Mini Costume Design Project

What I need to consider in the design process?

• The appropriateness of costume for children's theatre!
• The personality of the character - reflected in the colour, size, shape, creativeness of the costume etc...What social status does your character have?
• Actor's measurments.
• The physical movements of the character and therefore the impact on the costume.
• Suitable materials/fabric for the type and style of costume.
• What period is your story set?

My charatcer is 'An old lazy wizard.' We will be designed a hat for our charatcer over the next 2 weeks. Because of the children's theatre nature, the hat should be literal, colourful and recognisable.

To create my backstory for my charatcer - What should I consider? What questions should I ask?

1) Ethnicity
2) Social Status
3) Gender
4) What do they contribute to the story?
5) Age
6) Hero or Villain?

Why is this wizard lazy? (The Backstory)

The wizard is a 200 year old man, named Fizban Belgarath. He is better know as Fiz. He lives in a village called Elkin, where the locals resent him for a past tragedy he caused. The story is set in the Medieval period. As a young boy, Fiz was one of the most famous and well-trained wizards. One day, Fiz gathered all the villagers for a surprise. He planned to cast a spell which would improve the village, but devastatingly destroys it, hence the resentment from the villagers. This act results in him becoming an outcast, which leads to his lazyness. Ever since the tragedy, Fiz hasn't attempted any kind of magic as he believes he is a rubbish wizard. Throughout these years of no magic, Fiz's wizard hat has become tatty - including cobwebs, greyness, rips and tears. The hat is moping (floppy), to resemble his sadness. However, this all changes when a young girl named Morgan Glinda comes along, a daughter of one of the village famalies. Morgan has been told the story of Fiz by her great grandparents and has a great interest in wizard history. Being young and naive, she visits Fiz and they form a heartwarming friendship. She is keen to learn new wizardry and Fiz's stubborness is broken down and he can't help but teach her what he knows. Eventually, he has restored faith in himself, enough to attempt his original spell once more. The spell is successful and the village is beautifully restored. The idea of resentment towards Fiz is abandoned, and the villagers (including Morgan) gather to create a new hat for him, which includes an engraving of his name and a heroic patch. The hat has a purple base and gold stars; it is tall and pointy and covered in glitter.


Reasoning behind the backstory:
To get the names, we used a wizard name generator. We will get the children to know Fizban as Fiz, because it is simple and easier to remember for someone who is young, e.g. like Fiz from the Tweenies. All children stories tend to end happily, and so we stuck with that idea because we believe it will recieve a good reaction. Above, I mentioned 2 hats. However, we will only be making one, which will be the one which is worn over the years (tatty.) We decided to make this one instead of the other because the character name we were given was an old LAZY wizard, and the hat needs to symbolise that.

Initial ideas:
As a group, we decided that grey would be a good colour to make the hat,this is because grey typically creates a gloomy atmosphere, which the wizard will be in. We also thought rips and tears would be suitable to include as the hat is meant to be over a hundred years old. Our model is John, who's head measures 58.5cm (23 inches.)