“The Next Level of Cosplay” Contest Rules:

[UPDATE: OUR DEADLINE IS 11:59 PM PACIFIC TIME]
To Enter: Entrants’ work will be reviewed by members of Cinema Makeup School’s panel and judged on broad criteria with an emphasis on creativity, makeup artistry, and costume design.

Entrants shall produce one costume with makeup and/or special effects and/or makeup as a featured design element.
Entrants may use a model, but must perform all makeup and costume applications themselves. All essential makeup/costume elements must be the entrant’s own work.
Entrants shall base their makeup and costume creation off of existing characters from literature, comic, animation and or/film and TV. The design can be an original take on an existing character or be a direct representation of an existing character.
Entrants shall submit a three minute video showcasing their makeup and costume design. Each video shall include an introduction of themselves, the reason(s) they want to attend CMS, and a description of their design submission. The video shall be submitted on YouTube (or any other video streaming website, though YouTube is preferred) with the entrant’s name and “Cinema Makeup School’s Next Level of Cosplay” in the title.
The video link must be sent to the school by filling out the entry form at www.cinemamakeup.com/cosplay or emailing scholarship@cinemamakeup.com.
Entrants may submit photos of their design to aid the Scholarship Committee during the review process. Additional material should be sent to scholarship@cinemamakeup.com.

Our judges will select a group of qualified semi-finalists whose videos will then be put up for a public vote** to choose a pool of finalists. The winner will be chosen by the judges from among the pool of finalists selected by the public as follows:

A multi-round public vote will be conducted to determine finalists. Each Monday, a group of entries with the lowest vote totals will be eliminated and all voting totals will be reset to zero (0) until only five (5) entries remain. These five entries will be considered “Finalists.”

The final week, the five Finalists will have their vote totals reset to zero (0) at the end of the final week’s vote, the entry with the highest popular vote total shall receive credit equal to one expert judge’s vote.

A panel of expert judges will then vote on the final winner out of the pool of five finalists. The entry which receives a plurality of judges’ votes shall be named the overall winner.

Semi-finalists and the winner will be chosen subjectively, but judges will be asked to vote based upon a combination of the following criteria with an emphasis on creativity:

Makeup (can include masks, hair, etc.); Costume (can include props, armor, clothing, etc.); Completeness of vision (How true to your design did you stay? What concessions did you have to make based on real world issues, and how did you solve them?); Desire and Drive (Explain how you would benefit from education at Cinema Makeup School and what your future goals and plans are).

Prizes are as follows:

1st place:

4 runner-ups:

*For an international winner, the internship portion of the grand prize is not guaranteed as “paid” depending on their visa status.

Terms & Conditions apply.* Scholarship prizes subject to additional eligibility restrictions.†
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*Contest Terms & Conditions:
CMS reserves the right to disqualify entries that do not comply with the contest rules at any time. Contest is open to all legal U.S. residents and foreign nationals on valid travel, work, or student visas. Rules, restrictions, prize details and guidelines are subject to change without notice. The decision of the judges shall be final. By entering, each applicant grants Cinema Makeup School the right to use their names and likenesses and images of their entry for publicity purposes.

†Scholarship Terms & Conditions:
Each Scholarship winner must meet the enrollment pre-requisites for Cinema Makeup School. Enrollment requirements: each individual must be over the age of 18 by the time they begin classes, and must have proof of high school completion or its equivalent. The Scholarship is open to U.S. citizens, U.S. residents and to international students who must meet the requirement of qualification for an M-1 student visa under the regulations of the U.S. Department of State. The winner must be able to provide confirmation of requirements within 30 days of the announcement as the winner, or the Scholarship will go to the runner-up. The Scholarship can be used only at the Los Angeles campus. The recipient must start classes by June 10th 2016. There is no cash award or cash value for unused funds. Scholarship awards are non-transferable. The decision of the panel is final. Only the winners are guaranteed notification. By accepting the Scholarship, each winner grants Cinema Makeup School the right to use their names and likenesses for publicity purposes related to the Scholarship and School.

**Voting Rules:
Public voting will be monitored for accuracy and fairness. CMS reserves the right to cancel or discount votes it finds to be illegitimate or suspect. Any entrant caught tampering with the public vote will be subject to consequences up to and including disqualification. All CMS decisions regarding vote totals are final.

The semi-final vote will consist of four one-week rounds. The initial pool of twenty (20) semi-finalists will be cut by five each week, by removing the entries with the five lowest vote totals, until five (5) finalists remain. At the end of each week, all vote totals will be reset to zero (0). At that point, the judges will select one of the five finalists by vote. The winner of the popular vote—that is, the entrant with the most votes collected during the final period of semi-final voting—will receive credit for one additional judge’s vote.

UPDATE (5/6/16): Any voters who feel that they are encountering technical problems which are keeping them from voting must send documentation of the error to scholarship@cinemamakeup.com. This should include a screenshot or picture of the problem and the answers to the following questions: What is your Facebook display name? What device are you using to access the voting page? What browser or app are you using? Please note that all voters must be logged into Facebook for verification purposes and may vote once per 24 hours. (This last bit has been the cause of some confusion; technically if you vote at 7PM one day, you may be unable to vote until 7PM the next day.)