Zenith

The Zenith project is like our final project at Freestyle. We can choose what we decide to do and what our final project is. The purpose of the project is to show all the skills we have learned in our years at Freestyle, especially in our production classes, and use apply those skills to a new topic.

My production class is Film, so I decided to do my Zenith project on costume design. Costume design is the process of creating a cohesive style and appearance for characters in productions like television shows, movies and other kinds of theatrical performances. I want to design costumes for two different film, which I’ll lay out the characters and plot of, and record the process and research as a short documentary. After the costumes are complete, I want to record a short scene to show the costumes in action.

Costume design is a passion because I’m interested in fashion, especially how fashion can represent feelings and show emotions. I hope to have 4-6 finished costumes and two short videos, along with sketches and planning. This Zenith project is a new challenge for me because, while I have attempted costume design before, I didn’t really follow the actually process of a professional filmmaker. A costume design for a movie would have to analyze the character, setting, plot, mood, and tone of the film to create a costume, which is something that I am trying to echo this year. I also hope to create some costumes that would involve time periods or style that I’m not already familiar with, which would require extensive research.

Research

Since I only had a basic idea of how a costume design does their work, the first thing I did was research the process of a costume designer. I did quite a bit of research online, mostly videos of costume designers explaining how they work. The most informative video I watched was costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis, who designed for movies like Blues Brothers and Raiders of the Lost Ark. She was leading Adam Savage through an exhibition she created on Hollywood costumes, and along the way explaining her process, and what makes good costume design. Probably the biggest thing I learned from this video was the difference between fashion design and costume design. Landis explained that fashion design is meant to sell clothes, while costume design is meant to sell the movie. I also read two book by Nadoolman on costume design, which were also very helpful.

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I wanted one of my stories based on the life of Catherine de Medici, a queen in renaissance Italy. I was mostly inspired by a museum exhibit I saw where an artist recreated Medici outfits out of paper. Since my story is a modern retelling, I want to take elements of Medici fashion and use it in current clothes. I looked at paintings of the Medici era for research.

Process

The first thing  I did was write the stories I planned to act as a script. Since costume designers read the movie script for clues on how to costume a character, I decided to write two short movie plots to base my costumes on. The first one was a sci-fi dystopian style story and the second one was modern day retelling of the story of Catherine de Medici. Here is a short exert of my first story.

Far in the future, humanity have abandoned life on Earth, and began inhabiting the Moon after Earth was deemed unsavable. After many generations, Earth had been long forgotten the planet where humans once lived, and those who at one point lived on Earth have died hundreds of years ago. The poorer class is forced to work in mines harvesting the materials that allow the moon to be livable, while the rich live lives of luxury. Galen is a lowly miner, trying her best to survive. 

After finishing the stories, I began planning what costume I wanted to make.  After finishing sketches, I went to various thrift stories to find the base materials for my outfits. I tried to match my sketches as close as possible, but I did end up having to change some elements if I couldn’t find the exact thing I wanted in the first place. When I finally got everything I needed, which required going to many different stores over the period of a month or two, I started altering the clothes. Some things I cropped and re-hemmed, and some things I made look worn and dirty. I added accessories like shoes and jewelry.

Final Products!

I created two videos as final products in addition to my costumes. One was a video going over the process and the other was a short scene using one of the costumes I had designed.

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