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The first thing we need to do as a team is attend meetings, meetings are one of the only ways to know what the director wants and doesn't want, see what others are doing on the production and get the overall creative idea and theme for the production. It's important to take notes and ask as many questions that will be helpful for me and my team to create, buy or hire the costumes that will look amazing on the production.

In the first few meetings I want to talk about and get a feel for the theme of the production, asking questions about the time era, the colour pallet and aesthetic of the show and anything special the director wants for a specific character this gives me and my team a deeper understanding of the creative pursuit that the director wants to take and what the director is looking for in a successful costume for the production, these notes will hopefully stay present with us as we consider all aspects of the costume designs.

We will ask important questions and take notes on cast size and the days/times the cast is in so we can take their measurements as well as this in other meetings throughout the planning and preparation of the production we should provide evidence of our process, we need to do this so the director is constantly aware of what we are planning for the costumes as well as the directors being able to discuss with us what they like and don't like and any special parts they want adding; evidence will be shown through designs, explanation, fabric samples and other techniques that represent a specific part of the costumes.

It's always possible for the directors to change their minds on any part of the production and we should always be ready to change an aspect that the director wants changed, if it's reasonable and we're able to given the resources and time for example if we've hire a costume we won't be able to change it but if we've bought a costume and have the budget left over we can always order or run out and buy something new.

Constraints with meetings will be time management, it's not always possible for the manager to attend every meeting and meetings can also cut into work time, they can be delayed and they can be cancelled. Holding information and questions for a meeting shouldn't be something to rely on because a meeting can be likely to be rescheduled or cancelled.

Knowing the day and time the meetings should take place is super useful, this gives me time as a manager to assign someone to go to the meeting if I can't attend and it also let's me know if I have a question that I need an urgent response to and there isn't a meeting soon that I need to send an email instead, of course if there's a last minute cancel or reschedule then I will just make sure that I either email the director or find out the next meeting and wait.

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With the information gathered and first questions asked from the meetings we should have a good idea on a starting point for research, research is the next building block for costumes there's a lot of information to be gained from research and it really helps building a theme and idea for creating designs for the costumes, I can even show this research in meetings so I can discuss my ideas properly with visuals to back it up.

The type of research I want to be conducted from my team is a thorough understanding of all aspects of Gatsby, I want my team to have a good understanding of the time era of Gatsby which is the 1920s this should help my team grasp the visual concept of the costumes from researching the fashion, the social and economic status of that time period. This is important because being able to back up the choices being made for the costumes with historical and accurate research shows how much thought is put into the costume and gives me and others the ability to explain ourselves to directors.

Other research points I will bring up with my team and want them to conduct into their research is to watch The Great Gatsby and also research other Gatsby productions, this is because I believe a lot can be learned and taken in from seeing other costume designers visual interpretation of the production, I want this to inspire my teams own designs and be able to explain and back up their designs with answers from this research, it's good practice and really helpful with understanding development points and motivation.

Constraints with research depend on how that particular person researches, it might be that one of my team members doesn't know where to start or how to format the research, before we send everyone off to go research i'll communicate with my team on the points I want them to research and bring back to our meetings, I will also demonstrate different methods of researching and what sites to use like padlet, google docs or word.

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Naturally, after having meetings and collected ideas from research (which might not be completely done at this point) I want to be moving on to job distribution, as a team we should be having a small meeting and working out how jobs should be handled and given out around this point, I want to be able to assign jobs to my team members so we can work fast and proficiently I also think this will make it less stressful to handle if we have a mapped out plan on who will handle what.

I think splitting my team into groups and then splitting the cast list would make sense, the split could be based on gender or the type of characters, we will have a discussion and decide as a team the best method because it depends on what other people fancy doing. I want to do it this way because i think it will give everyone the chance to dive into all the aspects of costumes everyone would get a chance too: design, buy, create or hire costumes as well as this my team will all have an opportunity to be a leader and feel what it's like to lead a part of the costume production, I also think this will make the process faster and less stressful as we aren't all bashing heads with each other and trying to finish the same tasks, this method would be a lot more organised and easier to keep track of.

The possible constraints of this method could be that others might not communicate properly, what I mean by this is it would be easy to get carried away in our own areas and forget to communicate problems or when we've finished a certain part of the costumes for the group of actors, this could leave others feeling stuck and unmotivated or it could mean we miss documenting important details because they've gotten so excited and carried away, not documenting aspects can leave things disorganised which can cause aspects of costumes and details to go under the radar.

To ensure that this doesn't happen I will communicate constantly with my team and make sure that they're documenting any major breakthroughs for example i'll always let my team know where I would like them to document their information; things like checklists for when a full costume has been put together. Double checking that they're okay and don't need help and if they do need help to offer help to fix an issue, communication is the key to this being successful.

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Creating and showing Designs with technical flats.

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Creating and showing Designs with technical flats.

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After having jobs distributed as a team we can begin creating the designs for the Gatsby cast, I want these designs from my team to show a clear understanding of the production and the research that should be finished by now.

These designs can be done traditionally or digitally, I will most likely do mine digitally but I will suggest to my team to do it in any way that they feel fitting, the designs need to be annotated and thought out, this is because it's important to be able to explain our creative vision and why we've design a costume the way we have to the directors and anyone who wants to know, because designs are a plan of the costume these will also come in handy when creating technical drawings, technical flats are a flat version of the design that goes more in depth than the initial design does they depict things like seams and layers.

Constraints with designs is when buying, hiring or constructing the design depending on the time allowance and budget it's likely that the design and technical flat won't completely be a mirror of image of the design, creating all the details can be hard if you don't have the budget or the time and we will be working on short time limits, it's likely not all the costumes will be constructed and instead bought or hired and if that's the case it's even more likely the costume won't be 100% accurate design it's important that I communicate this with the team so when the time comes they haven't got their heart set on something that isn't possible.

After creating the designs they need to be shown and approved by the director this is why having the research and annotations is important this'll help myself and my team explain their thought processes and sell their designs to the director we can't move forward with any designs that aren't approved because the director controls all the parts of the production.

Constraints with getting a design approved is it might not happen the first time and the director might ask for something to be edited or added and this can happen more than once, it's important that my team knows this and to not be unmotivated if it happens. Being aware of time is also important because if this does happen we don't want to be so much time on the designs that it impacts our time with everything else, taking notes and listening carefully to the directors request is important so that we can get it right straight away.

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Organisation is really a powerful tool in a production, being organised makes the process a lot less stressful and more easy as well as this it gives me and my team evidence we might need in the future that's why I want to set up documents like spreadsheets or google docs that we can place information in and always have all our important information there in front of us that we can refer back to, this will help the production because we can always look back and check our information and make sure we haven't missed or left anything uncompleted.

The type of documents I want to make are things like: checklists, risk assessments, budget sheets and other general things like measurements. These documents can be shared with everyone in the team and I can use them to keep track at what point in the process we are. I think this will be good for the team to learn how to do, it's a good habit to get into for future projects and it will come in handy when I or someone else forgets something or need to present the director with any information.

It's not necessarily a "next step" in my timeline plan because these documents will spring up at all points during the preparation of the production but around about now is when I would expect some sort of documentation being made because we've done measurements and research and these are things we can put places like a measurement checklist or a research area designated to all of the teams collected information.

Documents will be time consuming to make and does require a good memory to continue placing information down all the time, it also takes a lot of organisation in itself to keep neat and easy to access, a shared area to put all these documents could be a good idea to combat this and as for time it's just about communicating and designating an hour a day into putting information down.

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We should have the days and times the actors are in during the week from the notes taken from the meetings, with this we need to start getting measurements from the cast so we can begin looking for costumes and constructing them we need these measurements to be exact and not just their high-street sizes this is because if we need to construct or tailor these costumes to the actors we have their exact measurements and don't need to go back and forth with the actors which would cost a lot of valuable time and isn't reliable.

We will confirm the cast size and print out measurement sheets for the cast, I will make sure to print extra in case we need any extra sheets as a team we need to predict mistakes can happen. Before confirming a date with the director to go and intrude on the actors we need to add the names and characters of all the actors on the sheet this means we can be quick when getting the actors details, saving us time.

When we begin measuring the actors I will ensure that I go with a second person and that we bring all the sheets and a pieces of rope or ribbon to wrap around the actor to locate their waist this method is also another way to save time, on these sheets we will confirm the actors name and characters as well as obtaining their B numbers or other contact details because not everyone has their B numbers and we should plan for that, we will take down all the measurements we believe we might need as well as their high street sizes and any special considerations like: phobias, allergies and person preferences like if the person is vegan and doesn't want to wear real animal fur.

I think we should aim to get around 5-8 actors measured, if the cast is big it'll be impossible to do them all in the same day because we likely won't have the access to have them for that long in the first place, i'm expecting measuring to take more than one day and if it doesn't then at least i've planned for that extra time, ideally we should get it down within 3 days.

After we have obtained all the cast sizes and personal preferences I will set up a document to places all the actors names in and a checklist format stating whether we have or haven't measured them this will make it easier to identify how many actors we have measured at a given time and who we've measure so we aren't backtracking each time we go back and wasting time we could be using on something else.

Constraints with this is obviously we have to wait for the director to give us a free slot to go measure which means it'll be a waiting game and we're relying on communicating properly as well as this time is an issue because it won't be just one time we go and measure, setting up multiple dates is also a waiting game and things are likely to come up and get in the way, we need to make sure to plan for things to interrupt set dates and to have backup dates instead that we can request for in advance.

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Before starting on getting costumes constructed or bought I want to have an organised area to place them, I don't want them thrown somewhere or hanging on an unorganised rail where we're likely forget who the costume belongs to and there's a higher chance that different parts of the costume will get mixed up with other costumes and it becomes one big mess that is left till last minute causing stress that could of been avoided.

The method in which I want my team to organise the costumes is really simple and easy, we have laminated tags that we will write the actors names and characters on, the Gatsby cast could be big and we might need to set a job aside for some of the team to create more tags. Everytime we complete or have part of a costume for a character we will place their costume on the rail and have the actors name and character in front this way we have a very nice organised system that everyone can follow to find and loacte their costumes.

The reason that this will be beneficial is it makes it easier to track the costumes we are producing as well as it saves a job that needs to be done early on, when we give the costumes over to the actors the labels will need to be on there because the actors won't know exactly what costumes are theirs so having this job done already is another worry off the back.

Constraints with this is that we have limited labels and i'm almost positive right now that we will need to make more which is a time consuming job that would take a couple of hours, what I think I will do is around this point I will assign some of the year ones to work as a small group to create some more labels whilst others can get working on other parts at the same time.

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Now we have the prepared areas, armed with our designs and research I will feel comfortable to move on to creating a budget plan and presenting this plan for approval to the necessary person, to be able to do this I need to know what we as a team need to spend money on these things will be: buying online, hiring costumes, buying materials such as fabric, elastic or maybe buttons or sourcing costumes from charity shops we also won't do just one of these things it'll be a combination.

As a budget proposal I need to communicate with my team and get every single detail of costumes that we need, making sure to double check and suggest questions to ensure they know what they need and then request the items and where they get those costumes or resources from for example in my last FMP we needed a lot of dye that's a resource we might need again, all this evidence will amount up to one big evidence document so when i'm asked "why do you need this?" or "do you really need this?" I can say yes and give a thorough explanation as to why and convince the person asking the questions.

The budget can get shot down many times before it's accepted which is expected when requesting for money for such a big production, we'll have a budget already given to us which we need to work with and not go over.

Contingency plans for budget would be a percentage of money left over in case we need to buy anything unexpectedly or a costume breaks, if we don't have enough budget for anything left over then it's a case of really making sure that what costumes we have are definitely secure and if something does break or we need more then we have other options, other options like: knowing what we have in storage, other people we could rely on or being able to fix damages with what we have in the costume room.

Constraints are working within budget, it's a big restraint and hard to work with, it means we won't have everything perfectly the way we want it and although it is possible to be able to go over budget it won't be a lot and i'll need a really good reason and thought out plan to do so, making sure that I do have this in the back of my pocket is a really good last minute plan that I could rely on.

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When the budget plan is completed and we have our budget accepted I would love to move onto being able to hire and buy the parts of the costumes, buying is faster than constructing obviously because it's buying parts that have already been made. We will do some buying but I would also love to do some hiring because i've never had the chance and with Gatsby there's gonna be a lot of of costumes like suits and dresses that won't be found in shops and will be too much to construct.

When we begin hiring costumes the documents that should have been created for measurements and a checklist of the items of costume can be used to know exactly what we need to buy, when we call or email for an appointment we can go and get a reservation rail and start getting some costumes ready and take pictures of the costumes to show to the director, once we're satisfied with the collection of costumes we've picked out as a team we can get the price of 2 weeks worth of costume and subtract that from our budget.

Buying from shops whether it be costume items or materials like fabric or dye is another part of preparations that will likely happen fabric like hiring is going to be expensive as a team we will need to decide which one we will priorities and do the most of, it'll most likely be hiring but having a plan is always the best idea and then with buying material we should absolutely have a plan already with the costumes and should know what we need to get and how much it'll be.

When buying it's a good idea to match prices and always find the cheapest option this is a good habit to have when working with a budget as it'll save a lot of money that when stacked up would end up being a lot of money.

Constraints with buying and hiring is you need to work within the budget which can be really hard to do, it means prioritising the most essential parts and leaving the less important for last this ensures that we have the main features produced and hopefully anything left over can be bought but if not we won't die without them.

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Other than buying and hiring we might do some garment construction which will need a lot of different equipment and materials, this will happen at the same time as hiring and buying maybe even earlier because construction takes so much longer than anything else especially if it's something new that we're making or something big which we can't always plan for.

Construction takes a lot of materials like fabric and usually you'll need the mock up fabric then the fabric you use for the final piece which isn't just always one fabric it can be multiple, the garment might require elastic for waistbands or cuffs, they'll need buttons or zips and then the thread in which you use to sew everything together with, this all comes out the budget.

Equipment is a thought as well as many different types of equipment that need to be used to construct a garment which also needs to be taken into account with time. Equipment such as threading up sewing machines takes time especially if you're swapping thread, overlockers which not everyone knows how to use and then you have the small equipment like shears, pickers, needles, pin cushions and pins and snips that my team will need to have ready because these type of equipment is always being used for example mistakes will happen where you need to unpick or pins that need to be removed and added all the time having a cushion means they're always available easily, all these little considerations I need my team to remember so that the process is speedy and less stressful and they aren't spending time trying to find these items that they could of had ready.

Constraints with garment construction is it's a lot of back and forth with actors making sure that everything fits fine and then a lot of time creating the garment because it's such a process, designs need to be made, then flats, mock ups, tailoring and then the final piece which might need more tailoring if my team can have the small things already prepared in advanced than this process can go a lot quicker and smoother.

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Preparing the fitting room is one of the last parts of the preparation for the production and is also very important with a lot of different parts and jobs that need to be done before the production hits the stage. Having an organised fitting room is important because I don't want my team having to find damaged or misplaced items because we didn't have basic rules and other things put in place.

The fitting room should have signs made and put up these signs will display rules I want my team to communicate and work on our own set of rules things I want to consider is no food or drink in the fitting room, no shouting or loud music and keep consideration for the space actors can be messy. These rules are put in place for safety, a lot of the preparation done will be for a smooth and safe space for the actors to change and hang around in between being on set.

The rail will be put in an accessible area and we should have all the labels displaying which costume belongs to who, would of the rules will be to make sure to place the costumes back the way they were found as last FMP I remember costumes being thrown anywhere and left for us to clean up and put back. Organisation is a key part in this part of the preparation that's why I also want to have belonging boxes for actors to place person items in and labels on chairs with actors names on so they know where they can sit.

The dressing area will be made from these moveable flats that we can place in any fashion to create a nice square changing rooms these should also have signs on as "enter" and "occupied" to ensure no accidents happen. All these different parts of the preparation should ensure a safe and organised area that we can keep a track of and with all the rules we have a way to ensure that if the organisation isn't followed we have a way or backing ourselves up.

Constraints with the fitting room is it won't stay perfect because of the volume of people present which means it'll constantly need time to clean up and being on the ball making sure others respect the space as well which can become an issue if some of my team don't like to be strict and confrontational, before the show I will have a big briefing with the team to ensure that they know how to handle the space and the actors and not to feel threatened by them.

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The sewing kits won't necessarily be the last part because they'll probably be put together at the same time as the fitting room I just believe it deserves it's own section because of the importance and all the different parts that go into the kits.

Each person on the production will have their own kit, they're responsible for keeping all the contents in this kit and ensuring nothing goes missing and they also need to double check that they have everything on a regular basis I and another year 2 will create the kits but we are human and might miss something so better safe than sorry.

These kits will have white and black thread, two needles in case one goes missing, some buttons, snips although we might need to give others shears instead that they can have round their waist as we don't have a lot of snips I believe we only have 2, plasters which can useful for things that ich or annoy the actor, clear nail polish to fix ladders in tights and such and bobby pins although they're for hair it doesn't hurt to have some with us.

Constraints are that kits can't be on a person 24/7 and the idea is that they stay close by but this means if something does happen and someone forgets to have it near them then there's a time constraint on running to grab it and running back to fix the issue, a proactive way around this is to have the essentials on you in a poach and have the more unlikely equipment in the box nearby.