PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003) Costume Designer Penny Rose PAGE 1 © 2014 AMPAS | COSTUME DESIGN INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE COSTUME DESIGN DEFINING CHARACTER COSTUME DESIGN DEFINING CHARACTER INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE This teacher’s guide was created in collaboration with Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Ph.D., founding director, The David C. Copley Center for the Study of Costume Design, UCLA. PROGRAM COMPONENTS 1. This instructional guide 2. Four student activity reproducible masters 3. Costume Design Glossary and Suggested Resources 4. Supplemental DVD – optional 5. Selected Films for Student Viewing TARGET AUDIENCE This program has been designed for students in secondary school arts, literature, science and communications courses. PROGRAM OBJECTIVES 1. To enhance student interest in and knowledge about the motion picture creative development and the film production process 2. To encourage students to use critical thinking 3. To engage students in an exploration of film as an art form and a medium of communication and expression 4. To help students improve their media literacy 5. To heighten visual and observational skills PAGE 1 AVATAR (2009) Costume Designers Deborah L. Scott & Mayes Rubeo © 2014 AMPAS | COSTUME DESIGN INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE hether a film is set in the present, the past, in a distant location or in an imaginary time and place, costume designers collaborate with the director, Wthe cinematographer and the production designer to tell the story. Costume designers collaborate with actors to bring the characters in the screenplay to life. Movies tell a story using cinematic language that consists of narrative (the screenplay) and visual (the film frame) elements. Film is a director’s medium. The audience sees exactly what the director wants us to see. The director chooses what to reveal or conceal about a character and a dramatic situation. After filming is completed, the director will work with an editor to create the film out of all the scenes that were filmed during production. Costumes: Telling the or scenes in the story. Most important, include field trips to such locations as Story and Creating the the audience must believe that every offices, hospitals and police stations, Character person in a story has a life before the depending on the setting of the story. PAGE 2 movie begins. For example, if a scene takes place in very garment worn in a movie The costume design process begins a modern-day high school, a costume is considered a costume. with studying the screenplay. Scripts designer will visit a local high school. Costumes are one of many describe the action (what happens High schools in different parts of the E in the scene), the time period (when country have dramatically different tools the director has to tell the story. Costumes communicate the details of a the action takes place), the location cultures, socioeconomic influences character’s personality to the audience, (where the action takes place), and the and diverse populations who dress and help actors transform into new and characters in each scene. After reading differently. The screenplay will dictate believable people on screen. the script, the costume designer the specific location of the story and meets with the director to discuss the designer will be careful to be very There is often confusion between the overall vision for the film. Two specific in his or her research. The costume design and fashion design; different directors will make different designer will compile an album, called however, these two fields and their movies from the same script. At the a “research bible,” containing portraits objectives are very different. Fashion first meeting with the director, the of staff, teachers and students. More designers have labels and sell their costume designer may learn about the research will be done into the taste and clothes, while costume designers casting choices and specifics about style of the students, including their have no labels and are focused on characterization, the overall color shopping habits. It may be a surprise creating authentic characters in a palette and the mood of the film. that modern films are often more story. Costume designers create both difficult to costume than historical beautiful gowns for a glamorous After speaking with the director, the films. It is distracting for the audience entrance and everyday clothes when costume designer begins the research when the costumes are unrealistic for © 2014 AMPAS | COSTUME DESIGN INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE required by the script. They must portion of the design process. This a scene, too expensive for a character know “who” characters “are” before may include research on the Internet or wrong for a dramatic situation. The they create a closet of clothes and and at archives, museums and designer’s goal is for the costumes to accessories for the characters. A libraries; reviewing periodicals, school blend into the story seamlessly and for costume is worn by one actor, as one yearbooks and family albums; and the audience to be completely engaged specific character, in a specific scene studying historical and contemporary in the story. visual references. Research may also FRIDA (2002) Costume Designer Julie Weiss PAGE 3 HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE (2001) Costume Designer Judianna Makovsky Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), mixes modern, Costumes do not have to duplicate the film’s period exactly, period and fantasy costuming. Costume designer Judianna but they do need to look right to the audience. Designers Makovsky researched modern yet traditional English private may exaggerate color, style and silhouette for dramatic effect. school uniforms. Makovsky depended upon her imagination For Marie Antoinette (2006), director Sofia Coppola felt that to create the costumes for Hogwarts’ colorful faculty and staff. a pastel color palette inspired by French macarons would Although Harry Potter and his friends Ron and Hermione be more appealing to a young female audience, so designer © 2014 AMPAS | COSTUME DEISGN INSTRUCTIONAL GUIDE exist in an imaginary world, they are modern teenagers, and Milena Canonero created sherbet-colored dresses. These when required must be dressed appropriately in jeans and gowns had the right silhouette for the period, but their colors T-shirts. did not resemble those of garments from the court of Marie Antoinette that are preserved in modern museums. When a screenplay covers several decades, or is set in a distant location, costumes help the audience know when and where Show your students a period film (one set in the distant or each scene takes place. The 2002 film Frida is based on the recent past). Discuss how the costumes reveal when and life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek). Costume where the film takes place. Do the period costumes affect the designer Julie Weiss dressed Hayek first in a schoolgirl actor’s movement? Ask students to research actual clothing uniform, then as a young matron in the stylish dresses of from that period using costume and history books, as well the 1920s, then in colorful hand-embroidered Mexican- as historical portrait paintings. Compare actual historical Indian blouses. The real Frida Kahlo wore traditional costumes to the costumes in the film. How much do the Mexican clothes as she became more confident as an artist people in the film look like the portraits in the paintings? and political activist. Kahlo’s changing costumes reflect her How do they differ? What elements of the costume might be personal evolution. in fashion today? What elements of the costume might not be in style today? Designers often adapt vintage clothing, as Ruth E. Carter did for Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), the story of an African- SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVITY American butler (played by Forest Whitaker) who served Have each of your students describe an article of clothing eight presidents over a span of more than 30 years. Carter or an accessory that he or she is wearing. Ask each to relate mixed the vintage garments she found with ones that she how he or she obtained the item. Was it a gift or a purchase? designed using vintage printed fabrics. The audience is taken How long has he or she had it? Does it have sentimental on a journey through time, from ’50s pleats to ’70s hair to value? Discuss with your students how this kind of analysis ’80s polyester tracksuits. Carter insisted on the right fabric and research is useful for designing costumes. for each garment, creating the authentic style and shape that she found in her research. Costumes: Creating People separate the worlds; understated grays and blues were worn for the districts and colorful gowns and excessive styles for the Capitol. PAGE 4 n real life, clothes define our taste and are an expression of our personality. It’s rare that people wear new clothes each Costume designer Sharen Davis’s costumes for the musical Iday. On a typical day, a teenager might wear a favorite well- Dreamgirls (2006) follow the journey of a 1950s girl group from worn skirt, a pair of earrings from the local mall, her mom’s amateur talent contests to worldwide fame. At the beginning, sweater and a birthday scarf from her best friend. When a these young singers wear simple, homemade dresses. movie begins, we meet the characters for the first time, and With greater success, their costumes become increasingly like us, each character is dressed in clothes that reflect their sophisticated and glamorous. unique personality and style. Costume designers may purchase, rent, or design and DREAMGIRLS (2006) manufacture the costumes for a film. Garments may be aged Costume Designer Sharen Davis to show wear, including fading and fraying at elbows and knees, where this process would happen naturally. Jackets and shirts show wear on the cuffs, collars and hem; jeans bag at the knee; and pockets are stretched by car keys and cell phones.