Cosplay in Belgium : Our reporter does FACTS 2012

Oct 27

What is FACTS ?

According to the official website, FACTS is the biggest comics, sci fi and anime festival in the benelux and is located in Ghent, Belgium. This year the convention too place on the 20th and 21st of october.

Your On-Site reporter

Normally we go visit FACTS with a full Knightwise.com team. That way one of us can take pictures, the other can do the interviews, yet another does the video stuff and someone is giving out business cards. Each of us has his specific task,and that’s how we’ve been doing it for the past 2 years.

The FACTS 2012 Showfloor

The FACTS 2012 Showfloor

Sadly … this year not everything was going the way we planned it. @KonradPhoto, our professional photograper was the unlucky one who took an arrow in the knee so he couln’t make it. Well … actually right before Photokina he broke his toe … and so he had to bail out. @Knightwise and @Niejanahad issues with their holodeck and had to do some renovations manually. But that didn’t keep me from going to FACTS, even if I had to carry my camera, mics, DSLR and all that stuff around all day …

The Showfloor

This edition they changed the layout of the showfloor a little. Previous years FACTS was spread over 3 halls, but this year they had 2 bigger halls. At first it gave the impression that FACTS was smaller than last year (hey … 2 is less than 3, right), but according to the organization the showfloor was actually bigger. To me … it looked very busy … and the layout didn’t really improve that. To get from the first hall to the second (and back) people had to walk through a small hallway which made it get very crowded at some point on saturday.

The even organizers quickly spotted that and opened some exterior doors so people could move from one hall to the other much easier. The weather was very good … so people took that opportunity to get some fresh air and go outside and enjoy the sun a little.

Artist’s Alley

Personally, I haven’t been reading a lot of comics lately, so I decided to go have a look in the Artist’s Alley. Apparently they had already a few well known comic book authors and graphic artists there … sadly I didn’t know a lot of them. At first I watched Petar Meseldžija draw (he worked on the European version of the Tarzan comics in the past) and I immediately knew I was standing int he mids of real artists. The way he worked and was drawing characters made me wish I had that talent as well.

Charlie Adlard - Walking Dead

Charlie Adlard – Walking Dead

The next step was Sophian Cholet who was signing a hardcover and drawing something from the Zombies series on it. They also had Augustin Popescu from “De Roos en het Kruis” (a comic I really want to know more about). Then a little further up someone was drawing Yoko Tsuno. I had already heard about Yoko Tsuno before, but I thought Roger Leloup was the author and thought he was a lot older … but then again … maybe someone else was drawing Yoko Tsuno.

When I was filming the artists, someone else arrived, and I started filming him for about 10 minutes. In all honesty, I had absolutely no idea who it was until I noticed he was sitting in the Walking Dead corner. He was drawing Zombie characters and I was really impressed by how good he was at that. I was so impressed I actually asked who he was, and apparently it was Charlie Adlard himself … I had no idea … and probably most of you are thinking “Shame on You!” right now.

The drawings I have seen there were truly awesome, and it sparkled my interest to go read some comics again myself … so if you have any good suggestions, feel free to let me know about them in the comments.

The Cosplayers

Makeup artists did an awesome job here

Makeup artists did an awesome job here

Just as the previous years plenty of people spent a lot of time and effort to create their Cosplay costume. But those costumes are only part of the Cosplay act. Some people really studied the character they were cosplaying and acted just like the character. Making a costume with lots of gore and blood is one thing, but really walking and reacting as a zombie … now that is cosplaying. Some of them even imitated the sounds you would associate with their character … truly amazing.

This is the third year we go visit facts, and thus we start to meet some familiar cosplayers. This year Puck Barendrecht and Tamara Boss were there as well. I also noticed Tessa Van den Eynde who cosplayed the ever so sexy Lara Croft previous years. But this time I don’t think she was cosplaying at all, or maybe I don’t know the character she was cosplaying.

De Games & Showfloor

World of Warcraft The Card Game

World of Warcraft The Card Game

I remember that two years ago I already wrote about someone cosplaying Altair (Assassins Creed) in my dutch blogpost. Well, this year Ubisoft was showing off Assassins Creed III at facts. They had a booth where you could play a demo of the game and watch some trailers. I think they also hired 2 cosplayers and both of them had a stunning resemblance with their in-game characters. If the Ubisoft people are reading this … I was very impressed by the game and the cosplayers … but sadly I was unable to catch a Assassins Creed branded T-Shirt / Sweatshirt during the give-away … my sone would have been very happy with one of those.

Final Words

Covering the FACTS Convention as a one man team was quite hard. Getting the right shots with the video camera, watch the audio, quickly grabbing a picture when I noticed something nice … I really had to do too much at the same time, which resulted in no more time to do some interviews. But then again … it would have been impossible for me to beat Knightwise’s interviewing style and techniques anyway.

But in the end I was quite happy I was able to go, and I’m already looking forward to FACTS 2013 which will be the 20th anniversary.

For those of you who missed it … I threw together some footage and made a video montage of about 10 minutes for you to enjoy :

As I mentioned, I didn’t have a lot of time to take pictures, but you can see my shots in my FACTS 2012 Flickr Set.

 

About the Author

Stefaan is a Software Developer by trade, but also active as a Tech Reporter and Podcaster mostly in Dutch / Flemish. You can find out more about him on his blog at iTutor Podcast or check out the Tech45 Podcast.

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KWTV229 : "Facts Cosplay Expo Gent 2011".

Dec 04

This year we head back to the F.A.C.T.S. convention in Gent, to cover Belgiums biggest Cosplay, scifi and manga expo. We talk to the cosplayers, have insightful interviews with Astromech droid builders, ask parents why they train their child to be a jedy master and ask princes Leia where she got her outfit. As our producer gets arrested by imperial forces we get probed by an alien. All of that and more .. just to give you this years coverage of F.A.C.T.S. 2011

Shownotes.

Watch.

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KWTV219 : "FACTS GENT 2010"

Dec 05

Wether you are the owner of a set of vulcan pointy ears, or hide a bundle of Star Wars socks under your bed, there is no way you want to miss out on KWTV 0019 : F.A.C.T.S Gent. We roam the show floor of belgiums biggest sci-fi and Manga convention and have insightful interviews with its most colorful visitors. If you ever wanted to build your own Astromech droid, Join the Belgian Star Trek club, get the price of a Stormtrooper outfit or just stare at Princes Leia’s bellybutton, this is the show you don’t want to miss. Set your phasers on “stunning” as we find the droids you are looking for in KWTV 0019 F.A.C.T.S. Gent 2010.

 

Shownotes.

Watch.

KWTV 0019 : F.A.C.T.S. Gent. from knight wise on Vimeo.

 

 

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Back to Blogs

Apr 05
Pencil drawing of Don Quixote

There is so much news on the internet and social media and its all packed with fear. I don’t even know what I need to be worried about first’

— Years and Years —

‘There is so much news on the internet and social media and its all packed with fear. I don’t even know what I need to be worried about first’. It’s a line from the first episode of the TV show “ Years and Years”. The show depicts a UK family as they progress through the decades starting in 2020 and how technology and world events impacts their lives. The quote rang true, especially one year into the current pandemic. A little more then a year ago we were “sent to work from home” and the world changed. I had high hopes of this “new world” where hours of senseless commuting would be replaced by geeky activities, learning, sports and so on. To be honest .. it hasn’t quite turned out that way. Today I sometimes feel we live in a world filled with a plethora of data sources competing for our attention and trying to influence us to read, click, hunker down and consume. Facts no longer matter and rumors are just as good as long as they sell. Social media and media outlets are filled with misinformation, sensationalism and fear. The screens that I live behind seem to be saturated by two things: Work and Angst.

As a response I flee into the disconnected world of my Kindle and have read quite a few books over the last year. Not as much non-fiction and self-improvement as I would like, but at the end of a 10+ hour day my brain is just cooked and looking for an escape: Neuromancer, Game of Thrones, Dune, the Expanse, Seveneves … My mind has tried to escape the escape velocity of reality many a time only to achieve a temporal orbit around a myriad of realities.

Upgrading my mind, increasing my knowledge, working out, meditating.. Whenever I do find the time I find my personal battery dangerously depleted and fall into a unruly slumber before I can complete couting back from 10.

Diving into cyberspace I try to escape those gruesome mainstream media outlets (and even the major tech sites) because of their constant one-up manship on preaching doom, gloom and the fact that the internet is turning into a totalitarian societies favorite monkeywrech. I peruse youtube video’s on how to connect to BBS Sites. Find sites where you can download 20 year old Mac games and hunt for blogs and podcasts of likeminded geeks who just talk about what they are tinkering with. Much like I used to do back in the day that I still had time and energy left at the end of the day.

I feel guilty because of that. Because all those hours of “extra time” that I have in the day somehow did not go into creating content, doing podcasts, geeking out. I have come to see that a lot of what I do for Knightwise.com is not only for the community, but is also self care. Alternating a busy day with being creative, making content and connecting with others is a way to “recharge” for me. So I will do my best to do so again, to find that balance between real and cyberspace where I have thrived of the last years. To fight the fudd and geek out.

So bear with me as I turn ‘Knightwise.com’ back into something it used to be so many years ago. A combination of a tech blog, an online diary and a place where likeminded people can come learn, connect and relate. A place where you can follow along how I let technology work for me and an inspiration (or a warning) on how to do all things tech (or how not to).

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TLDR: Anyone still reading this? – Should you still ‘write’ your blogs?

Nov 09

TLDR, 4 gruesome letters that are the digital equivalent of a teenager shrugging and walking away in the middle of an epic speech (or regular nag-a-thon) recited by a parental unit. It’s a sign of the time. Whenever we are presented with information that grows beyond a certain volume, our micro sized attention spans switch off and go looking for the next picture of a fluffy cat on the internet.

There, in one paragraph I have completely summarized the problem Bloggers are facing today TLDR: Too long, Didn’t read. Since we have been scrolling vertically through Twitter feeds, Instagram pictures, Facebook posts and Linkedin updates our ability (or should I say ‘interest’) to go through large blocks of text has slowly started to erode away. We want our stuff fast in easy to consume small byte sized blocks. Perferably 140 characters or less.

For writers this is a challenge: Imagine being Marten Luther King, but only getting 30 seconds to deliver your ‘I have a dream’ speech before the crowd wanders off to play Pokemon or scroll Reddit. There just isn’t enough time to get the message across.

Results ? You cut corners. Condense arguments, leave out supporting information or even facts altogether. If that still isn’t enough its time for an provocative headline, or some ye-old click-bait. And if your content just isn’t cut out for this? Tough, they have already scrolled past your post and are looking at cat video’s.

“Well, you will just have to write better material then” That is the general response you get to when you lament the problem. But should we really do that? Some stories or arguments should not be broken up into 140 characters, they should be told with all the facts or with views from both sides of the fence. The constitution wasn’t written on a post-it either. So what to do ?

Write better, snappier sentences, short paragraphs, leave in plenty of whitespace and some interesting funky examples and emphatic visual analogies the reader can relate to. That should do the trick. But what if they still don’t make it to the 3rd paragraph?

I’m thinking of exchanging the written medium for video or audio. If you don’t have the time/interest to ‘read’ something, perhaps you would like to “listen’ to it instead. The “Storytime” podcasts have always been a big favorite of my community, “Reading out” a lengthily blogpost in a gripping audio-recording does make for some interesting reading. Perhaps a video recording using an autocue to read out the text ? Would that help?

I leave you to ponder (if your eyeballs ever make it down here) the question of TLDR. Should we continue to starve our attention spans with small bite sized information? Do we want to live off ever smaller growing pieces of content? Shorter blogposts, video’s, podcasts? Do we nibble our way trough the all-you-can-eat buffet of the blogosphere ? Is it TLDR or TLDC (Too long, don’t Care).

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