Animania workshop

Woot! I got in into volunteering for Animania 2006! *throw arms in the air* So basically just a brief summary of Animania:

It is a festival celebrating the anime realm. It is held in a couple of areas around Australia (I think Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane). Based on what I have said last year was actually the first year I have ever noticed and attended the festival in Sydney. It is usually held in Town Hall in Sydney. And what it is is basically a gathering of anime fans (or maybe otakus, who knows?). It covers quite a range of fields of animes. It has screenings, karaokes and artist tables (where anime artists usually sell off their stuff whether it's their own creations or fan arts). But what makes this spectacular or interesting for me is actually the amount of people cosplaying (dressing-up) as their favourite anime characters. You wouldn't believe how much effort they actually have put into their costumes. Most of them are so intricate and true to the last detail it is almost mind-boggling. Even though I still think the costumes are pretty much should not be created into real life because sometimes they are not as suitable in real life as in the anime themselves ^^; but that's just my opinion.

So this year Marina and I decided to try our luck into attending the festival as volunteers. The only benefit on being a volunteer is that you get to really see the knick knacks of how the festival work as well as free ticket in (you have to pay $20 for entry on the day but you can pre-register). And we also crossed our fingers into getting accepted for backstage duties. Backstage duties seem to be the most hectic position in the whole field when we went on the 2005 festival. It mostly involves the stage where there were going to be a lot of screenings, events such as artists corner and different things but the most intriguing part has to be the cosplaying event. In the event every cosplayers who register can go on stage and strut their stuff. It is amazing how much people cosplayed and actually are able to stand their and perform as their character ^^; But I admire their bravery. It must have taken enough courage to dress up and do their stuff on stage in front of god-knows-how-many audiences.

And before I delay the news any further I just want to tell that we did get to be volunteers positioned at backstage duties (YEAH!).

So last Saturday we went to a workshop to learn a bit more about backstage. I wasn't actually expecting such a fun workshop though. And just to think that the meeting actually coincided with UTS Open Day and with Marina missing our train (haha!). So anyway here's how the story goes:

I was the first to arrive at the place of the workshop at UTS. But our meeting actually got kicked onto another place because of the Open Day. Actually that was quite lucky that we were kicked to another place, partly because those people who are late can be late and because the workshop ended up taking more room than the lecture room we first was assigned in. So that was kinda a lucky strike.

First we had introductions and then we were divided into two groups (there were actually volunteers from Karaoke and Backstage duties). The Backstage duties went outside the lecture hall and began introducing (yet again). And then we played this game where someone shouts out an animal and then we have to neigh or squeak or oink or something and jump around and then in the middle of the whole thing someone would shout out a number and we have to make a group consisting of that amount of people. So that was fun since we actually didn't get picked at all (hehe). Then we did the name game, which was hard since Marina and I actually sat almost the end of the circle ^^; (you know, the game where you put an adjective in front of your name and then the second part of the game was as you go along the circle you have to remember everyone's adjective and name before you and as such). Omg you have to see how serious I was trying to remember the names. Marina kept on sushing me, which fits because I kept on correcting everyone's wrong names etc as each person do it. Embarassing stuff. But that was just me :P I was probably the only one who took the game so seriously :D

So after that god-awful-embarassing game, we moved on to the newspaper game. So what we do is we divided into groups based on numbers. God, that was so weird. I was practically the only girl in the group. I was looking around and when I realised these were four guys I just sighed and tell myself ok they probably want something to do mecha (robot) related stuff. And actually, I was right. Oops, forgot to tell what the idea behind the game is. What you do is you dress one person in the group as an anime character, vaguely, since you -are- using newspapers to do the costumes, and then let the other groups to guess who the character is. Yeah I, even though I was a part of the group, have no idea who the heck our character was, but I guess that can't be helped. I was lucky enough to not get picked anyway, since I'm the only girl in the group. But Marina's group was different they were all girls with one guy so naturally the guy was picked :P but he turned out to be the most refined and funniest out of the other characters (hehe). And then we joined with another group to make another character. That turned out heaps better than before :P (NOTE: if you don't understand the parts after this then don't worry you really are not missing on anything) We decided to dress one girl as Luffy from One Piece and then decided halfway maybe we should do a cross over between luffy and Kingdom Hearts (haha!) and so we also made a keyblade to the costume (hehe) 'twas fun :P

So next came the 30 minutes lunch break (YEAH! 30 MINUTES!), we came back to the lecture hall to find the news that there was actually free bbq down at the UTS tower front. (I kinda know but forgotten when the break was there :P) So we ended up spending money at Maccas (hehe gomene Marina).

After that we stayed up in the lecture hall being informed of the other necessities in this duties. And we did a little role playing on what we should do when it comes time to the cosplaying event so we get a bit of idea how to go about it. Yup, so that was pretty much all. After that we were just being photographed for our id cards.

I admit. It wasn't really something that I expected out of a workshop but nonetheless that was a fun thing to do after that bad week that I have to succumb to *shakes head in disgrace*. After we all scram from the workshop Marina and I went to Town Hall and ended up going home at about 6 coz we went to different places to buy stuff :P when we were supposed to go home after the workshop ends at 3pm. (hehe)

Alas, that's all the tale I can manage this late at night. And btw, I still haven't done my uni workS yet :P I'm so doomed.