What do Costume Designers do?

 

Costume Designers start working on films at the beginning of pre-production. They are in charge of designing, creating, acquiring and hiring all costumes for Actors and extras. This must be achieved within strict budgets, and to tight schedules. Costume Designers’ work is integral to defining the overall “look” of films, and their role requires a great deal of expertise. Their creative work ranges from designing original costumes, to overseeing the purchase and adaptation of ready-made outfits. As Heads of the Costume Department, Costume Designers are responsible for staffing, and for managing a team of skilled personnel. Costume Designers also supervise practical issues, such as departmental budgets and schedules, the organisation of running wardrobes, and costume continuity.

Responsibilities
During pre-production Costume Designers break down scripts scene by scene, in order to work out how many characters are involved, and what costumes are required. They then begin the more complex task of developing costume plots for each character. These plots ensure that colours and styles do not mimic each other in the same scene, and highlight the characters’ emotional journeys by varying the intensity and depth of colours.

Costume Designers must carry out research into the costume styles, designs and construction methods which are appropriate for the productions' time period, using a number of resources including libraries, museums and the Internet. They may also discuss costume and character ideas with performers. They deliver initial ideas to Directors about the overall costume vision, character plots and original costume designs, using sketches and fabric samples. They also discuss colour palettes with the Director of Photography and the Production Designer.

Throughout the production process Costume Designers ensure that accurate financial records are kept, and that weekly expenditure reports are produced. They prepare overall production schedules, as well as directing the day-to-day breakdowns of responsibilities. Costume Designers select and hire appropriate suppliers and Costume Makers, negotiating terms with them, and communicating design requirements. They make sure that fittings for Actors and extras are arranged. They supervise fabric research and purchase, and ensure that garments are completed to deadlines.

Depending on the numbers of costumes to be created, and the scale of budgets, Costume Designers may decide to create a dedicated Costume Workshop. They should be on set whenever a new costume is worn for the first time, to make sure that performers are comfortable, to explain special features, and to oversee any alterations. Once filming is completed, Costume Designers are responsible for the return of hired outfits, and the sale or disposal of any remaining costumes.

Skills
Costume Designers must be highly organised, with good presentation skills and the confidence to manage and motivate their teams effectively. They should be able to work under pressure, to external and departmental deadlines, and must have stamina and be adaptable to changes. They need to be able to listen to the ideas and concerns of others, while at the same time trusting their own opinions and instincts. They work closely with Actors in a physical sense, and must therefore be tactful and able to put people at their ease.

Costume Designers need good descriptive abilities, and they must be able break down scripts in terms of costume plots, and have knowledge of story structure and character arcs. They must understand the research process, and know how to source information. They need creative flair, a strong sense of colour and design and the ability to draw. They should be confident in their knowledge of period costume, jewellery, corsetry, hosiery, millinery, footwear, costume accessories, etc. They must be experts on fabric qualities, clothing cuts, fits and techniques, pattern making and sewing. Creatively, they should know how to dress to particular faces or physiques to create characters.

Overall Costume Designers need a wide-ranging cultural knowledge base, not only in terms of fashion, but also art and literature, film, and textiles. Costume Designers should be familiar with the requirements of all relevant Health and Safety legislation and procedures. Good IT skills (Mac and PC) are very useful.

 

A short history of animation.

 

Animation is a graphic representation of drawings to show movement within those drawings. A series of drawings are linked together and usually photographed by a camera. The drawings have been slightly changed between individualized frames so when they are played back in rapid succession (24 frames per second) there appears to be seamless movement within the drawings. Pioneers of animation include Winsor McCay of the United States and Emile Cohl and Georges Melies of France. Some consider McCay’s Sinking of the Lusitania from 1918 as the first animated feature film.
Early animations, which started appearing before 1910, consisted of simple drawings photographed one at a time. It was extremely labor intensive as there were literally hundreds of drawings per minute of film. The development of celluloid around 1913 quickly made animation easier to manage. Instead of numerous drawings, the animator now could make a complex background and/or foreground and sandwich moving characters in between several other pieces of celluloid, which is transparent except for where drawings are painted on it. This made it unnecessary to repeatedly draw the background as it remained static and only the characters moved. It also created an illusion of depth, especially if foreground elements were placed in the frames. Walt Disney took animation to a new level. He was the first animator to add sound to his movie cartoons with the premiere of Steamboat Willie in 1928. In 1937, he produced the first full length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
With the introduction of computers, animation took on a whole new meaning. Many feature films of today had animation incorporated into them for special effects. A film like Star Wars by George Lucas would rely heavily on computer animation for many of its special effects. Toy Story, produced by Walt Disney Productions and Pixar Animation Studios, became the first full length feature film animated entirely on computers when it was released in 1995.
With the advent of personal computers, it has now become possible for the average person to create animations.

 

 

A HISTORY OF ANIMATION

 

Investing art with the illusion of life is as old as language itself. From he ancient caves of Altamiri to the twenty-first century technology of Pixar, artists have historically endeavored to create the appearance life by giving their characters movement. In fact, “animate,” from the Latin “animatus,” means “to give breath” to or "to breathe." Fundamentally, to animate is to create the illusion of movement in an object, whether it is a person, animal, or inanimate object. While artists up until the eighteenth century ingeniously played with the idea of movement, it wasn’t until the advent of cinema in 1895 that animation in its technical sense was achieved. Cinema allowed artists to create the illusion of movement frame by frame through a variety of cinematic techniques, such as stop-motion animation, cel animation and, more recently, revolutionary computer-generated imagery (CGI).