Assignment: Design on a Dime
For this assignment, you are the designer!
A costume is an extension of the character and often our first look at who they are. Costumers must address the needs of the performer as well as the needs of the production. Sometimes, costumers have unlimited resources at their disposal, and other times they have very little to work with. You have $5 and your imagination.
You must create a costume for one of the characters we have encountered in the plays we have read during this course. You may spend no more than $5 and you must account for every penny of those five dollars. You must also account for every item you wear, listing where you found it (borrowed, your own closet, purchased, etc.) and how much you spent.
You must address:
- Clothing
- Shoes
- Hair
- Accessories (if any)
You must have a reason for choosing each piece. Remember, you must account for everything you wear (where it came from and how much it cost, if anything). You could very well accomplish this without spending a dime.
You will write and submit a paper addressing the following:
1. State the character/play you are designing a costume for and why you chose this particular character.
2. Discuss how you obtained each piece of clothing and each accessory, detailing how much you spent on each piece, if anything.
3. Explain why you chose each piece of clothing and accessory. How do these pieces communicate character? What do they say about this person?
You must include a photo of yourself or someone you know wearing your creation. Your instructor needs to see your design in order to evaluate it. You may embed it in the text of your paper or attach it as a separate file when you submit the paper to the Assignment box.
Your instructor will be looking for how well your costumes communicate character and how innovative you are with your budget. Be careful about brand names and logos. Nike may not be appropriate for Seth Holly as the play takes place before Nike existed. Find creative solutions for masking such things. Try your best to come up with a costume that is production ready. The more production ready your costume is, the higher your grade will be.