[h-cost] CostumeCon Memberships for sale
I have two memberships for sale at $65 each. contact me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] if interested. Margo Anderson ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] DESIGNER PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
Been there and done that. A worse scean is when the costumes get voted on by the Mother's Aux. for the production...and the Director accepts their critique as the standard. Or the whole cast gets to decide which costumes make the cut. Between the movies and the major two Costume companies, the visual expectation is very limited for the Popular theater of a general public. The idea of style interpretation sometimes extends to matching colors, prints, assessories and such to the exact picture on the Pattern cover or to a particular garment from the film. Very frustrating. Making Cartoon costumes is not fun for one who may have a better view of the historical aspects of how the style (generic) clothes and compliments the character being costumed. It took me several years to learn to pick my battles and to try to maintain an integrity of Design for a particular production. In working with some cast members, I fought for their trust by reminding them that my name Too would be on the program; if they didn't look good or the character was inappropriatly clothed, I would get the criticism first. We spend a fair bit of time on this List with personal critiques of the movies and other productions re Costume; it is often pointed out that directors and actors live in a kind of fantasy world and that Design integrity is least in their expectation. For myself, in agreeing to do a production, I stressed Interpretation as a major starting point for the Design development. With some duds and a larger number of successes, I managed to get my own share of plaudits that gave me courage to move forward for the next time. (And there were many times when in the company of tech staff it was said that I saved the show.) Guess one might remind the Director that theye can always Rent from a 'professional' theater supply house , Cost and Style be @#$^%. Funny, when paying the Rental company how few complaints are given re Desigh and Fit! KSM - Original Message - From: AVCHASE [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: h-costume posts h-costume@mail.indra.com Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 10:46 PM Subject: [h-cost] DESIGNER PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS Hi, All. The most recent show on which I worked opened last last Thursday. And over all its a good show. But some of the fallout has been very upsetting to me. The director invited me to do this show for her, her last show (she's said that for for the last three years), and I've done them. Each time some cast members have been down right vicious. This time was the worst. It occurred to me we expected different things as/from a designer. I'd just assumed they all understood that I only did these shows to practice my craft, keep my abilities in shape, and explore my ideas. Maybe her agenda was different? So I sent an email and asked what she had expected when she engaged a designer. She wrote back to me a very complimentary (damned by praise-forget faint) note about my design capabilities; but-said I was overbearing, didn't listen to the actress's ideas and was not willing to take suggestions form the actresses. The ideas and suggestions were put forth a few days before dress and production had gotten me no help for a small musical with 48 changes in it. Some very small; most changes are full costume though. I found I was being difficult when I said there just wasn't time. The worst part is that the changes weakened the visual dramatic impact but were more conventional. Now I want to write a little paper setting forth designer's professional standards. It isn't that I don't know what most are but I don't know if they are enumerated anywhere. Are they? Please help, both scholars and practitioners. Audy in the high boonies of Central Texas PeoplePC Online A better way to Internet http://www.peoplepc.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] DESIGNER PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
My latest problem was on the other end. Since I both direct and do costumes, I am accustomed as a director to work closely with my costume designer, as I would hope a director would do with me. And I have worked with the same costume designer for most of my productions. At the beginning of the project, I sit down with her and discuss my overall vision of the show, my concept of the characters, for shows with costume changes my understanding of the moods of various scenes as well as the time and place etc. of those scenes; she talks with me to clarify what I have in mind and to suggest her ideas (having read the script of course), especially about materials and line. A few days later we get together with patterns and illustrations I've found and patterns and illustrations she's found, plus a script schedule showing where costume changes are necessary and how much time will be available to make those changes. And a few days later she gives me her working schedule and we approve all designs. Since I'm usually pitching in on the sewing, we are able to discuss revisions as the need arises. It's all really wonderful, and costumes are done by opening night (this is community theater-- most things are finished by first dress, but we're realists...), properly fitted and comfortable for the actors; all costumes involved in costume changes are done by first dress if not sooner. BUT this past year I was scheduled to direct The Glass Menagerie, but my costumer had had a heart attack and wanted to scale back her role. Since the theater had been approached by someone with costuming experience who wanted to develop her portfolio so she could apply for graduate programs, we contacted her, and she said she very much wanted to design the show. My usual designer and I met with her for a long evening; I discussed my vision of the show, as usual. She had not yet read the play (although we had agreed to work together some three weeks previous)--she said she hadn't had time to get over to the theater to pick up a script and hadn't thought to go to her local library We should have read this as a danger signal, but she was very busy with her day job and we assumed that was the problem. She seemed enthusiastic about getting down to designing, and said she'd be doing some research and then would have sketches for me in a week or ten days. Three weeks went by (of course we were already in rehearsal and moving toward opening); my costumer lent her several books about 1930s clothing, and called her a number of times to see what was going on, but no sketches emerged. Came time for taking publicity photos, and nothing--so my old designer, who is costumes mistress for that community theater, pulled some things that we felt would do, and at a vintage shop I bought a dress that I knew would work for Laura for photos for the gentleman-caller scenes and would be easily adaptable to use in the actual production should we have to fend for ourselves. I also found a dress that would work for Amanda's cotillion gown in the collection of the community theater where _I_ am costumes mistress--it was a little small, but pins and things held it together for photos, and we knew that if we wound up using it we had the personnel to do the alterations. We let the costumes person know that we were coping for the photo shoot but were looking forward to seeing her DESIGNS, which my usual costumer reminded her would be subject to director's approval. Three days later she showed up at a rehearsal and asked if she could pull Laura out of the rehearsal to try some things on her. Since the rehearsal was for the gentleman- caller scenes, I really couldn't spare Laura, but said we could stay late for the costume stuff. While I was giving notes to the g-c after the rehearsal, the costumes person whisked Laura off to the dressingroom. I got up there as soon as I could, to see her fussing with a plaid housedress. She assured me that the housedress would be absolutely period as soon as she cut the neckline squarer and deeper. I asked her if she had made or bought the dress or if it was from the theater's collection, and when she said it was from the collection I suggested that she clear any style alterations with the costumes mistress (this aside from the fact that I had told her from the beginning that I wanted all of Laura's clothing soft of hand and muted in color except for her g-c dress, and obviously I wouldn't be happy with a black-and-green plaid with bright green piping...). She asked me why I was making her answerable to someone else. Then I drove her home (she had no car, another problem I should have picked up on sooner), and I never heard from her again. She did not return my old costumer's calls. SO my old costumer, plus one of our loyal assistants and me, swung into action with very little time remaining before
Re: [h-cost] DESIGNER PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
These experiences suggest that both designers and directors would be happier in the end if, whatever the expectations are, they were *written down* and agreed on ahead of time. A designer might not be completely happy, but both designer and director might be far less *stressed* to know ahead of time that, for instance, the leading lady gets to dictate her own colors and will provide her own undergarments. (The designer is of course free to think Victorian corset for Shakespeare? Ha! in the privacy of his or her own mind) I'm sure the collective mind can cheerfully provide a list of common things that go wrong if anyone wants to write up guidelines for what might be useful in such an agreement ;) (That is, if there isn't already such a thing available...) Flaky employees who don't meet deadlines, however are endemic in all ines of work and are really another matter. That's a matter of someone not meeting the terms of something they already HAVE agreed to. Community theater directors may just be more out of luck on this than most people because they so often don't have anyone else they can really turn to if the costumer flakes out. OChris Laning [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Davis, California + http://paternoster-row.org - http://paternosters.blogspot.com ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] DESIGNER PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS
Chris Laning wrote: These experiences suggest that both designers and directors would be happier in the end if, whatever the expectations are, they were *written down* and agreed on ahead of time. I absolutely agree. My husband and a group of friends build sets for amateur theatre, so I've been reading this thread from the other side, as it were. Having had less and less time to build bigger and bigger sets in recent years, the latest show was an absolute monster - two structures, 20 ft high, 20ft wide and 8ft deep(just to have space for enough buttressing), which the director originally wanted to move in sight during scenes! They built it, securely enough that the theatre's resident stage manager allowed them to use it and move it, which was in question until the technical rehearsal, but only with the curtains closed and all cast off stage - but they have now written down conditions making clear that they can only do so much if just presented with plans at 6 weeks notice, and how much better it could be if they were involved in discussions about design and movement requirements at an early stage. Clearly understood expectations are always where it's at! Jean ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] OT Re: Regional accents, was Making history hip
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a message dated 4/4/2008 8:30:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Someone recently told me that it was a sign of refinement/education to be be to spell a word in different ways. Anyone ever hear of this? Not your, you're and yore. Or two, to and too. I suppose it might seem cosmopolitan to know color is colour in Britain or that you can shop at a shoppe... but it's really just having a good vocab. English has like 3 times more words in it than other languages... stolen from other languages... which is why we have so many different spellings and homonyms. There's a quote from Mark Twain, I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. Maybe that's what they were thinking of? Rather out of date now that standardised spelling is the norm. Jean ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
