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Every garment worn in a movie is considered a costume. Costumes are a storytelling tool, communicating subtle details of each character’s personality and history quickly and economically to the audience. They help actors leave their own personalities behind and become new and believable people on screen.

Although people often confuse costume design with fashion design, the two are very different. Fashion designers sell clothes; costume designers help characters come alive. Costume designers can make beautiful gowns and extravagant clothes when the script requires a glamorous entrance, but they also must design everyday clothes when those are needed for a scene. Costumes are created to be worn by one specific actor, as one specific character, in one specific scene, according to costume designer Deborah Nadoolman.

The costume design process begins with a careful study of the screenplay. Scripts describe the action (what happens in the scene), time period (when the action takes place), the location (where the action takes place), and the number and identity of the characters in each scene. After reading the script, the costume designer meets with the director to discuss the overall vision for the film and to consider the personal histories of each character, possible casting choices, the overall color palette, and the mood of the film.

The costume designer then starts the research portion of the design process. As part of that process, designers visit libraries, look at paintings, and study newspapers, catalogs and magazines from the present or the past, depending on when the movie is set.

If a scene takes place in a modern high school, the costume designer may visit a local high school and take pictures of staff, teachers, and individual students. The designer would study the latest trends in jeans, handbags, and accessories and consider the socio-economic background of the school population, including how much the students spend on their clothes. Modern films are more difficult to costume than historical films because the audience is immediately aware if the costumes are unrealistic for the situation, too expensive or wrong. The designer’s goal is for members of the audience to recognize themselves on screen.

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|The effect that costumes, makeup, and hairstyles can have in creating characters for motion pictures is |

|illustrated best by examining the varied “looks” individual actors have assumed throughout their careers. |

|Kirsten Dunst is seen as she appeared as Judy Shepherd in Jumanji (1995), as Amber Atkins in Drop Dead |

|Gorgeous (1999), and as the title character in Marie Antoinette (2006).. |

If that high school scene takes place in the 1950s, as in the period film Pleasantville (1998, with costumes by Judianna Makovsky), the designer might use vintage high school yearbooks, personal photographs of friends and family, home movies, and magazines to research the film.

If the school is in a fantasy film, such as Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), the designer might research contemporary and traditional English private school uniforms and depend upon imagination for the rest. Although Harry Potter and his friends Ron and Hermione exist in an imaginary world, they must still be characters that the audience can relate to.

When a screenplay covers several decades, or is set in a distant location, costumes help the audience know when and where each scene takes place. In the 2002 film Frida, based on the life of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek), Frida evolves from a schoolgirl to a middle-aged woman. Costume designer Julie Weiss dressed Hayek first in a schoolgirl uniform, then as a young matron in the stylish dresses of the 1920s, then in colorful hand-embroidered Mexican Indian blouses similar to what the real Kahlo wore for the rest of her life, as she becomes a confident middle-aged artist and political activist. Kahlo’s changing costumes mirror her evolution as an individual.

Designers often adapt vintage clothing, as Arianne Phillips did in Walk the Line (2005), the story of country music star Johnny Cash and his wife, June Carter. Phillips mixed the vintage garments she found with ones she designed using vintage printed fabrics from the 1950s and 1960s. She insisted on old fabric because synthetic contemporary fabrics do not move or drape in the same way.

Costumes do not have to exactly duplicate the film’s period, but they need to look right to the audience. Designers may exaggerate color, style, and silhouette for dramatic effect. For example, when the director of Memoirs of a Geisha felt that a sexier, more contemporary look would be more appealing to non-Japanese viewers, designer Colleen Atwood fashioned kimonos that were more shape-revealing than traditional garments.

In real life, people don’t always wear an outfit in which everything is brand new. A teenage girl might wear a favorite well-worn skirt, a pair of earrings from the local mall, and a birthday scarf from her best friend. Although the audience meets film characters when the movie starts, like real people the characters must seem to have lived before the story begins.

Before shooting starts, hidden motivations in a character’s personality—anxiety, depression, money troubles, a drinking problem—and the character arc (the emotional and psychological transition the character makes through the film) are analyzed by the director, costume designer, makeup artist, and actor to determine the most effective way to tell the story. Costumes convey information about the characters’ social and economic circumstances, their personalities, and their role in the story before one word of dialogue is spoken.

In In Her Shoes (2005), Maggie, played by Cameron Diaz, is a free-spirited young woman and dresses in sexy, colorful prints, while her down-to-earth and well educated sister Rose (Toni Colette), wears business-like, solid-colored suits. Designer Sophie de Rakoff accentuates Maggie and Rose’s contrasting personalities with subtle and specific choices of accessories.

Costume designer Sharen Davis’s costumes for the 1950s girl group in the musical Dreamgirls (2006) reflect the course of the girls’ career from amateur talent contests to worldwide fame. When they first start out, these young singers wear simple, homemade dresses. With greater success, their costumes become more sophisticated and glamorous.

Costumes may be purchased new, rented, or manufactured. When necessary, costume designers use a variety of techniques to make them look realistically lived in. Garments are darkened, faded, or frayed in places where this process would happen naturally over time. After a few wearings, all jackets, jeans, and shirts show wear on the cuff, collar, and hem. Jeans bag at the knee and pockets are stretched by car keys and cell phones. A mechanic’s uniform might have grease stains where he habitually wipes his hands.

To age or “break down” a costume, the designer and costume crew begin by washing or dry cleaning new or newly made garments multiple times. Aging tools include suede brushes to scrub leather, dye to color clothes, and mineral oil to add “sweat stains” to hats. The crew uses a combination of bleach, airbrushes, sandpaper, razor blades, files, seam rippers, and hammers to fray and discolor the costumes. A sterile clay product called fuller’s earth is often used in Westerns to make cowboys look like they have been sleeping out on the dusty trail.

If costumes are purchased or rented, they must be altered to fit each actor. After actor Harrison Ford tried on many different hats for his role as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), costume designer Deborah Nadoolman devised a hat with a lower crown to flatter his face, and a narrower brim to keep Ford’s expressive eyes exposed to the camera.

Although Nadoolman might have purchased a vintage leather jacket for the character, because the script called for action sequences using stunt doubles, she instead designed and manufactured a dozen new leather jackets. Each jacket was then aged to look identical on screen.

Costume designers also provide costumes for supporting actors, stunt doubles, extras (also called background talent), and even animated characters. Each of these has special considerations. For example, stunt performers wear exactly the same costumes as the actors they are doubling in an action scene, but their costumes must be constructed to accommodate safety features such as padding and rigging for gunshots (squibs), high falls, or stunt driving.

Costumes for background talent are designed in the appropriate period and style. Bugsy (1991) costume designer Albert Wolsky says,“I care a great deal about extras, because they’re like scenery. They set the tone. You can’t just create the period with your principals; it has to be the extras.” Background talent and supporting actors’ costumes should have the right colors and style for the film’s setting, but be understated enough that they do not draw attention away from the stars.

Costumes are part of the visual composition of each frame of film. Just as the elements of a painting work together to create a harmonious image, costumes must work with the lighting and sets. Color, shape, line, and texture are all considered when designing costumes for a movie. Color, one of the most important elements in the designer’s tool kit, suggests the mood and atmosphere of a story. Warm reds produce a different effect from subdued blues, for example.

A dismal, oppressive future world, such as the one depicted in the film Blade Runner (1982), with costumes designed by Charles Knode and Michael Kaplan, used cool, dark shades to evoke a bleak mood. Costume designer Nancy Steiner used different colors to subtly indicate the personality of each member of the dysfunctional family in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). While the costumes’ colors may go unnoticed by the audience, they subconsciously affect viewers’ perceptions of the characters.

Costumes are also used to focus attention on the major actors and the important action in a scene. Jeffrey Kurland, costume designer for Erin Brockovich (2000), dressed the secondary characters in colors that would not detract attention from star Julia Roberts. The sandy earth tones of their costumes echoed the film’s desert setting and provided a neutral background against which Roberts’s bright and provocative outfits stood out.

Costumes can change the shape of an actor’s body to reflect the period and the personality of the character. Revealing, close-fitting clothes look sexy, while clothes that hide the body could make a character seem conservative or shy. Soft silhouettes lend characters a vulnerable or compliant quality, while stiff, tailored clothing conveys authority. Iconic characters like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp can be recognized just by their silhouettes.

Pads may supply a very slim actress with a few extra pounds or a pregnancy, or give a well-built actor the appearance of narrow, stooped shoulders. Pads, girdles, and other garments can even make an actor appear to be a different gender, the way they transform Gwyneth Paltrow at one point in Shakespeare in Love (1998), or Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).

Designers often work from the inside out when creating a character. Period underwear from the 19th century or the early 1950s may never be seen by the audience, but the way it affects actors’ movements also affects both their silhouettes and their performances. An actress wearing a corset or a girdle, for example, stands more erectly and moves with much more difficulty than if she were wearing lightweight modern underwear. Each historical setting demands different garment shapes—from the soft drapery of Roman togas, to the rigid hoopskirts and bustles of the Victorian era, to the miniskirts of the 1960s.

Shoes also affect the posture and gait of an actor. The bowlegged stroll of a cowboy in boots, the bounce of a high school student in sneakers, and the strut of a fashion model in high heels speak volumes about each person. Often, costumes help actors discover their character. In the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, costume designer Penny Rose presented actor Stellan Skarsgärd with a pair of shoes that were one size too large. Rather than discard the shoes, Skarsgärd invented a distinctive walk for his character, sailor “Bootstrap Bill.”

Texture is the way fabric feels to the touch and looks to the eye. Fabric textures range from the roughness of burlap to the smoothness of silk. A garment’s texture may hint at a character’s profession, social status and economic situation. A farmhand might dress in rough coveralls, while an arctic explorer might wear reflective nylon clothing filled with down.

Because the camera and lighting affect the way colors and textures look on film, costume designers work closely with cinematographers. Certain fabrics are distractingly shiny in front of the camera. Patterns and textures that look great in person may be ugly or overwhelming when magnified on a movie screen forty feet wide. When there are doubts about a certain fabric or the look of a character, the director may ask for camera tests to make sure the costume has the desired effect.

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