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Bonus: Mini Costume Recreation Wrap Up
12 Plays8 days ago
Ariel and Melinda reflect on their miniature costume recreations from the show. Which they totally finished on time and they are not feverishly trying to complete (!) They each picked one costume from Rings of Power and recreated the design on a mini scale model form. There was so much embroidery, beading, and block printing, oh my! And it added an extra layer to their respect for professional artists who do this work all day everyday. Listen in to hear all about it
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Hot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:21
Speaker
Hello friends, we're here for a little bonus content on wear and back again now that the season has finished. We're here to kind of wrap things up and also talk about our little, our little costumes that we made from the show that are 100% finished.
00:00:42
Speaker
I laugh while crying. I think we both have gotten really close and I'm really proud of us for what we have done and I think that what we have both made is really beautiful. So I'm, I'm feeling good about it. That's how I'm gonna feel about it. I'm feeling great about it. I'm just very tired. And like, we are both very close. I still have some hours left. But um it's because I chose something that has a
00:01:15
Speaker
slightly surprising amount of beating and like finishing yeah work hours that that it's a good reminder, like having to do it, how much time it takes and experienced beaters and experienced embroiderers are wizards. There's just no question. Like I think I'm good at this, but I don't do it with a professional style. Like I'm not a Tambor beater or embroiderer.
00:01:45
Speaker
And so I'm sure that that like handicaps my timing, but oh I've put as many hours into this as I would put in for something that I would be professionally building. I don't know. Yes. And it's tiny. Like it's so small. Like I, yeah, I'm, I was surprised how many hours it has taken so far to get as close to being done as I am. and like i I cheated in a couple really major ways. like I'm proud of myself for not pulling out the hot glue gun at any point, but like my dress definitely has a machine hem that it should absolutely not have in it. like There is no way, but that's what it has.
00:02:34
Speaker
and is my a center back seam sewn in any possible way? No, no, it's not. um Are my sides seam sewn? Absolutely not. They are pinned onto the dress form right now. Is the like collar of my dress like hideously pinned on and I'm like looking at it wondering how the like jigsaw pieces are going to actually fit together and wondering if I made a patterning mistake?
00:03:03
Speaker
Yes, that is what's happening right now.
00:03:09
Speaker
It's a really fun thing to take someone else's design and try to translate it for your own working sensibilities in your own brain. Like I looked at this coronation because as a reminder to those who ah it may have rightfully forgotten or or just not hopped on the train. I decided to do a miniature ah coronation dress that Muriel wore um in season two and you decided to do Galadriel from the end of season one. And so Muriel has this like white on white on white off white shell
00:03:49
Speaker
with some blue um gown and cape and collar that has like embroidery and beating up the wazoo. And I was like, yeah, I can do that. in No problem. just yeah my fell no big deal Fell down a hill. No, no big deal. No biggie. And so I have this like beautiful fabric for the dress, which Melinda found for me, which big ups because it's gorgeous. um But yeah, she's like,
00:04:19
Speaker
Maybe 80% done. And that's just because the beading is going to take a million years. And ah yeah, their sleeves are not sewn together. They're just pinned. And so she looks, yeah, because it's a massive cape on this little tiny dress form. You don't have to see any of my seeping. You don't have to see the train of the gown. The cape covers a lot. I should have made, because there is um this this dress that i made it like bridges from the end of season one into the first episode of season two and in the season two episode i think the majority of the time that galadriel is wearing it she has this giant
00:05:03
Speaker
beautiful full green cape over the top. So I should have made that cape, honestly, because then I wouldn't have had to do as much ah detailing on this dress because you wouldn't see it. So. is This is true. It's never going to walk anywhere. So it's not like anybody's going to see it in motion. Like the collar for now, I'm going to just admit it. And this is something that like you get told when you study anything is don't call out the faults in your own work. Correct, yes. I'm just going to say I'm taking advantage of the fact that this is something that will never be on a living body and I'm ah hastening to finish all the things that you will see and I will take my time to complete the things you cannot because
00:05:56
Speaker
it's okay it's not gonna be on a stage so there's no timeline like the timeline is one that's created by you and i and mine is kind of the same like with the arm hole on my dress is she's a narrow i don't know if i ah like enlarge the pattern for a real person, I probably would have to fix that. i don't I think it's probably too narrow for anyone to do anything in this dress other than like stand with their arms straight, but no one has to wear it. So I kind of let that go. and
00:06:33
Speaker
It's pretty good. It's pretty great to justify all the like cut arounds that both of us have done on this that it's never going to be worn by any living creature. yeah um But yeah, I just want to like shout out the the costume team that worked on this show Rings of Power.
00:06:52
Speaker
um because like I'm working here on a teeny tiny little version of one costume. You're working on a teeny tiny little version of one costume and all of the costumes have so much done to them. So much distressing which we've talked about out the wazoo this season but like there's so much beautiful finishing on these costumes that like had to be made by by hands human and it's just like by human hands and I've I don't know about you but like the longest
00:07:30
Speaker
um I've ever been in production for something was probably six months. And most of that time was before we had any crew to do anything. So like yeah half of that was really just Like i and d yeah planning and meetings and concept. And then it was like three months go. And that's like the time I've had and things I've worked is basically three months and then scaled down to like a week. Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:08
Speaker
i've I've never had the amount of time that that would necessarily do this. Like one show I did, I had those six months and I took advantage of that first three months by just deciding that the the show, well, I mean the design required because of the story, etc. It required a lot of like knits and crochets, like handmade looking things. And so I just crocheted and knit and knit and crocheted for days and days and days and days and I made gloves and gloves and gloves and
00:08:43
Speaker
a ton of shawls of all sizes and just all these random things. And it was worth it, but that was just like one person and knitting and crocheting. Once you get into it, you can move kind of fast with that, especially the bigger the hook, the bigger the yarn, the more space you're taking up the faster you go. But like you, I,
00:09:04
Speaker
I don't know how to fast track embroidery. Maybe you can do some base machine embroidery. and like layer some handwork on top just to kind of expedite a little bit of like a foundation of something. But other than that, I mean, it's just the only way to expedite it is to do it so much that you become like as fast as a human can work with it. But even then, I mean, it takes a long time. It does. And I, I am a massive fan of a few embroiderers online on social media who are
00:09:50
Speaker
very on awesomely sharing parts of their processes and parts of their experience making things for movies and TV. And you've already heard this so much from me, Elinda. But like, I just, I really would love to know more about their their style of building, because like there are some folks who look at it as like, this is my secret, I'm not sharing my techniques with anyone. yeah But then, and it's like, i I understand that to a point. And then I also, just the curiosity and the
00:10:27
Speaker
kind of wanting to share the awe that I have for somebody's work, where it's like, even if I find out how somebody is producing the volume of work that they're producing, that doesn't mean that like, I'm ever going to be able to come in and like, be like, swoop, like, I took your time, you know, it's just like, I,
00:10:48
Speaker
That's a whole massive conversation about like sharing technique. Gatekeeping is such like a heavy word, but not gatekeeping because of like fear of having your job be taken and being replaced. It's like like it's it's hard. It's crazy. You know, it's a lot of a lot of psychology involved in these art forms because you want people to know how to do it. You don't want them to like die.
00:11:18
Speaker
when the old guard of people that were making stuff die, sorry. But at the same time, people don't want- That's true though. That was a massive thing.
00:11:34
Speaker
It's a massive conversation and it's one that I started being like attuned to in like 2016 is like all these older techniques, embroidery and things being one of them and like ah artisanal things that not everybody uses anymore dying out because A, people just aren't interested because it's not necessary the way that it once was.
00:12:02
Speaker
And then B, because people want to protect their job security. Information doesn't. doesn't get passed on. But what is nice is that there, like when it comes to embroidery and to beading, there are people who do teach that and who do talk about it and make books about it, all that stuff. I just, oh, and we love them and we're so grateful. And I'm just like, I'm such a fan girl of certain people that I'm just like, you're a wizard. Could you just like take 10 minutes to explain why you're a wizard? And like, how, how, how doth the wizardry? Like, why, how? Your hands, what do you do?
00:12:35
Speaker
How do they not fall off? How do you connect the brain to those hands? What do you, well, okay. So let's talk about our specific costumes that we made. So we went fabric shopping together. So much fun. We took a little field trip to San Francisco. We went fabric shopping. So you ended up buying um like a brocade.
00:13:00
Speaker
And did you buy, what else did you get? I bought a silk and a brocade. And I had a silk at home that was given to me by a friend that also was like a brocaded silk and that I used for the collar. So for the cape, I used this very plain weave, if you will, silk. And yeah it has like a little bit of slub, like showing in the weave, but not very much. And then yeah, the brocade is like a, like a linen.
00:13:35
Speaker
Okay. Oh, maybe because it's very, very, very drapey and very, very fine. And so there's like a mix in there of two different things. But I couldn't tell you what that is right now. And um the type of stores that we were in don't necessarily meticulously label what they're selling. They don't label. And even when you do go fabric shopping, it's pretty like once you get into into it, you start to know that like even when things are labeled, they're not necessarily accurate or true. yeah So sometimes people do walk around with like burn kits so they can do a burn test and kind of get a sense. And there are people who can like tell you straight off, this is that and this and this combination of these two things. And that's pretty amazing.
00:14:21
Speaker
I can't do that. i it's not my That's not my brain. I can let go, that's a wool, that's a cotton, that's a linen, but I can't go like, ah, this is mixed with polyester and like something else. like yeah I can maybe do the two based on how it burns, but like i can I can't retain that information all the time. We don't need to, no. You're like rubbing your head like your head is on fire. I feel it.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah, so these these fabrics are beautiful. And um the drapey one, which is for the dress, has this like large rose motif, but it's really nice on a miniature because that blows out. And so it kind of, I didn't need it to look picture perfect as what was on film because it's teeny tiny. And on film, they probably like printed a fabric or even had it woven.
00:15:15
Speaker
um So it's more angular, it's more specific if they didn't just find something really cool by it. But this is very like it has more rounded shapes and stuff, but it doesn't matter because it's so large. A print on such a small form. yeah It looks abstract. And so that worked out real well. So you got some beautiful fabrics when we were out and it was nice because there were a couple options that you had to fight between. What did you write, Dawn?
00:15:43
Speaker
I ended up with this lovely forest green. It actually, this is one of the ones that was really not labeled necessarily what it is. um I'm pretty sure that it is ah actually is like a polyester, which is never my first choice, but um the color was the right color. And that was something that I was really struggling with when when we were shopping was um And I get really, really picky about color tone when I'm looking for stuff. And a lot of the fabrics that I was finding were more blue than green. And the dress is definitely green. So the stuff that I was finding that was kind of more teal, I couldn't i just like couldn't tack myself into buying that. I like ah had to get something green. So I went with this fabric and it has a really nice drape to it.
00:16:42
Speaker
um But it is a very plain fabric and her dress in the show has this very delicate gold kind of scrolling floral pattern. I couldn't tell exactly how they did it in the show because you just don't get to see this dress in the light a lot. And a lot of the time that you see it on Galadriel, she's like soaking wet. So it was yeah kind of hard to tell.
00:17:12
Speaker
So I ended up block printing a gold floral pattern all over this dress with gold paint.
00:17:24
Speaker
I actually ended up going to, there's a store near me that sells ah recycled craft and sewing supplies, ah which I love. I go there a lot. And I found a bunch of rubber stamps from like a scrapbooking situation.
00:17:44
Speaker
and but they had never been used they were still in like the original container so I ended up like going through all of those stamps until I found like a floral one that looked close um and looked small enough to kind of like again like the scale is hard to represent so I ended up like tracing all my pattern pieces out and then ah hand stamping all of the fabric before actually like cutting everything and and being done with it. so
00:18:17
Speaker
That was a whole other level of dedication to the project. but But I will say that I did choose a dress that had way, way, way less embroidery and beading detail than Ariel's. So I feel like I needed to commit to the the block printing, the fabric to like match the level of detail and dedication that your costume had. Otherwise I would have just been cheating.
00:18:46
Speaker
Oh, not even. You would have been practical. i I do love that we both chose. two things that require a lot of a lot of time, a lot of effort, but also a lot of very deliberate handwork. Because like part of the reason why we chose to make these was because of enthusiasm. And because like we're both on sort of sabbatical at the moment. And so there's like ah a virtue and a value in this career of rediscovering why you're here.
00:19:20
Speaker
like i I have said this before and it still holds true. I love costumes so much that I would be happy and content, maybe not forever, but certainly on like a project or two to like demonstrate my worth, to just be the person to wash the socks. like i'll I'll be there, I'll do it, and I won't complain about it because I love being in the environment.
00:19:42
Speaker
where of a shop of like where things are being made and where there there are all these people who have all these different skills and abilities and there's like cross learning and also just like and we've talked about before like gallows humor in the shop because you're like slowly losing your mind. yeah But you're also creating like an art that gets to live for a while. And I I very much love that. But we're doing it in small scale and like on our own, which is very different from working with a shop full of people. How was your experience so far, like working by yourself on this? ooh um I a hard time working alone in general. um I definitely have improved on those skills in the last
00:20:35
Speaker
four years as we've all been stuck at home for varying lengths of time and had to because I was always extremely resistant to working at home. I just don't enjoy that experience. I need to physically go somewhere in order to like focus and get like get my head in the game of what I'm doing and working at home has always been hard. But i I have been a little bit better about managing my own schedule, but I definitely, um I think I'm a person that prefers to work in the like parallel play oh yeah environment. where why Body doubling. Yeah. like I like being in the workroom so much, but I also have to um
00:21:29
Speaker
have a little bit of distance when I'm working with people so that I do stay focused because I do get distracted by people as well. um So I really prefer to work in a workroom where everybody has their own project and there's like enough socializing that I'm not alone, but that I'm not tempted to just talk.
00:21:50
Speaker
all day. um So yeah, it was hard. It was hard. But i I was okay at like carving out certain amounts of time and being like, you're gonna work on this from, you know, 10am to 2pm and then you're gonna eat lunch and then you're gonna do something else. And so it was like, I could manage that a little bit better. But that's like a big self improvement journey for me to be able to do that at all. It's really hard.
00:22:18
Speaker
hey What was your experience working on this alone at home? I think that our work style is very similar because I'm very content being by myself. But when I'm working to purpose, it is so much better being in a work room, just like you said, body doubling with like other folks who are also working to purpose.
00:22:41
Speaker
Because if you need like if you hit a rut, you can give a shout and be like, hey, anybody have hands free for a second and then like talk it through with somebody, even if you don't necessarily need to be like rescued, you can at least just talk it through and then be like, okay. And then both go back to your own thing or have somebody else's eyes come in and be like,
00:23:04
Speaker
How's this looking to you? You know, and especially with something like this, it's just really nice to work with other people. But like you said, I also do need some distance. So it's like, even if I'm in a workroom, I'll have headphones on or something, especially if it's not my workroom that I'm running, like, and I don't need to be available for questions.
00:23:27
Speaker
like I am so very much happy and content to like have my own music or have my own podcast or audio book, but feeling a sense of purpose in the air keeps me on task. And it also keeps me, like like you mentioning taking a break to eat, to like drink water. That is such a such a thing that like in in a work room, there's kind of like a culture of like, okay, has have you drunk water? Have you had water? Like it's yeah we all take a break together to eat lunch so that we are all feeding our bodies and our brains and then we go back to work and then we all like have a cup of tea or we have you know,
00:24:08
Speaker
More water and like take care of our bodies because a lot of the people that I've worked with who flock towards working in costuming We all have some I feel like some alphabet that may be undiagnosed um and But we all have a tendency to get very, very, very focused in the work and not take care of ourselves because we're like, well, if I stop my workflow, then my workflow is gone completely and I won't be able to get it back. And so it's like, no, I can't take a sip of water. I took a sip of water like six hours ago. It's like, maybe that's why I'm so angry and tired. Or it's like, no, i'll ah I will take a break when I finish the next seam. And then yeah, it's like you reward yourself. i need to Oh, but oh yeah not I need to do this. Oh, but no, you know what? Sewing on a hook is so fast. I'll just sew a hook on real quick. And then I'll definitely take a break. And it'll be fine. Oh, oh my god, I forgot I had to put a snap next to the hook. And that's so fast. Like, it would be silly not to just finish it. And yeah, it's all the just like,
00:25:16
Speaker
an avalanche of like thoughts that you can't escape and tasks that you can like just surround yourself with. And so I found it like really peaceful to be working on this because I could dedicate a certain amount of time to doing it. But because it is so um time consuming and so repetitive, even though like This mosaic style collar is like different shapes and different colors like fitting in together. So there is like distinction within the motion. It's still a repetitive motion to pull a needle up and put a needle down. Like if you're sewing a hem, hems are legendary. If you have to sew a hem by hand, it's, it can be a very lulling like activity. I like sewing hems by hand, but it takes forever, especially if you're doing a period production or a fantasy piece when you have massive skirts or like a big old coat.
00:26:12
Speaker
or a cloak, it's gonna take forever. And so it's nice to have company and company that is also working at the pace that you're working at. Because one other thing is that when you're doing something like this, you almost have this like sense of guilt that the thing you're working on is taking time. and if It should be done in like 20 minutes.
00:26:33
Speaker
And so I would keep talking to you and being like, oh my God, or I text my husband Phil and I'd be like, I'm still beating. And he's like, well, it takes a long time. And I was like, thank you. And he'd be like, yeah, it takes a long time. So thank you. I'm not doing it wrong. It just takes time. It just takes a long time.
00:26:49
Speaker
That's part of the losing your brain, right? That's part of like going crazy is when you have to do something repetitively a bunch of times, you kind of lose sense of like the center of it. Yeah. So it's really nice to have um companionship when you're working on a project. So this feels a little bit like a social experiment. But yeah, a good one, a good one. Maybe if we do this again, we can like find time to like work on our each individual things in the same location.
00:27:18
Speaker
It would, it would definitely make it go a lot faster. And I would love to do something like this again during our run of, of doing this podcast, because it's, it's very nice to keep the brain working and to keep the skills up and like, you know, building that portfolio slowly.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think next time we should make like shift dresses or something. Next time we'll do something with less beating. Just a party hat. The other thing that was like, I kind of, may i all I almost, almost anticipated it, but didn't quite, is how much of a ah like challenge it is to make something so small.
00:28:04
Speaker
yeah like I'm used to really being able to like get my hands inside what I'm working on and like have something substantial to hold on to and I felt like I was like ting ting ting like holding on to the little pieces of this costume with like the little bits of my fingers like trying to sew on something that's so tiny that I didn't anticipate how clumsy it would make me feel and how much it would make me feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Absolutely. It makes me think that there's also some value in the future to us maybe covering some um stop motion costuming. Oh, yeah. Because like I have not frequently worked in this size either. And like it's all the same skills, but it's a different mobility expectation. And it's like,
00:28:57
Speaker
I hand sewed some pieces together because it felt like it was going to be faster even though it's not true. But I'm also, to be fair, for the past couple of days I've been traveling so I can't, that's also why my audio might be absolute shit for this episode is because I'm in a hotel and I've been beating in a hotel. like I cannot wait for somebody to walk in here and be like,
00:29:19
Speaker
Oh, it's not drugs, it's beads. Like I have my workspace set up in here. Yeah, I have everything set up in here. So it's very obvious that this is a crafting workspace and not and something nefarious. Oh, I do wanna tell you about, um so i'm I'm in a hotel and I had to, so for the for the cape that Muriel is wearing, she has this long embroidered panel which could even be painted from the movie. Like unless I actually saw the costume, I wouldn't be able to tell you, but it's at least meant to kind of read as embroidery yeah and it's beaded as well. And I did not bead as much as there is. I just did one central pearl instead of a point.
00:30:05
Speaker
but a beat at each point of these shapes. but but and imagine So i you I did this like inch and a half wide two inch max like strip that has like this motif on repeat all the way around and it goes like you know over her shoulders and it's a pretty lovely piece but I used sulky which is an adhesive um little thing that you can like draw your pattern on and then stick it like a sticker on whatever you're sewing and then it's water soluble. So when you're done, you just dip it in water and like move it around and it just dissolves and washes away. Well, I forgot. First of all, never do this. It's okay. It didn't leave any permanent marks on this, which is why I used it, but I would not recommend it. I used a Prismacolor marker
00:30:53
Speaker
for my pattern, okay which was very much like a 50-50, this could dye my fabric. And um it did not, so good news. And it was like a dark green and this is very good. I did that when I was making my epic embroidered Taylor Swift jacket. I used a different pen on one of the patches and it was ah an embroidered a patch of ah of a white cardigan. And when I washed it, the whole thing turned gray and my soul left my body. And I had to remake the entire patch. I remember you talking about that when it happened. I'm so sorry. Yeah, if you're gonna use it glad like didn't happen to you.
00:31:47
Speaker
Yeah, because I would have been i would have had to like do some real deep thinking to just get over it in the moment and be like, this isn't for a job. So it's OK. This is not for a job. It's OK. It's just for me. But um thankfully, it did wash out. But I was using the ice bucket in the hotel room, and I put like a little liner bag inside there. and I was at the bathroom for like at least 45 minutes doing multiple cold washes. on this thing before I remembered and this is a PSA to all embroiderers use warm water, warmer hot water, use it, use it, use it because it'll go so much faster and it took me like a few loops of like going why isn't this coming out and taking like a needle to try to get the marker parts out from underneath my stitches
00:32:34
Speaker
to go, why don't you just use hot water? And I think that my my brain was like, don't use hot water because that will make the pen set if it is bleeding. And so I did all these cold washes, which which did work and was effective in getting most of the um the ink out. And so it was like the green was decreasing and then I switched to hot. So that probably also saved me.
00:32:58
Speaker
But when it all came free, I could have cried because I was like, you can see my stitches.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I am so proud of it. I can't eat them. I'm unbearable. i I am really proud of the cuffs that I did on this dress because I really just free formed the like beading pattern. I had like a vague idea, but I didn't really draw anything beforehand to like guide like where it was gonna go. So I was happy with how that turned out considering it was a really stupid way of going about it. It was just basically like no plan. Every progress picture that you sent, I was just like, whoa, this is lovely. So I mean, like overall this project,
00:33:53
Speaker
Like I say it with my mouth, but it reminded me fully in spirit of how much respect I have for folks who are working in the industry yeah who are doing projects like this in bulk and with very different timelines.
00:34:07
Speaker
yeah yeah And it's like on a show like this, I don't know specifically what the deadlines are. It's more than we've ever had on something, but it's still a certain deadline with a lot of projects and like they make beautiful, beautiful work. And so respect.
00:34:26
Speaker
Thumbs up for work. That's the final word, I think, on yeah all of this is just no matter you know what it is, it's just respect for everybody that worked on it. It's beautiful. Respect and enjoyment. Love the work that was done on Rings of Power and loved it. Yeah. Thank you to every person who worked on it because it was worth it. you know yeah They made some beautiful art. And it's inspiring. We got to see it.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like really inspiring as you know, you and I are on this sabbatical of Aaron just rediscovering joy and passion. So thanks to the whole crew that made the costumes in Rings of Power season two.
00:35:14
Speaker
And it was very fun to talk about. Thanks for going on this journey of wearing and back again with me, Melinda. Very, very fun. We made it back. We can see the Shire. We're almost... Yes. It doesn't exist yet in Rings of Power. we can we We're watching it being formed in the distance. We're almost there. We can tell the future. That's what's up.
00:35:37
Speaker
All right. Well, we're both tired and our hands are sore. So I'm sure this is the most cohesive coherent episode we've ever recorded. No, I think I feel that way about every single one. And that long story short, you're welcome. and for me you Goodbye.
00:35:58
Speaker
a