'COS IT'S WHO WE ARE: THE JOSH LANER INTERVIEW

'Cosplay' is the phenomenon of dressing as one's favourite fictional character and parading your creation wth pride, specifically amongst the like-minded at huge cosplay conventions. Canadian documentarian Josh Laner (pictured, below, at right) has given a cinematic voice to the community, focussing his camera on three idiosyncratic personalities in his documenatry, My Other Me. He spoke with SCREEN-SPACE ahead of the film's Australian premiere at the Gold Coast Film Festival on April 19.

Describe your first experience of being submerged in the cosplayer’s world. Did you have to confront your own preconceptions, even prejudices, about the cosplay universe?

My first experience with cosplayers was through a local convention that was near my house. I was walking my dog and kept seeing people dressed in various costumes all heading towards the Vancouver Convention Centre. Being an avid gamer I recognized many of the costumes so I decided to follow a few of them to see what was going on. It was a beautiful summer day so most of the convention goers were outside near the waterfront playing glomp (a flying, tackle hug game) and having their pictures taken by fans and random tourists. I ended up running home and grabbing my own camera and came back to take my own photos of the cosplayers. I had always known in a very small way about the cosplay universe but had never been to a convention or known anyone who indulged in the hobby. I suppose I was most surprised by how social the event seemed to be and having always feeling a bit like an outsider myself I could relate to them and really got excited by the social aspect of the hobby. I couldn't help thinking that I wished it had existed when I was younger and if it did that I would have known about it. I played Dungeons & Dragons as a kid/teenager and got made fun of and picked on a lot for it, I was even told by a camp counselor once that'd I'd be going to Hell for playing D&D. I knew by the end of the weekend of that convention that I wanted to make a film about cosplayers.

How did you select the three personalities in your film? Were there others who you chased but said no?

I met Danae aka Rifa first. She was working on set with Matthew Tingey our films Co-Executive Producer/Camera Man. Matthew mentioned to Danae in passing on set one day that he was trying to help me get a film about cosplayers off the ground when she informed us that she herself was a cosplayer and had won awards for her costume designs and she wanted to be involved since she could help us get our foot in the door of a universe that generally is very wary of outsiders, especially a documentary film crew. I immediately brought Danae on board as a n associate to help us find the cosplayers we would follow. Her first choice was Lucas aka Twin Fools since they have many mutual friends and Danae knowing about Lucas beginning his transition from female to male figured he'd be a great personality for the film, she was right. I don't recall when we decided that Danae needed to be one of the cosplayers we follow and not just help us find the cosplayers but then our search was for a "noob" to the hobby, hopefully someone who'd never cosplayed before, so we put ads on local cosplay forums that we were looking for someone to fill those shoes. We ended up with 2 girls to be our potential noob and after meeting with both of them and their families we knew that Lily aka SecretAttire was our girl. There were no other cosplayers that were considered, we felt lucky to have what we got really.

What were you confronted with on that day when a key participant backed-out of the project? Did you ever consider that the film may not come together after that happened?

Truth be told he never said to us that he was backing out of the film, he just made it increasingly difficult to get him on camera. Our last convention we all went to his group of friends basically made a wall around him and would heckle the film crew as we tried to shoot. I never felt like the film wouldn't get done but I realized I had a huge valley to fill if I couldn't get that final interview.

Your past work Wastings and Pain also addressed an outsider’s world, one of disconnect from what is considered ‘normal society’ or ‘respectable behaviour’. What do you believe draws you to these fringe worlds and unique individuals?

I was a punk rocker in my teenage days, before there were stores in the mall where you could buy your "punk" clothes, so I always had the attitude that I wasn't part of 'normal society' and was always questioning what is 'respectable behaviour'. While I wont tell you which way to feel in my films I do like showing that people you may not relate to or think are dirty, crazed drug addicts or living on the fringe of society's norms are really not very different than you and I at the end of the day.

With the film finding festival exposure and word-of-mouth spreading, what have been the initial reactions to My Other Me from the cosplay community?

The reactions have been mostly positive from cosplayers. The negatives we've heard is that there isn't enough about the costume making process in the film but I felt strongly that there are hundreds of fan made mini-documnetaries that delve into the costume side of the hobby much more than I wanted to. I wanted this film to be about the people not necessarily their costumes.