Latest news with #CostumeDesign
CNN
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
Dressing George Clooney in Edward R. Murrow's 1950s Style
Costume Designer Brenda Abbandandolo mixed vintage, thrifted clothing with precise recreations of 1950s style to bring the Broadway play Good Night, and Good Luck to life. She tells CNN how she approached dressing George Clooney and Ilana Glazer with historic authenticity. Tune in to CNN on Saturday, June 7 at 7pm to watch the play broadcast live from Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre.
CNN
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNN
Dressing George Clooney in Edward R. Murrow's 1950s Style
Costume Designer Brenda Abbandandolo mixed vintage, thrifted clothing with precise recreations of 1950s style to bring the Broadway play Good Night, and Good Luck to life. She tells CNN how she approached dressing George Clooney and Ilana Glazer with historic authenticity. Tune in to CNN on Saturday, June 7 at 7pm to watch the play broadcast live from Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre.
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Bringing Beloved Characters To Life For Amazon Prime's 'Wheel Of Time'
A fight between Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike) and Selene (Natasha O'Keeffe) in Season Three of "Wheel of Time." Sharon Gilham told me that the scale of the battle in the cold open for the second season of Amazon Prime's Wheel of Time was the sort of sequence that usually gets reserved for the last episode of a season. The costume designer joined the series during production of that season, the first was costumed by Isis Mussenden. The second is also when Davina Lamont began to design hair, makeup and prosthetics for the hit series. We met on Zoom to talk about their work on this show - and how the series really required and supported their collaboration. There is so much about their work to find fascinating. Because what they are doing is not simply dressing actors; this is not making sure someone looks nice enough to go on camera and look good. But they are designing entire characters, often from the ground up, as well as fleshing out entire cultures. And, they are doing so for a legendary IP, which means that before the series became a wildly popular streaming success, it already had a massive global audience. The book series is made up of 11 novels by Robert Jordan alone followed by three novels co-written with Brandon Sanderson, who finished the last books from Jordan's drafts and notes. Jordan died in September of 2007, long before the story was finished. Rhuarc (Björn Landberg) in an incredible perforated cape and full desert dress from Season Three of 'Wheel of Time.' 'Well,' Lamont said to me with a grin, 'the first episode was, it was like a slap in the face. It was right at the beginning, right at the start. And that was a true, telltale sign of how the whole show was going to go. But for us, thankfully, we shot in sequence, and it doesn't normally happen that way. The Battle of Two Rivers definitely didn't happen that way. The first episode was shot in sequence so that we could have the rips and tears, and the blood continuity would just keep going as we shot that for seven days.' 'These high fashion, avant-garde hairstyles,' Lamont explained, 'we didn't clean up from day to day, so we could just keep building on and having more blood splatters, more dust, more debris over everyone and keep building forward. That was fantastic.' Tanchican attire from the third season of 'Wheel of Time.' I surround myself with stories and storytellers, stories and the ways they are told are infinitely fascinating, and when you study anything deeply you start to develop questions. Continuity is a challenge for any aspect of on-camera filmmaking, but I am unsure that audiences understand how much work that is, really interesting, fun work, for the people responsible for what all the armies will look like and wear as they move take by take through scenes. 'We had many debates,' Gilham told me, 'about how many repeats we were going to need for each person, between us and the amazing standby team, because they never want to be caught out, understandably. They always need to have enough costumes and repeats. For example, in that scene, because they were going to have a stunt double and have to have repeats. And for some of the costumes, we did have to have more than one stage of breakdown. But I think we know it's not logical, it's not written down somewhere how many repeats you should have. You just have to kind of go on your instinct.' Making The Battle of Two Rivers was challenging for everyone, but talking to the designers, I doubt anyone had a problem with that. It really sounds like a bunch of brillant makers were let loose with budgets to do their work however they do so best. 'I didn't want to compromise the looks of the outfits,' Gilham continued. 'I didn't want to compromise the design. When we were working out that sequence, and we started making lots of prototype costumes for the Aes Sedai, I made this thing called the magic room, which was in one of the fitting rooms upstairs. We dressed all these mannequins in the prototype costumes and got Ciarán Donnelly, the director and Rafe Judkins and everyone, everybody else, all their assistants came to have a look. We lit it very theatrically. And when they all came in there were about 20 costumes on mannequins. It was like a still life of Aes Sedai. I said, I could put them all in long shawls, which would cover up everything, so you could change them as many times as you like, do whatever you want to shoot out of sequence. Or, I could do this, where every single one has their own identity, their own character and their own outfit, that's in the couture style. And they just kind of went, 'well, it's got to be this.'' Rosamund Pike wearing Moiraine's bodice armour. How lovely to hear a story about people working together and considering what the right choice might be. 'It's the fine line between not compromising and not simplifying the design for the sake of the action,' that's how Gilman explained it, and I feel certain that this is something important. I asked them how they knew where to start on such a massive production. The scale of production becomes terrifying quickly if you think about it very long. 'We sort of do our own thing initially, " Gilham said. 'You know, individually read the scripts, individually do research. I'll come up with mood boards, and I start buying fabrics, or sourcing fabrics or just looking at fabrics out of the corner of my eye,' she laughed. 'I have an illustrator who works with me and we develop the ideas of a costume from a mood board, that's how we start the big set piece costumes. But not every costume is designed like that, not every costume is an illustration because there's not enough time. I would say we make, like, 80% of the costumes. I'm doing that in my world and starting to prototype shapes and do toiles, and work with the cutters or the leather department and starting to play with ideas and start to do samples.' A digital illustration showing the creation of bodice armour for Moraine. In 'Old Tongue,' the text on the bodice reads: "It Is Time, And I Must Do What Must Be Done." 'For me,' said Lamont, 'once we read the scripts, we had our meetings with Rafe Judkins and the producers and directors. From there, there was researcher, Sarah Nakamura, who we would go to and get more info, depending on what culture we had to design. We called her 'the Oracle' because she knew everything about all the books, and all the big things that we should hit on when we're designing makeup, hair, costume, and prosthetics as well. She would say to us, 'this is what the fans would want to see,' and we would keep that in mind for when we do any design work. I also had a concept artist that I would work with to do the hyper-realistic concept drawings for us to see where we would go.' 'Referencing Sarah Nakamura,' Gilham said, 'she was incredibly helpful because the books have so much information and really long descriptions of these cultures, or nations as we call them. Within each, they are all so specific, and there needed to be a strong identity in terms of color palette and the materials used. I think we go down our routes and we get as much of it in because we feel like there's such a massive fan base for the books, and you really want to respect them. That's a really important part of the design. So we're going down these routes, doing our own thing, and then it gets to a point where we have to have a meeting.' 'Yes,' Lamont interjected with a smile. 'We have a meeting. To see what she's doing, what I was doing, and surprisingly, we were always in sync, right from the start.' Moiraine's finished bodice armour. For a little context; in most any production there is collaboration to some degree, delegation and compromise between costumes, makeup and hair. Telling stories on film, by the very nature of the medium, requires many people to work together. I think we all know group projects can be hellish, but they can also be wonderful. Working with others can inspire us to do our best work and it helps anyone get through the inevitable challenges which will always turn up when anyone ever tries to do anything. 'Davina and her team would come into the costume fittings,' Gilham told me. 'From time to time I would pop down to makeup, if there was something to do with hair that we were creating. Or even just to have a look and be part of that other universe. So that you're not always stuck in your own world, so that you're really aware of the crossover and how it works, how people are working together. Collaboration between the departments is really, really vital. I think we both feel incredibly lucky to be working with each other because we really do understand each other. We were prepared to collaborate, prepared to compromise or make changes.' 'I think you would show me your design work,' Lamont turned and said to Gilham, 'in the colour palette that you were going with. And that would excite me, and there would be this constant excitement between the two departments. It was great, I don't believe I've had this kind of colleague before, or to be able to be excited about what we're both doing separately.' Sevanna (Natasha Culzac) in one of her fabulous, incredibly complicated costumes. Credit: Ilze Kitshoff/Prime 'Davina would come into the leather department if we were making a headdress or something,' Gilham explained, 'and we would all talk together with that person, with the props person, or the couture leather worker, and make sure that it was going to work. The thing about us, about our departments, is that everything we do is 360°, you can't just have what it looks like from the front. It has to work, it has to be comfortable for the actor and they have to understand where we're coming from, what our ideas are.' 'I think we both really love texture,' Gilham mused. 'And all the detail, it sort of meant that we were always rising to another level with each other. If one person pushed it a bit, the other person pushed it a bit more. So we have these incredibly textured, detailed, layered looks for everybody. If there was a simple costume, or simple makeup, or hair or whatever, it was done for a reason. It wasn't just, we've run out of time. It was for that character, for this reason.' 'What I love is when you really get to go into detail,' Lamont said, before turning back to Gilham. 'Like, when we do details, like Sevanna where you've got the porcupine headdress on, and when she turns around and it just keeps going… There's more that you can see from behind, and those are the really special moments, because I don't even know whether we saw that on screen. I ended up posting pictures. It's just, this is the detail that we've gone into on every single character. I don't believe that any character kind of got short shrift. There is no, 'oh, that'll do' in our language. Every single character had something exciting for both of our departments.' Sevanna (Natasha Culzac), an influential Aiel woman, in her porcupine headdress. For all the flash and pomp required by high fantasy, if you have not seen the show, it might surprise you to know that The Wheel of Time is a subtlety told story. It takes its time, rushes nothing. It must feel like a massive responsibility, to create an entire world. And that is exactly what shows and films have to do to keep us audiences intrigued and interested. The details in Wheel of Time matter very much to all the people who made it. Every little extra thing done, it was always done for a good reason. The making part matters so much, even though it can be hard to see the whole when we're crouched up close looking at the details. The further removed we are from the making part of things, or the less making is actually going on, then I think it becomes harder for those of us watching to bond with whomever we see on whatever screen. That disconnect often hovers beneath the surface, it's not always a conscious understanding. But whatever the moniker, what we are experiencing is an extension of the uncanny valley. No matter how alien, we do want part of the reflection to show ourselves. Representation is so very important. A profile view of Sevanna (Natasha Culzac) in her porcupine headdress. Given the state of our world at this moment, and I mean the whole swath, from technology and politics to international business and fine art, all of it; in the face of it all, art matters and stories will always help save us. Any of us might be surprised how easy it could be to inspire resistance. My regular readers might remember that my personal definition of art is pretty simple: Art is work that evokes an involuntary emotional response. The feeling part is so personal, and for all of us feeling connected and part-of can make anything feel more worthy of examination. The gorgeous characters designed by Sharon Gilham (costume design) and Davina Lamont (hair, makeup and prosthetics) for seasons two and three of Wheel of Time are all available on Amazon Prime Video. Please take your time and enjoy their majesty.
