Research: Mise en scene: Costume, Hair and Make-up - Mrs. Quinlan

What is costume and hair and make-up? Why is it an important convention? How can it help with character representation and understanding?

Costume is a material which helps the audience to know more about the character, as it guides the audience to a particular information about themselves. It’s is an important convention as this is because the audience needs to know information about the character as if this don’t happen they won’t really understand the base line of the story. This will help them to represent themselves from the way they are dressed. So if they are very smart looking they would most probably be the protagonists, and then the antagonist will then have a costume where he or she can have a mask, as they might have something to cover on their face. From the type of shoe they are wearing if it’s a black leather boot then they would most probably think that he is an antagonist character, especially if the character does not have a police costume on themselves.

Costume, hair and make-up:

• Depending on the type of character the colour red will be representing love, sex, danger, violence, and pretty much more to come that it could represent.
• Light colours if it is a protagonist it will be representing, innocent, happiness, love, and whatever the character is going through it will mostly depend on the story line.
• Dark colours would represent both sides so a protagonists and an antagonists, depending on the character for example for a protagonist it will represent depression, loneliness, and the rest on what they are going through. For an antagonists it will represent the evilness, danger, violence, strength and more.
• Suits protagonist will have a slim wear costume, which shows the strength that the guy has gained, also they would look very clean.
• Suits antagonist will have scruffy costume, which will look big on them so at least one or two size bigger than they are, as this will hide their strength trying to show themselves big.
• Vests will be tight on the protagonist, which will show the strength of the character.
• Cloaks, an antagonist will have a cloak on as they use it to show that the character is the leader and thinks that has the power to get what he wants.
• Masks, a protagonist will have a mask because they don’t want to reveal their identity as they would like to keep their strength to themselves.
• Uniform, a protagonist will have a uniform if they work as a police or in a army, or pretty much more here if they need to wear a uniform in the job they do.

Conclusion

In this research I have learnt that costume represent the characters in the films, and that i will need to use these ideas in my Thriller opening scene for As Media, as for the audience to know about the characters they would need some idea which comes from the costumes hair and makeup they use.