Costume Designing

Costume Designers Job

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Costume Designers job starts by reading the script to be produced. If the production is set in a specific historical era, the fashions of this period will need to be researched. To stimulate the flow of ideas at the first meeting with the director and the design team (set, costume, lighting and sound designers), the costume designer may want to present a few rough costume sketches. This is also an appropriate time to check with the director on the exact number of characters needing costumes, as any non-speaking characters the director plans to include may not have been listed in the script.

It is the costume designers responsibility to draw up the costume plot. The costume plot is a list or chart that shows which characters appear in each scene, what they are wearing and their overall movement throughout the play. This helps track the specific costume needs of every character. It can also identify any potential costume challenges, such as very quick changes between scenes.

When the director and production team have approved the costume designers preliminary sketches, she or he can draw up the final costume designs. The final designs are done in full color. They show the style, silhouette, textures, accessories and unique features of each costume.

Once the show opens, the costume designers work is essentially complete. Now it's normally the job of a wardrobe assistant to make sure that every aspect of the production runs just as the designer intended, time after time, until the production closes.

Academic Designer

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An Academic Designer is one who holds professorship at a school. The designer is primarily an instructor, but may also act as a residential designer to varying degrees. They are often free to freelance, as their schedule allows. In the past, professors of costume design were mostly experienced professionals that may or may not have had formal post-graduate education, but it has now become increasingly common to require a professor to have at least a Master of Fine Arts in order to teach.

Both residential and academic designers are generally also required to act as Shop Master or Mistress of an on site costume shop, in addition to designing productions. In a resident theater, there is almost always a shop staff of stichers, drapers, cutters and craft artisans. In an academic environment the shop "staff" is generally students, who are learning about costume design and construction. Most universities require costume design students to work a specified number of hours in the shop as part of their course work.

USA is the union that represents costume designers. Although most professional designers are union members, USA has relatively few collective bargaining agreements with theaters when compared with other theatrical unions. However, most major US opera companies do have CBAs with USA. The majority of union contract work for designers is on a project by project basis, not as a part of Collective Bargaining Agreements with theatrical establishments.

Residential Designer

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A Residential Designer is hired by a specific theatre, dance or opera company for an extended series of productions. This can be as short as a summer stock contract, or may be for many years. A residential designer's contract may limit the amounts of freelance work they are allowed to accept. Unlike the freelancer, a residential designer is consistently "on location" at the theater, and is readily at hand to work with the costume studio and his or her other collaborators. Residential designers tend to be more established than strict freelancers, but this is not always the case.

Freelance Designer

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A Freelance Designer is hired for a specific production by a theater, dance or opera company, and may or may not actually be local to the theater that he or she is designing for. A freelancer is traditionally paid in three installments: Upon hire, on the delivery of final renderings, and opening night of the production. Freelancers are not obligated to any exclusivity in what projects they are working on, and may be designing for several theaters concurrently.

Types of Costume Designers

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Professional Costume Designers generally fall into three types

* Freelance Designer

* Residential Designer

* Academic Designer

Responsibilities of Costume Designer

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A Costume Designer is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered part of the "production team", alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The costume designer might also collaborate with a hair/wig master or a makeup designer. In European theater the role is somewhat different as the theater designer will design both costume and scenic elements.

* Costume Designers will typically seek to enhance a character's persona, and/or to create an evolving plot of color, changing social status or period through the visual design of garments and other means of dressing, distorting and enhancing the body - within the framework of the director's vision.
* At the same time, the designer must ensure that the designs allow the actor to move in a manner consistent with the historical period and enables the actor to execute the director's blocking of the production without damage to the garments.

* Additional considerations include the durability and wash-ability of garments, particularly in extended runs.

* The designer must work in consultation with not only the director, but the set and lighting designers to ensure that the overall design of the production works together.

* The designer needs to possess strong artistic capabilities as well as a thorough knowledge of pattern development, draping, drafting, textiles and costume/fashion history as well as awareness of poise when in period dress, and be sensitive to the creative direction that the performer wants to take his/her character.

* A costume designer creates the look of a character in film , television or in a stage production.

History of Costume Designing

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In its Earliest form, Costumes consisted of Theatrical Prop Masks from the time of the ancient greeks. Costume design evolved as the need for more elaborate and detailed characterizations were needed as the performances became more intricate and more complex characters began to emerge on stage. Defining each character separately allowing the audience the ability to follow a storyline with a conceptualized look defined prior to a performance was, and is needed as part of pre-production preparations.

Early Performers were generally male, therefore costuming was needed for gender disguise so as to create the illusion of the opposite sex. Costuming also helps create other character building imagery such as age. The leading characters will have more detail and design to make them stand out and relate a sense of trust to the audience. Styles and technique has changed over the centuries but have maintained basic principles of clothing design yet geared towards pushing the characters traits out in its appearance.

Know about Costume Designing

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Costume Design is the fabrication of apparel for the overall appearance of a character or performer. This usually involves researching, designing and building the actual items from conception. Costumes may be for a theater or cinema performance but may not be limited to such. Costume design should not be confused with Costume coordination which merely involves altering existing clothing.

Four Types of Costumes are Used

* Theatrical Design

* Historical

* Fantastic

* Dance and Modern.

Designs are first sketched out, and approved then either draped on a form or a pattern drafted. Along with the fabricated portion, the costume may require accessories such as footwear, hats and head dresses for the actors to wear, but it may also include designing masks, makeup, wigs, underwear or other unusual specialty items, such as the full body animal suits for the characters in the musical Cats (designed by John Napier, winner of the 1983 Tony Award for Best Costume Design). Costumes budgets will generally be have as high a cost as other departments or theatrical needs such as set design.

Costume designers create the look of each character by designing clothes and accessories the actors will wear in performance. Depending on their style and complexity, costumes may be made, bought, revamped out of existing stock or rented. Their designs need to faithfully reflect the personalities of the characters in the script.

The shapes, colors and textures that a costume designer chooses make an immediate and powerful visual statement to the audience. Creative collaboration among the costume designer, the director and the set and lighting designers ensures that the costumes are smoothly integrated into the production as a whole.

Stage costumes can provide audiences with information about a character's occupation, social status, gender, age, sense of style and tendencies towards conformity or individualism. As well, costumes can:

* Reinforce the mood and style of the production

* Distinguish between major and minor characters

* Suggest relationships between characters

* Change an actor's appearance

* Suggest changes in character development and age

* Be objects of beauty in their own right

Costume designs also need to include any accessories such as canes, hats, gloves, shoes, jewelry or masks. These costume props add a great deal of visual interest to the overall costume design. They are often the items that truly distinguish one character from another.