The Importance of a Costume

 Costumes and Why It Matters!

Costumes are the clothes a character wears throughout the narrative they are in. That is basic common sense, but what may not be as basic common sense is why costuming matters so much. Costumes represent either who the character is, what they are going through, or the world that character is in. What a character is wearing on screen is vital for it to fit the character and their circumstance. If it feels out of place then the story gets lost. There are many interesting story creators can do with costumes as well. They can make the clothing foreshadow something major or have some symbolic meaning. Overall, clothing within any narrative is very important and holds the power to do something important! Now, how am I (and my team) going to make our clothing important? Let's talk about it.

How Would We Use Costumes?

If we were creating the entirety of our film we would've had the costuming grow and change with the characters to represent their character development. For example, Aruroa would start the film in dull colors, with a very grungey look as if trying to replicate Kai's grunge look. As Aruroa finds herself again, she brings brighter colors into her fashion and begins to wear less grungey clothes and more cottage-core fashion. Meanwhile, Kai feels as though he is losing control as she begins to stray away from his own fashion so his clothing becomes more hardcore and aggressive looking. Meanwhile, Sam starts the film without having a sense of fashion and wears a lot of geeky clothing that represents the fantasy he is living in. As the movie goes on, however, his sense of fashion grows too and he begins to dress outside of that fantasy, at least for the situations that call for it. 

How About For Our Opening?

We are broke high school students, so although we will try our best to represent the characters we have created properly, we might not be able to. So please note that this is dream costuming and what we plan are preparing but not a guarantee!

Sam/Atticus:

Atticus imagines himself as a wizard! What better way to push that idea than having him dressed as a wizard while he works on his fantasy comic? 

THIS in my opinion is perfect for what Atticus should be wearing in the opening. Something kind of silly and clearly meant to be a wizard! It would fit him and what he imagines himself to be like perfectly!

The entire scene has him in this cloak as he draws his comic, then as he leaves to get the mail, he takes off the hat to enter some of reality, but still keeps his cloak on to feel more himself. Too bad this cloak makes him an easy target for jerks like Kai who notices it and nearly hits Sam with his car.

Aurora:

Aurora, in my opinion, will have the most interesting costume direction because of the growth of her clothing. Naturally, Atticus's interesting apparel may outshine hers, but she will be given the most symbolism through her clothing.

                       

Aurora's personality and self-identity are being suffocated by her bad relationship with Kai, therefore she wears dulled clothing that leans into more of a grungy feel. This look isn't bad, but it's just not who she fully is. But this look is somewhat what we're aiming for to styling her. 

This is how I imagine her to actually dress, with maybe some even brighter colors. This can be shown in pictures of her with her friends and family throughout her room. For now, though, she is in dulled-out clothing to try and match her boyfriend.

Kai:

Speaking of terrible boyfriends, Kai tries to dress hardcore in his clothing despite being a in my opinion poser. He wants control so he tries to control the way people view him, so he tries to be viewed as this hardcore punk so people fear him and do as he says.

This is like dark "hardcore" clothing I feel like Kai would aim to wear to try to be all punk-like. He wants to show off his mean-spiritedness not just act that way. In the opening we see him rocking out to an indie-rock song, but treating it as some heavy metal rock song. Situations like this go to show he is a poser and only acts this way to give the impression that he is some mean punk when he is just a wanna-be punk who is a complete jerk.

Foreshadowing Next Post!

It's great to have these plans in the working to create the cool looks of our opening. Clothing is very important, but I think equally important is the design of the environment the characters are in. If only I had some kind of blog to discuss what kind of set mise-en-scene elements in set design I want. Oh too bad so sad... ;)