Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Costuming: Take it Seriously

Before I forget, I will here encourage you to take half a second and click the "Like" button for 2190's Facebook page. You'll find it just to the right of this post.

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Alright, I promised I'd mention some specific things we've done to save money on Weighted. So here's thing number one: Wardrobe.

This is one of those things that can end up costing a whole lot (and for good reason) in any film. In the professional world, a good costume designer is always worth the money. Most people think that costume design is only important if you're doing something "out of the ordinary." Like werewolves or 16th century London (or superheroes, or....)

But it turns out that in any film, the decision of what the actors will wear is crucial enough to merit careful attention to costume design. You want someone who knows what they're doing.

On a student film, however, this may be an area where you can save a whole lot of money. 

We were lucky enough to cast the perfect actors for Weighted, both in acting ability and in personality. We made the decision early on to do our best to dress them for the film out of their own wardrobes. Yes, this involved our designers (lovely girls, both) going into each of the actors' bedrooms and sorting through their clothes. Sure, it's creepy, but guess what? We got what we needed, and we didn't spend a dime. 

This won't always be possible, but it should always be attempted. 

The other thing that could have cost us a good part of our budget was buying climbing shoes, which, if we had been lazier, we might have easily justified doing. That would have been about 300 dollars, which would have been a big chunk out of our student film budget. Gratefully, we were able to borrow two pairs, which was tricky, because if you know anything about rock climbing, shoes are the last thing you're likely to be able to borrow. 

All told, it's likely we won't have to spend anything on wardrobe. Go ahead and call it luck, but as any filmmaker knows, making movies wouldn't even be possible without a whole lot of it. 

Oh, by the way, we recently uploaded a short interview with our actors on our Kickstarter page. Aren't they great? 

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