See, in America, EVERYONE thinks if they have a costume, they have a skit.

Hopie and her sister Heehee always have nice skits that are clean and cut to the chase. Alot of people hate on them and the skits they come up with. I don't know if it is just butthurt or something more.

I think it's more that people don't consider the audience when putting together a skit. They say "hey, this is funny for us, let's do it!" And it doesn't end up funny for anyone else.

Serious skits that people try to do are usually done with bad pacing and voice acting that make them awful.

I know your feel, OP; our college cosplay group just started Masquerade brainstorming for the semester, and I'm a little disappointed with the ideas the new kids are coming up with. Luckily, the older members have heard my spiel before and have some good input.

One of my favorite skits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao7GS7uUDsw

Most people at my local cons who do skits don't work on them ahead of time.
It's more like-
>work for months on costume, enter cosplay contest.
>Get to con, look at rest of group's costume, bitch behind their back that you think it's shitty and makes you look bad.
>On Saturday, 4 hours before masquerade, write and practice a skit 6 times.

I think I've seen like, 3 good skits my whole life, and one was a vocaloid cosplay done by a music student who sings opera at her college who just sang a song.

The thing is, I'd much rather just go up on stage, do a little twirl or gesture, and leave. Those contests take forever and generally the skits aren't interesting. They could easily be cut out without cutting entertainment value.

>>5039961
OMG they did it again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WovLXcYWSc&feature=related

this is one of my favorite performances

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnaYHSiis0M

OMG woot for Washu! ^_^ She was one of my favorite characters!

It drives me crazy when people don't practice. It's so PAINFULLY obvious when they haven't practiced. I also find it annoying when someone will do a skit that makes no sense with the series they're cosplaying from. Oh like… I don't know, "I'm cosplaying from K-On! Let's do a skit about ninja zombies and vampires!" Not saying it's impossible to make something like that work, I just haven't seen any that do.

>>5040060
Oh, those are my friends! It makes me happy that you enjoyed their skit.

Just about every skit competition I've ever been too has been treated like a tacky talent show or some sort of 'who can cram the most memes and pop culture into 5 minutes' competition.

Seems that a lot of these kids just don't seem to realize that going up on stage and belly dancing while in costume isn't impressive. It may be somewhat entertaining if, for instance, Princess Tutu cosplayers did some ballet, but unless you're a fucking pro, then what's the point.. and if you're a pro, why are you wasting your time?

I've only ever seen a couple that were truly clever and well thought out. It's really depressing to see just how few people do not resort to just playing "Pokerface" and holding up a giant cardboard Nyan cat.

Great skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC-kHODhTBk

Give it time and I'm sure things will improve. For example the UK skit scene was pretty dire a few years ago but has really improved recently.

>>5043050
Ever seen the color guard Utena skit?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaBDfn8Gd-s

Thought it was a great watch

Worst day ever was when we screwed up the timing on our skit and a slap to the face in the skit got unsynced from the audio.


Protip: practise farther away than you think you shoukd. The stages are big.

at first i was like
ok this video is pretty generic
and then i watched all 11 minutes

What makes me cringe the most is when you walk around cons and you can hear groups saying stuff like "OHMAN LET'S DO SKITS, THE CONTEST IS IN A FEW HOURS, LOL LETS JUST MAKE IT FUNNY AND WIN"

So, so many time I have seen this and never has it gone well.

>>5045763

...wow, that seriously happens? No wonder why I see some poor ones on stage.

>>5043050
>>5039961
>>5040019

Holy crap those are amazing! Man, I totally get what you guys mean about most masquerade skits. I normally avoid them because I already have low expectations for them and I don't want to wait a long line to get in when I could be at other events. I'm not usually a fan that's filled with memes and pop culture, but this was pretty great.

http://youtube/MTuQChxihiA

There needs to be less para para dancing.

>>5043050
Holy shit, that's one of the coolest skits I've ever seen.

One of my favorites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3_qsuUvkq4

>>5046097
This is my favorite skit ever. Got really uber nostalgic the first time I saw it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJPUBeu8nFU

>>5039915
Because there are other outlets for theatre than convention skits.

i love this;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srGshMhHq_8&feature=related

>>5046097
Oh my god I don't even like cosplay, I don't even know how I got here, but that was fucking awesome

>>5046097
I watched it twice so I could see a lot of things I missed, like Raichu being confused or bubblebeam actually being someone who blew bubbles on stage

Fucking awesome

Also I'd Erika

>>5046097
that was beautiful

>>5046097
I literally teared up

Holy shit, that was amazing

I miss coming home from school to watch Pokemon, those were the days, eh..

Now I feel nostalgic as fuck

>>5046097
>Blaine's entrance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVvRMRECfbI

I think this will always be my favorite one. I just love the enthusiasm.

>>5046259

I hate shit like this. Enthusiasm or no, they drunkenly jump around on stage and people are supposed to be impressed? This is the kind of shit I do when wasted in the kareoke room

>>5046262

They have choreography, it's not like they just jumped on stage and started flailing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwIEVIq7dcc
I liked this one

>>5046097

That was the best convention masquerade I've ever been to, this skit made me go home on Sunday night, dig out my copy of Red, and play it all night instead of looking for cosplay pictures of myself

Cosplay is to bring a character to life.
I hate it when they do nothing related to the characters or the series, specially dancing and/or making any character a clown. Why is it everybody feel the urge to be a comedian when cosplaying? WTF people, srsly.
Your characters never dance in the series? THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU DANCING?!
Aww, sou you want to be "creative"? Then go create your own characters, faggot, don't shit on someone else's creation.

Not every series/manga/whatever is "funny", you know?
I'd like there to be a few comic skits, sure, but I also want to see some based on action, romance, drama... where are they!?

Above all, they should always be true to characters.

Also,
>>5046097
Requesting pics or sauce of that Misty, pl0x.

>>5046401
Dramatic skits typically don't do well at cons as the crowds typically respond better to flashy/funny skits.

>Not every series/manga/whatever is "funny", you know?

Many cosplay skits are done as parodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fHtd2RQnZk

Sora the Explorer.

Lucky enough to see this in person. I think it had the majority of the audience tearing up. Nostalgia'd so damn hard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8ZWK8uUMs4

MY FAV http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itXmwmpVpHM

>>5046097
Beyond good and evil tier:
Blaine

Top tier:
Sabrina, Koga, Surge

Mid tier:
Giovanni, Brock

No passion tier:
Erika

Overacting tier:
Ash, Misty

WORD

>>5046097
Most entertaining skit I've seen in years. They did a great job.

One of my favorites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apDRCxcXUiU

I never realized how fucking lame cosplayers are. Jesus, generic bad anime/video game characters that everyone and their mother has seen and uproarious applause froma bunch of band geek drama kids who probably thought invader zim and nightmare before christamas was the epitome of american telelivision. Holy shit.

I don't want to live on this fucking planet any longer.

fuck. i'mma play sum eroge

FUCK /cgl/

One of my favorite skits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55sJXfj5Bew

It's an Umineko one, so a few things might be confusing if you don't know about it, but it's still choreographed and executed beautifully.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_gh2xDSysk

My local fav
The place where they realize they performance was too small...

Bump

Why does it seem like all the "good" skits have the same 20 some odd people in it? Just curious, are the ratios of good skit makers to bad that drastic?

>>5049038
Yes.

Mostly because most skitters don't take it seriously, don't practice, don't have an idea on how to write or act, even how to portray their character in a retelling/parody.

tl;dr: you'd be amazed at the amount of people who hasn't seen theater in their lives.

Well. This reminds me why I will never do a skit. I could never spend the time to rehearse, and I know all too well the people that could do skits would most likely purposefully avoid rehearsal in the first place.

As someone who's been writing skits for years, I'll tell you exactly fucking why.

People are flaky as shit.

Yeah, it's a common problem among young people/anime con goers anyway, but it's especially bad when you don't live in the same city as the rest of your skit members. I can't tell you how many times I've had to beg and plead and drag these assholes to actually go through with practice and do what the fuck it takes to nail a two-minute skit.

No one wants to rehearse, no one takes it seriously, and absolutely no one does what the fuck they say they're going to do. That's why.

>>5049284
Extrapolating on this

In addition

When I try to do my own projects with just locals without including every fucking person from all the other towns, then they whine about how they ~weren't included~ OH FUCKING NO

Yes, I pretty mad

>>5046810
I loved this. So much.

I think this opened up a can of worms in a similar thread a while back, but

Theater experience goes a looooong way towards making a quality skit. Costuming aside, knowing how to block and gesture so that the back row can see it aren't bad skills to pick up.

Also, mic/audio quality. Noise reduction is your friends, kiddos.

>>5049284
This is completely true.

I spent probably 60+ hours on a 2-person costume to wear with my boyfriend and when we performed we had to be closely in sync. I led, he'd follow. But he never wanted to practice outside of practice sessions with the whole group, so he was always a half step behind me. Pissed me off to no end… I spent so long making the damn thing, the least you could do was practice once or twice a week.

It's been years, and it still makes me angry when I think about it…

Even though I'm not a Hetalia fan, I did quite like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BQaMuUFd9M

There is a special circle of hell reserved for people who drop out of a skit a week before the convention

Kinda sucks when your local convention is sort of small and most of the attendees are teens because the skit contest suuuuuuuuucks. There hasn't been a skit I was truly impressed by since 2006. They all either try to be funny, do some basic dance routine, or just go up on stage and act like they decided five minutes ahead of time to do a skit. There's one group that because of all this has managed to win for the past couple of years just because they plan ahead and practice (even though their skits aren't that great) and they let their wins go to their head.