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Sustainable Costume Design for Short Film

In the Spring of 2018 I volunteered to work on the production of a Short Film, which was to be a Major Project outcome of a group of students on MA International Film Production at De Montfort University. I was responsible for developing all outfits for the characters and for managing the Wardrobe department on set and dressing the actors, when filming took place in July. This included trying to achieve continuity across scenes and takes. I set myself a sustainability challenge to design and develop all costumes through garment hire, borrowing or the adaption or decoration of existing garments, accessories and fabrics.

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I know the Director of the film (Jordan) through my role with Big Difference Company/Leicester Comedy Festival, where we collaborate regularly (along with the other team members of Crosscut Media), to plan and produce all the social media and video content for Leicester Comedy Festival's social media platforms. I worked with Jordan and the Script Writer and Set Designer (Rebekah), to get an understanding of the look and feel they wanted for the two main characters and what their personalities and style were like and how this may translate into whole outfits - looking at hair, make up, clothing, underwear, footwear and accessories, and also attitudes and behaviour. I first worked through all the scenes to work out how many different outfits there were for each of the two main characters (Aiko and Elisabeth) and what they were doing in that scene and then started to work out what each of these 'whole outfits' would look like. 

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Once I had the body sizes, build and height information for each actor, I then began to work through what I, friends, family and the actors themselves already had, that we could borrow during filming and that could be put together to create each whole outfit. My concept was that not only was this a sustainable approach to costume design, it also meant that the outfits would have an 'already worn/lived in' quality. 

There was a scene in the film where Aiko throws paint over Elisabeth. For health and safety we knew it would not be possible to throw actual paint over the actor, so Rebekah researched how to make a paint effect from yoghurt and food colouring. This inspired us to apply similar mixtures, creating different colours of paint, to apply to Aiko's painting shirt. This could then be washed out at a later date and the shirt could still be used as a painting shirt or protective clothing layer for other messy jobs. There were two items that needed to be purchased in the end. These were two pairs of Japanese style house slippers, Aiko's own and the ones that she bought for Elisabeth. These were needed as crucial visuals in the film, which helped the audience build an understanding of the two characters' differences and values. Two very different looking styles were purchased from Muji, with the approval of the actor who played Aiko (who is Japanese). The slippers were used on set in between takes which gave them the 'worn look'. (After the film shooting the pairs of slippers went to good homes, being taken to be worn and loved by two crew members).

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The video shows all the behind the scenes action and many of the costume outfits developed. The final film was showed at a screening at the Phoenix Independent Cinema in Leicester and has since been nominated (and won) a variety of Short Film awards.

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