Costume Research

Definition

Clothes which are specially made/purchased for the stage performance by a costume designer or picked out by a costume coordinator. However, many performers also pick up regular clothes and make them their "trademark look" on stage.

For example:
in the film ' Prince Of Persia The Sand Of Time' the customs that were selected suits the time period as it is a historical fashion worn by the middle Eastern culture. As you can see clearly the costume of a warrior that is not usually seen in reality only in cinematic film.

What is the purpose of Costume?

• Costumes can help actors portray characters' age, gender role, profession, social class, personality, and even information about the historical period/era, geographic location and time of day, as well as the season or weather of the theatrical performance.

• Costume Designers need good descriptive abilities, and they must be able to break down scripts in terms of costume plots, and have knowledge of story structure and character arcs.

• To carry out research in to the costume styles, designs and construction methods which are appropriate for the productions' time period.

• To keep up with finical records depending on the numbers of costumes to be created, and the scale of budgets.

• Suit the dress code in the scene. (e.g. Filming historical fashion would not suit the scene that has new fashion nowadays time period, unless if the film is involves time travel etc.) 

Main Task

Information from the book 'Running on the Cracks':
In the book it did not actually described the costume of some characters such as the grandparents, so we let the grandparents pick up regular clothes and make them their "trademark look" on stage. However for the main character we also asked her to pick up regular clothes by giving her our visualization (the drawing of the costume and the character takes it from there and pick a similar clothing  that suits a teenage character.

Challenges 

• The characters might not have the right costume or may be missing a part of a costume which makes the Film Unite bring in some spares for a back up plan.