Costume Design Lesson 2

WHAT SHOULD YOU CONSIDER IN THE DESIGN PROCESS?

- APPROPRIATENESS FOR THE TYPE OF THEATRE

We are designing a costume for a character in children's theatre. This means it needs to be big, colourful, literal and recognizable. This is so the children can understand the story and who the different characters are easily. It also keeps them interested as a play with minimal or dark costumes would be quite boring for them.



For instance, here is a picture from Seussical The Musical which is for children. As you can see all the costumes are bright and busy. You can tell who is supposed to be a Giraffe, Monkey or Elephant and you can tell who is Cat in T. Hat,

- PERSONALITY OF CHARACTER

 Our character is a Lazy Wizard. His costume needs to reflect this so it should look old, tatty, dirty and not very well looked after. Because he is a wizard the hat should be big and pointy. It will be a faded colour now with different coloured patches on it but it used to be purple with silver stars and moons on it.


This is what his hat used to look like.



Now it looks more like this, crinkled and torn. However our hat will have more patches on it to make it more colourful for children's theatre.

- ACTORS MEASUREMENTS

We will be using John as our actor. His head measurements are:

- PHYSICAL MOVEMENTS

 As he is a lazy wizard he will not be moving too much. However we need to make sure that the hat fits properly so that it will stay on our actor's head at all times.

- SUITABLE MATERIALS

We want to use a range of different materials as patches all around the hat to represent how old this hat is. The main body of the hat will be grey/faded purple but we will use lots different coloured patches such as red, green, yellow etc. We could also use net material to create a dusty cob web effect.

 

- TIME PERIOD PLAY IS SET IN

 The play is set in the medieval times so our hat will look like a very stereotypical wizard's hat.

 CREATING THE CHARACTER

 

 

THE STORY

Fizzban Belgarath used to be the best Wizard in Elkin and was loved by all the villagers. He had an amazing life and enjoyed love and attention from everyone. This was until one day when he tried a big spell which went wrong and put a curse on the village!

 

Now 200 years old, he is an outcast and hated by many. He has given up magic and become very lazy. He hates his life until one day, a young girl interested in Wizards named Morgan Glinda finds him and convinces him to try magic again. Together they try the spell again and restore the village back to all it's glory! The villagers celebrate and reward him with a brand new hat!