Tree Bound -- Award for Costume Design, Nov. 2018

This little film made some festival rounds, and really surprised me when it won an award.

Very unexpected, for sure, but a lovely surprise.  Especially for the last-minute, patchworked-together nature of the project.  But my thanks to the judges of the Kite Film Fest for the recognition.

And a thank you to Sheepshed Entertainment for bringing me on to this speedy, whimsical high-fantasy project!

Jasmine cloak -- CYT Aladdin Jr. -- 2021

 Early in 2021, I was asked to direct and choreograph for a local CYT (Christian Youth Theatre) production of 'Aladdin Jr.' with a very talented singing director and now friend.  Now, I'm not big on Disney things personally, but I love a good character-heavy show, the Arabian setting, the fantasy aspects, plus the challenge of putting on stage something audiences are primarily familiar with as an animated movie, surrounded with nostalgia for many of them.

Looking at many stage versions I could find, from big Disney and Disney Cruise shows to small high schools, to s girls high school with no guys whatsoever (that was a weird one...!), I pretty quickly pinned down what I was going for and what I wanted to avoid.

Thankfully, we were able to rent nearly all our costumes from another CYT, and make just the few remaining pieces and costumes needed.  (our Jafar was well over 6 foot tall, and our Genie was built like a linebacker... so we had major changes there, plus a few small bits and pieces.)

One thing we found we needed was a cloak for Jasmine, when she's adventuring outside the palace.  We had one very long, very plain cloak, which both Jafar and the Genie used at different times when in disguise; but Jasmine needed one that made her stand out from the crowd, while making her look a little less royal, and still look dramatic and lovely.

So I chose to make that cloak myself, as I had a very heavy one I could copy and I'd happily keep it to reuse in my costume stash.

I did a lot of searching to find what's been done before and where I wanted to go for Jasmine.  This one (from a Disney Cruise show, I believe) was my favorite, and I seriously considered making the cloak into a full-fledged overdress like this instead.  But the time just wasn't available.  So I went with the color scheme instead; that more dusty, not-quite-navy blue outer layer, with a bright gold-yellow lining, and a cranberry red lace like trim.

 

When it came to the hood, I wanted something more practical looking than you see on most stage cloaks, like the first picture above (brown cloak), particularly with the attached scarf-like piece tossed over the shoulder. 

But I loved the fairytale drape to the hood on the next picture (purple costume) and wanted to mimic that, along with the pillowy way Jasmine's hood hangs in the animation that most audiences would be very familiar with.  Our Jasmine already looked very like an animated character translated to life.

 

Pretty quickly, I landed on linen for both the outer fabric and the lining.  And since I couldn't find anything suitable in town, I ordered out for it so I could get to sewing the thing.  Choosing two linen layers turned out to be a great choice, as the blue outer fabric was a much lighter weight than I had hoped from the photographs.

The yellow lining layer was a bit stiffer, and a good deal heavier, so I was a little concerned how the large shape would behave once the two layers were sewn together.  But I actually love the end effect.  The heavy lining serves to weigh down the whole piece, which makes it feel very real and practical, while the fine blue layer looks very light and airy and doesn't add bulk, so the whole thing moves really beautifully.

I used a large hooded cloak I already had as a quick pattern.  I had already tested that it was a great length and size for our Jasmine.  The only major change was narrowing the front 2 edges about 8" in total, and using a quick clasp as a closure instead of the ties on the pattern cloak, to make it more practical for stage.

Of course our resident princess, Feather,  had to test out the quality of everything, just to be sure it was up to royal standards.  And make sure I didn't make any mistakes.

 

...I think she approved.  And then my faithful sewing assistant, Tangerine, had to get in on the action just when I needed to lay out the pattern cloak to cut the rest of the fabric...  He was very helpful, I'm sure.

Once it was all cut, the two side seams were sewn on both the lining and the outer layer, and then all the seams were pressed open, particularly since I wanted to attach both halves to each other down the same seams via a good ol' fashioned "stitch in the ditch" so it wouldn't be seen, but we could avoid any "ballooning" from the two layers of different weights pulling apart.

 I attached the two halves together via the two front/opening seams, then the whole expanse needed pad stitching to keep it from shifting while I worked on the hem, attached the hood, and "stitched in the ditch" through both layers.  The cats loved helping with the pad stitching.  Especially the bigger one, Marshmallow, who thought I was crazy crawling all over the floor...

The hood was puzzle-pieced together from the big chunks of blue linen I had left over.  Partly looking at my inspiration pictures, and partly messing with the strips I had until they were pinned in a way that made sense, and draped like I wanted.  Then I just sewed it all up and attached it to the cloak body.

Once it was mostly in one piece, before I got too far, I took it in to rehearsal to double check it on Jasmine, and it was working well. 

So I embarked on the long process of hand sewing "in the ditch" along those two major seams, to join the lining and the outer fabric.  I thought about doing this on the machine, but the point for me was to make this stitching invisible and just prevent "ballooning", and I didn't feel like pinning those long seams to match perfectly alllllllll the way down...  So, hand sewing it was.  As you can see, Tangie really helped hold down the half I wasn't working on while I sewed.

...In between, at one rehearsal, our Jasmine tested out our Genie wrist-mounted smoke machines.  Very cool.

I was unsure how I wanted to finish the hem, since it's so curved and I didn't have a lot of time, or want to add a bunch of bulk or deal with warping.

Honestly, the largest chunk of time was spent pad stitching the gigantic expanse of this project. (!!)  Then trimming up the hem after it hung and warped as it needed, an re-pad stitching the hem.   There was just. so. much. to keep from moving around while the main seams were sewn!  (and here's Marshmallow, thinking I'm crazy crawling on the floor...)

 So I finished 98% of this project in plenty of time, but I chose to leave the stay-stitching in the bottom hem edge, as we were about to go into dress rehearsals and I didn't have time to do something to the entire edge (well, if I wanted to, ya know, sleep).  Plus I was pretty sure I wanted to create some bias binding to finish this hem, and I didn't have enough extra fabric to do it.  The linen wasn't particularly prone to fraying anyway, so I'd rather think it through and hem it later.

So now that the show is over and it all came out lovely, I have more fabric to bind that edge.  Whenever I get around to it...

I did add the cranberry red trim just on either side of the cloak opening, right before dress rehearsals.  It was a great choice for stage, really adding texture and finish for the costume.  But I do think I'll take it off in future, if I'm using it for historical settings and film and whatnot, as it feels too costume-y outside of the theatre context.  But it worked great on stage.  I loved the color palate on the whole thing!

All in all, I think this cloak came out beautifully, and really accomplished everything I was hoping.  The weight of the thing and the 2-color effect whenever it moved were really lovely, and very fairytale-esque, while feeling real and fairly historical.  The hood and the "scarf-wrap" part that tosses over her shoulder looked great.  It really completed the animation-translated-to-live-action look, along with the contrasting color lining, which also added a lot of drama.

I wish I had a better closeup photo of the cloak AND her costume in action... I'll have to keep looking.  At least I have this one from during a show.  I'm excited to put binding around the hem, and see this used with other costumes in the future!

'I, Daniel' short film -- 2021

When some friends of ours at Evergreen Media Productions were preparing to shoot a short promotional-type film for a church sermon opener, and I learned it was on Daniel, I knew I had to offer to do the costume.

The timeframe was short, and I would not be able to be on set for the shoot, but my sister would be there, and could bring and oversee the costume for me.  And who can pass up the opportunity to do wardrobe on such an incredible Biblical figure?

(The finished film can be seen HERE, if you want to jump ahead of the making-of process.)

 

I talked with our friends at Evergreen Media, and we hashed out their general vision and needs pretty quickly.  We absolutely agreed that such a short film piece needed a fusion of cultures in Daniel's costume; his Hebrew background, yes, but with a touch of Babylonian, as he's been living there many years at this point in his life.

We wanted to go with the fringed one-shoulder garment that's so iconic of a Babylonian look for sure, but putting that over a more Israeli-looking style garment that your average church member would recognize as feeling "Biblical".

 

Texture in the fabrics used for the costume was the next important factor.  Not only for Evergreen Media's vision, but also because they were shooting with a rotating light rig, and the end film would likely be in black and white.  Textures you could almost "feel" with your eyes were vastly important.  (And in our modern fabric-shopping landscape...can be a struggle to find...)  We were likely going to need veirtical stripes in some piece of the more Israeli-looking garments, as that really lends to the look audiences are used to seeing as "Biblical".

On top of the texture and mix-of-cultures needs, we all wanted to aim for something that felt like Daniel could live and breathe in it.  Like it fit both the practicality AND film aesthetic.  The Chosen does a masterful job at this, so we looked to clothing characteristics there.

I did not choose to age the costume at all for this one.  With the short time frame, and the needs of the shoot, it wasn't really needed.  Texture and details were the focus here.  (Shy of hand-sewing the whole thing, which there just wasn't time for...)

We settled on 5 main pieces for the costume:

• A long sleeved base tunic, possibly in a dark blue in case the end film was left in color 

•  A shorter sleeve over-tunic/coat piece, likely with the stripes 

•  The fringed one-shoulder Babylonian garment  

•  A wide belt of some sort

•  Some sort of yamaka-style cap, set far back on the head

 

Thankfully, I located a couple fabrics with some great texture right away.  And a couple with great stripes as well.  I was a little torn between the two, but really leaning toward the one on the left.

The effect of the more open weave on this fabric proved more dynamic against the tighter, consistent weave in the dark blue I'd fallen in love with for the base tunic.  But the white of either striped fabric would have to be dyed to help the colors blend better with the dark blue tunic anyway.  So it was time for dye tests.

I decided to stick with variations of reddish brown, so the second color wouldn't take away from the blue, and came up with three different mixes to try on the sample strips; an earthy brown, a red-brown, and a mahogany red.

I'm definitely glad I was leaning toward the open-weave fabric, as the other one (on the right here) proved to be almost completely synthetic, and I didn't have a synthetic dye on hand for it anyway.  (each of the strips next to each other were placed in the same dye test baths together, one of each of the 2 fabric types, for the same amount of time, and clearly the synthetic swatches didn't take almost any color at all.)

   

Compiling all my fabrics together, the light brown dyed swatch just felt the most coherant for the project.  So I did one more set of dye tests, to decide dye amount and length for the brown color I wanted, before coating the whole of the yardage.

...Thankfully while my second batch of dye test strips were drying on a drop cloth (indoors, away from the snow), I had some very helpful professional Furry Paperweights volunteer to keep an eye on them for me.  Whew.  What a load off my mind!

One detail I wanted to add to all the loose edges of the base tunic was a fingerloop woven braid, or possibly a braided hem, which I hadn't had a chance to try before this.  In the end, due to the time crunch, I only got to add a braid to the neck of the tunic, but I love the effect.

 

The Babylonian one-shoulder fringed garment was more difficult to find fabric for.  I needed something fairly heavy to achieve a rich drape, but not so heavy that it would be difficult to secure to the costume.  I hoped to find a brass or silver looking pin to attach it to the shoulder, but it totally slipped my mind in the end. (add that to my list of when-this-gets-used-for-something-else-in-the-future...)

Eventually I settled on this pale green-gold fabric with just a touch of shine to it.  More than anything, it really popped against the darker colors, and looked great with the gold fringe trim I'd found.  I'll admit right off that I wasn't totally sold on this one...until seeing it come all together, on the actor, ready to shoot.  A huge load off my mind to see it all as one piece!

With fabrics chosen, washed, dyed, and dried...  It's on to cutting and getting the thing together!

Naturally, the best method for quickly double-checking overall width before measuring to even everything out...is to find a cooperative brother, and ask him to lay on the chalk outline on your makeshift fabric rug.  I'm sure everyone does this.  It's just...logical.  And makes for hilarious pictures.  (he kind of looked like a dead body at a crime scene with that chalk outline...)

The tunic came together without incident.  Not much to show.  It was finished with French seams, both to address the unraveling and the thickness quickly.  Both the sleeves and hem were lined up to the selvage, which was pretty nice and clean with a neat bit of fringe, and saved me hemming time.

 

We had established that the costume needed a good belt, but I didn't want to go with a cheap Nativity-play-feeling rope or leather belt.  I was looking for something like an Obi style wrap belt, similar to these examples (unfortunately I could only find examples on women here).

I had some of a blue striped fabric, leftover from the costume for Boaz in the 'Ruth & Esther' show my dance students did.  The pattern was just busy enough to really add to the costume as a belt, and felt right with the culture mix we were aiming for.  Since it was a medium weight, it would add the structural integrity needed from a belt.

Plus, I spotted this interesting thread-texture thing on a bolt while fabric shopping, though the bolt itself was a strange set of colors. 

So I decided to apply this texture to the stripes on the belt, with a couple of different colors and thicknesses of twisted embroidery floss.

 

I really love how this turned out, even if it was a ton of hand-twisting individual cord lengths, hand-sewing each one on to it's coordinating stripe, and wasn't seen too well in the actual film.  It really added to the depth of the costume overall.  Totally worth it in my estimation.

The Babylonian wrap was pretty straightforward; essentially a slightly elongated square with one corner rounded off, and all the edges bound by a thick gold fringe.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of one hue of the gold, but I found a very similar, slightly more brown version in the same style, and did one on the top, one on the other 3 edges of the garment.  Surprisingly, the two tones actually added a great deal of depth without your eye being able to pinpoint exactly what gave the effect.

All told, it was very rushed at the end, and we were literally sewing and finishing as many little things as possible right up until my sister had to walk out the door to get on the plane and head out there.  But it did indeed come together.

Day of the shoot, my sister Stephanie was an awesome sport, and threw together 4 prayer tassels for the over-tunic that we'd planned to add and didn't have time.

So via FaceTime, I walked her through making "speed tassels" and then attaching them to the hem, which tried her patience... But she did a fantastic job.

Halfway through, she scurried back to help position the hat where it should sit on the actor's head.  Then finished the tassels.  And the thing was complete -- and wow, it looked so rich and full of life, mixed with the hair and makeup work on the actor.  (Excellent job on the H&M, Morgan!)

It feels to me like he stepped out of a time machine.  I love the way the colors work together and in complimenting contrast.  Especially the yamaka/hat, and all the fringe trim on the Babylonian shoulder wrap-piece.

 

Paired with some fantastic silver rings Morgan found, I love how the look turned out.

My sister shot several photos for me while light tests were going on, and some of these are from Evergreen's BTS shots.

Once complete, the background all around the actor would be color-corrected to full black.  The circular lighting effect was a really dynamic choice, and I love the angles used in this project.  Evergreen Media did a really stellar job!

The finished film can be seen HERE, titled 'I, Daniel', on Evergreen Media Productions' site. 

Of course, there are so often aspects and details that would be ideal to complete in time for the project, but just don't end up happening. 

 And while I had planned for all kinds of sneaky, meaningful designs to be embroidered into Daniel's yamaka that maybe only I would know about, there just wasn't a moment to do them. 

A couple weeks later, I embroidered something on it anyway.  Though I chose a much simpler, more geometric design in the end; I'm pleased with the results, even if there are a couple wonky spots here and there.  It feels like a nice finishing touch.  (And I mean, anyone looking close enough to see the wonky bits is looking too close, right?)