I write this sat on last tube Southbound on the Northern Line from Old Street to Morden after our final costume fitting.
After fitting the costumes for Bonzo, Mr. Fernelli and Jerry the Barman, the final piece of the puzzle was Mrs. Jenkins (aka actress Kiki Kendrick).
Throughout the process of trying to find funding the film, Kiki has sent constant encouragement to keep going and I have found myself receiving an email every other month for the past 2 years since she was cast asking how it has been going. However yesterday was the first time I had seen her face to face since that audition back in August 2009!
Kiki has also played a big part in how Mrs. Jenkins has been shaped as a character. Originally a bit of a one dimensional suburban housewife, the ideas Kiki brought to the audition got me thinking more of whilst still polite, saucy Stepford wives wannabe who is out to impress but can’t quite get it right, so Katerina had got three outfits which she felt showed this, one shoulder-less number which was red with flowers, a more soft pink dress with patterns and a final tight fitting red dress. Before the fitting I was more keen on a vibrant colour to really show the temptress beneath the polite facade, but seeing the dresses on Kiki it was evident that the lighter pink this fitted the character more, as Kiki instantly felt more at home in it. See the video below for her thoughts http://www.vimeo.com/25844936
But there are a number of things to contend with when selecting these outfits. I tend to focus on how they fit the individual character, what elements show me more about them and how individual colours or elements add to this. But when creating a film as visual as this, we need to remember the overall colour palette and how all the costumes complement each other for the overall story and nothing stands out that it shouldn’t be there. Another thing to think about is that these costumes are for the stills shoot, not the film. This is for still images that will sell the idea of the film and as such all costumes need to complement each other when shown together.
This last bit was the final hurdle. The chararacters will appear in a number of ways, 1. As individual postcards 2. Bonzo and Fernelli together and 3. As an ensemble cast. Both me and Katerina are happy with their individual appearance and colour, and also happy with how Fernelli and Bonzo come across with their differences of styles and looks. But it is this last option that is bugging us. When we crudely put all four next to each other in a mockup of the poster, it looked a bit muddled. We had to take into account the lack of makeup, lights and the roughness of the costume but we played around with the different outfits we had tried on everyone and ended up changing a few elements, things which may not show the characters as strongly when they appear with the background of the film but in a dark studio, where the colours complement each other. We changed the barman’s shirt to a more vibrant pattern, changed Fernellis bow to not be patterned and made Bonzo’s ruff not as much a vibrant yellow.
They are small details but made a big impact in where the eye of the viewer would be. Although a bit crude and rough, the poster we made to the left shows how they could look in a line-up and have sent this to the DOP and Production Designer to get their thoughts too.
As I have said before, seeing things this way is not something I feel instinctively so am going on Katerina's thoughts for a lot of it, but what I am trying to get across is each characters personality and reflect the conflict, emotions and tone in the film so we are trying hard to marry these two ideas together. There is a lot we can do with the other elements and also in post producton but we want to create a base that will be solid so we don’t have to add too much.
I am learning a lot about an element of film production (or marketing really) that I had never really thought about in this much depth and usually have a complete separate group of people with an objective idea away from the film to do, but am enjoying having to examine all ideas and how they come across and think in different ways about the characters and the colours.
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