in advance couldn't make it.
This is Seaneen looking pretty in Lolita.
There was alot of really good cosplay.
Lyndsey is a very good cosplayer.
A very good Final Fantasy cosplayer.
Anime Dublin was great fun and I can't wait for next year! There was also lots of different age bracket of people, there was one lady who was in steampunk cosplay and was in her 40s which was cool to see. There was also lots of new faces which was good. The event ended with lots of fun drinks of course. The seminars were very enjoyable. Sean done a very good Gundam panel. I am not really a big fan of Gundam but I did enjoy War in the Pocket. Some of the committee members of Nomcon and Eirtakon done a panel on running cons which was enjoyable. All in all Anime Dublin was a very memoriable experience.