Pecha Kucha 2013
To kickstart my final year's research at Toi Whakaari, I used the presentation form 'Pecha Kucha' to specify my direction of inquiry. I found the process of building the presentation enlightening and informative for myself, as it asked me to objectively collate my previous two years' work, and articulate my intentions for the remainder of my time.
I am still building out from this ground work in all of the projects which I take on, as it remains an exciting area for me.
PART ONE: PRODUCT
So it will be apparent to you that I’ve got a love for costumes. I’m a sewer and I’ve always loved making "cool stuff" and then doing cool stuff with it. I started with wearable arts, got my hands in and worked out by doing. But I found that even with all the fun I had making, on its own it wasn’t enough to satisfy something in my needs as a creative person.
After graduating costume construction, I returned to the school wanting to strengthen my relationship with costume through design, making with more intention and understanding how the combinations of detail, colour, texture, shape, structure, silhouette could help to find total transformation for a performer in order to become a character.
What I realised about watching this show in particular is that far more important than the design of costume, is the design of character. The strength of the characters we journey with in AMC's Breaking Bad is what allows us to continue to support them. Knowing, understanding and loving these characters is what keeps us invested in the show.
If it’s not the costume but the character that I am designing, then this gives a whole new understanding to how the costume can be used to reveal that character, rather than being the main feature itself. If character design encompasses more than just the clothes they wear, the costume lives to serve as an element of the character in any given moment (along with elements like movement, voice, history).
Gorgeous costumes are lovely, but if they’re only there to look nice, or cool or awesome – what are they actually doing?
PART TWO: THE CRAFT
I have always been drawn to films which have lavish and rich costuming. But in realising that it is the person wearing the costume, and how they do so, that draws in my attention and energy as a maker and designer, I’ve started leaning closer to the understanding role costume plays and how that role works to support the character’s journey.
I re-worked the character Juno through a combined project with Ngakopa Volkerling towards re-creating and embodying the character for a Scene-Unseen writing block.
Costume designer Jeffrey Kurland speaks about the way he designs costume to best serve the emotional and physical needs of the character. It’s not about psychology, but rather an instinctual sense of who that character is in that moment, and how the costume embodies that quality.
The first four times we encounter Juno, the strong sense of style and repetition of layering instantly informs us what to expect of her through a routine form, and gives a specific grounding to her as a person.
“Part of the job as costume designer is to show passage of time and place. The clothes take you on that route, so you can understand where you are... The characters move the story along and with the director and the actor, the costume design helps to set the film's emotional tone in a visual way. In a more physical sense, the costumes' style and cut help to keep the story on track, keeping a check on time and place.”
- Jeffrey Kurland, Costume Designer.
Juno’s “routine” becomes broken on the occasions during which she experiences something new or outside of her known world by a distinct silhouette change – and I’m not talking about the bump here. Though the style and colouring of the clothing (in these images) is still very close to her normal wardrobe, its just enough to tip her slightly out of the norm.
As we see her transition through the trimesters of the pregnancy, the weight of her costume becomes greater, even though the three layer formula of t-shirt, sweater, hoodie remains consistent, and just seems to move to accommodate her growing figure.
It’s this kind of visual clue and support of character that I am really trying to tease out and understand in the design work that I am involved in doing this year.
So that’s the what. Then comes the how. Jeffrey Kurland is a costume designer who has become one of my concrete sources of inspiration for the direction of my independent research and projects across the year.
“When I first started working on Inception, some of the drawings they showed me of their ideas for that character was, uh, sort of schlubby, sort of like, well, he’s the tech guy, he runs the machines, you know, so maybe he should be wearing some sneakers and a plaid shirt et cetera and I was like; No, no, no. This guy is in charge of making sure everything goes right... This guy’s like the producer. I thought of my friend Jared, who is a theatre producer by day and he’s a very spiffy dresser. And I was like; No, I want tailored suits and I want to slick back my hair, I want this guy to seem like meticulous, like he pays very close attention to detail.”
- Joseph Gordon Levitt, Cast of Inception, in the role of Arthur.
So there is something else that really gets me really excited about the design of character: Kurland’s approach to working with the other important artist for bringing the character to life: the actor. For many of the key character roles he designs, he works directly with the actor and the specific qualities and inspirations they bring to the role. I began thinking about this after being in the final design presentation for Judas last year, when costume designs were “final”, and the actors weren’t even present in the room. Who is responsible for bringing the character to life in the performance? How can this happen when the two people doing this job aren’t even in communicating their vision with each other? The designer makes a genius costume over here, the actor creates a genius character over there and the two appear together on the stage – but how much rich could this be when the character sits between these two disciplines?
I was able to have a taste of this on my second year secondment. Down Beneath Below was a new devised show developed by Java Dance Company. Part of my role at the beginning in the workshopping was to build a resource for the development of characters. We set up a space with object, imagery, props material, costume/clothing – anything and everything to play with in order to make sense of the arctic characters the dancers were becoming.
This is where the life of the character was found - not solely creating character through drawing behind a desk.
The short, fast, snappy work produces clearer character offers, with far more instinctive final design. Short movements, shapes and sounds from the dancers created a text on which to continue developing the look, shape, feel or silhouette of the character. Meg Rollandi’s costume designs were particularly responsive to the quality of movement and were able to support the blend of both human and animal.
This process of workshop in preparation is important. It gets things on the floor and moving faster, rather than being stuck up in my head for too long.
Library/bible/resource. What does the character require of me, the designer? What do I require in order to provide that? What does the actor need? How can I become a historian, and custodian of the character? How can I use resource to my best advantage? Something I want to develop for myself is the environment and library of resource around the character that allows them to appear.
Working with an actor in this way is not always a possibility or an industry norm, but while I’m here and I have access to actors who also crave being able to create exciting, dynamic and complex characters, I intend to chase them down.
I can see now that my next step in IRP (Independent Research Practice) is figuring out how this relationship can be in existence, and more specifically what it is that I need to bring as a designer to the job that is of use to this relationship. I am so on fire to know about the process of research which Lucy and Frith (third year acting students) put forward from their time with the Stella Adler Academy - what could the designer’s version of this research be?
Earlier this year I landed some of these thoughts instinctively in my work with Phil Anstis on Toi Film. I say instinctively because it is in retrospect that I can actually see these things at play. Phil and I created the character Rick together. Our common goal of manifesting this character in a week and a half kept us moving quickly, and staying efficient and specific to the needs of the character and each of his scenes.
A quick 15min meeting, and we’d jammed our way onto knowing something about the world and boundaries of the person Rick. We could divert into personal research and investigation and then regroup to present our new findings and develop them together.
Part of the way I can see this relationship potentially working is holding specifically cast individuals to specifically cast roles; each in their area of strength, and enabling each other to do their own jobs. “Not telling each other what our jobs are” - working in areas of speciality in relationship to each other. Finding the right working dynamic...
This is the beginning of a kind of model for the manner in which we started working, and what I want to develop in my practice – starting point between us, then working in response.
So this is my passion... If you’re feeling like you could be another piece in the puzzle, or something sparks and idea with you around character creation, please – come talk to me!
