webquest

Congratulations! You have been hired as the costume designer for a production of Much Ado About Nothing. All you have to do is follow the steps to complete the task. It might be easier to skim over all of the steps before beginning.

STEP 1:

I understand that you are very busy, so I am only asking you to design two of the costumes. Please pick one male and one female character from the following list: Benedick, Claudio, or Don Pedro, and Beatrice, Hero, or Ursala. Now that we have all read the play together in class, it's time for you to take a more detailed look in to the play. Re-read the play looking for overall themes and information about your two characters, such as physical appearance, clothing, what the character thinks of himself, what other characters say about your character, etc. Make sure to take notes on this for later use (you could take notes directly in word document). We have covered good note taking skills in class. If you have more questions you can talk to me. Make sure to record where you took the note from, for instance Act 1, scene 1. You can read the play online at:
http://the-tech.mit.edu/shakespeare/much_ado/

Step 2:

Now that you have gathered information about the play and your characters, it's time to write your design approach. Your design approach should be one page, double spaced, and include what you think some of the overall themes of the play are, and how these themes will be represented in the costumes. This is basically to develop an overall idea of how the play will look. It is important to identify themes of the play so that you can bring those out to the audiance through costume styles, colors, and other artistic choices. Costume Designers share their design approach with the director and other designers to make sure that everyone has the same basic idea of how the play should look. Open a word document and type your design approach there.

Step 3:

Using your character notes, write a character analysis for each of your two characters. Your character analysis should be in outline form. Here is the information you should include:

I. External Information
   A. Environment
       1. Geography/local (country, state, city where play takes place)
       2. Date/year/season/time of day
       3. Economic (deals with money/include where it comes from)
       4. Social (deals with status in society, i.e. middle class in our            society)
       5. Religion (do they attend church?)
   B. Personal
       1. Age
       2. Decorum (conformity to social conventions of society)
       3. Personal taste (relate this to clothing, hair, etc. Describe their            wardrobe. Make decisions if script doesn't provide.)
       4. Activity (what they are dressed for on stage)
       5. Physical description
       6. Adjectives (words that describe external character)
II. Internal Information
  A. Desires
  B. Will (Strong/week)
  C. Moral Stance (attitude to social conventions- external vs. internal)
  D. Nervosity (deals with beat-fast/slow, loud/soft, regular/irregular)
  E. Attitude toward the externals around them
  F. Adjectives (summarize internal character)

Step 4:

Now it is time to do some costume research. The director has decided to do the play in the Cavalier Period. You need to research what people wore between the years of 1620 and 1655. Your best sources will be paintings and engravings done during those years. When you find a painting that has a picture of an outfit you think one of your characters would wear, right click on the image and select copy. Then open a word document, go to the edit button on the menu bar and click paste. The image should appear in the word document. You want to make a collage of paintings and engravings for each of the two characters you choose. You should have at least 5 pictures for each. Once you have completed your collages, print them off. You can find paintings and engravings at the following links:
http://www.kipar.org/galleries_earlyp.html
http://www.kipar.org/galleries_earlye.html
http://www.davidclaudon.com/Elizabethan/Eliz.html
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHbaroque.html (check out Frans Hals paintings between 1620 and 1658, and Rembrandt group portraits, and the 17th century artists section from Olga's gallery)
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/dutch.htm
http://www.costumes.org/pages/uktour/uktour_p30.htm
http://www.costumes.org/pages/17thwomen.htm
http://costumes.org/pages/timelinepages/1600to1630a.htm
http://www.livinghistory.co.uk/gallery/1600-1700/index.html

(Hint- on the webpages, if the picture is too small you can left click on the image to get a larger picture. You can then copy that image and paste it in to microsoft word. Then if you want it slightly smaller, you can right click on the image and format the picture to be in front of the text. Then you should be able to left click on the corner of the image and re-size it.)

Step 5:

The next part of your process is to sketch out your ideas for costumes. Use your collages to make sure your costumes are true to the period. Sketch one costume for each of your characters. (This can be done on scrap paper, but make sure you keep them.)

Step 6:

In order to make your final costume renderings, you need to have bodies to draw them on. Your next step is to draw one male and one female figure, each on a separate piece of blank paper. You should use 8.5 x 11 size paper. Check out the following websites for directions on how to draw the human figure and measurments so that your figures look true to life:
http://www.mauigateway.com/~donjusko/human.htm
http://www2.evansville.edu/drawinglab/

Step 7:

The final costume renderings- draw the final copy of the costumes you designed on to the human figures you drew. Next color them in. You can use color pencil, paint, marker, or any medium that you have available. Make sure to think about what colors your characters would wear and how they fit with the rest of the play. Your last step is to neatly write the name of the character, the name of the play, and your name in one of the corners of your rendering.

You have succesfully completed your task as a costume designer! Thank you for your hard work.

Grading Rubric for the webquest:

The project is worth a total of 100 points. Here is the breakdown:
     (10 pts) Design Approach
      (10 pts) Character Analysis for two characters
      (10 pts) Two Collages
     (10 pts) Costumes sketches
      (50 pts) Final Costume Renderings
                   (20 pts) Costumes are historically accurate
                        (15 pts) Costumes fit with the character
                        (15 pts) Renderings are neatly done