Final Evaluation

Evaluation

This project was the ideal thing for me to do at this time in the course. Following the Candide project and my work placement in London I really felt I needed to concentrate on being creative and be able to following my own ideas. This was exactly what this project enabled me to do.
Working with the Murilova ballet school was fantastic, as they were very open to ideas, although the director Sandra, was very sure of her ideas and what she wanted, this gave me boundaries and ideas to work from. For example because it is a ballet production it is very important that the costumes are easy to move in and do not restrict the girls from dancing. This was very quite easy to work around on the costume as the unitards were given to me. So to express the character of the owl, I made a bolero style jacket, which was decorated with feathers. The jacket is not restrictive because it is loose. I am very pleased with the outcome of the owl costume, especially the choice of fabric as it has a great way of moving and rippling when the owl is dancing. If the production was not for a ballet and if I had a bigger budget I would have embellished more of the unitard, and put feathers on the legs and made more elaborate gloves, However that was not suitable for this project.
For the dodo costume I was allowed to elaborate and work into the unitard in more detail, I felt because of the dodos character and its small wings that it was important not to put real feathers onto the arms, so it would not add excess bulk therefore it was important for me to work into the unitard with paint rather than 3d feathers. 
For the beak of the dodo it was difficult to get the right look and make it easily recognizable as a dodo. I made a couple of clay beaks to get one, which I felt was the right shape. There are pictures of the dodo and recreations, which I used as inspiration, but as an extinct animal I found it difficult to look at the beak and instantly think ‘That is a dodo beak’. So I think it is important that I had the opportunity to take my time at the creative stages and make the beaks over and over again. 
I found being able to use the workshop liberating! So far in the course, we haven’t really had the opportunity to use different materials and use all of the fantastic resources open to us in the workshop. However I didn’t get to experiment as much as I would have liked, due to budget and some time restrictions. Nevertheless this project has given me an insight to the workshop and given me some ideas. 
For the masks I found it very difficult it to decide what to make the masks out of, and make them fit properly, because I didn’t have the opportunity to see the dancers until very late in the schedule. So I managed to find some masks, which were suitable and I cut the latex beaks and managed to successfully glue them on. It was a shame I couldn’t have experimented and found an alternative to buying and made some. Although using the ready-made masks brought the cost of the whole costume down. 
Although this project wasn’t a massive budget production, I feel it was the right one for me to do, as this was a community project and close to my heart. It was a great experience being able to help a charity and a group of talented  people with my skills and inspire people with my costumes. 
I fell that It is a great skill being able to produce costumes on a very low budget and being able to be creative and resourceful. As a modern person in the current climate I think it is very important to be resourceful without compromising the general aesthetic of the costume. It should be a skill practiced more, as recycling and reusing things should be a bigger apart of our culture and apart of the costume industry.  I found It very rewarding to explain to the director and the girls of the dance school about the recycled fabrics and how little the costumes cost me because of my resourcefulness, as I hope they will follow my example and realize that great things can be made from unexpected and recycled things.