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“Who wants the pressure of being super all the time?” The Incredibles with Dr. Maarit Kalmakurki
45 Plays2 years ago
Join me for the first *proper* episode of DU where I chat with Dr. Maarit Kalmakurki about Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles (2004). We discuss mid-century fashion, superhero outfits, and the challenges of costume design in the context of digital animation!
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Transcript
Introduction to Disney Undressed
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello there, and welcome to Disney Undressed, a show where we explore the magic of costuming in Disney films, parks, and other media. I'm your host, Marley, a fashion scholar, curator, and enthusiast of almost all things Disney, particularly when it comes to fashion. For this first real episode, I have a wonderful guest joining me today. This is Dr. Marie Kalmakirke. She is an absolutely lovely individual, a costume and set designer and researcher,
Digital Costume Design in Animation
00:00:37
Speaker
Her research interests range from stage and film costume history, dress history, and the use of technological tools in design and research processes. Her doctoral thesis investigated the notions of digital character costume design in computer animated feature films. Marie is joining me virtually from Finland, where she teaches at Alto University. I'm so happy to see you.
00:01:05
Speaker
So the reason you're here today is because very graciously you've agreed to chat with me about your work and kind of the crossover of both of our research interests. So thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. It's absolutely a pleasure being here. There is a substantial amount of attention that's afforded to live action film costume as far as research and it gets more
00:01:35
Speaker
academic attention than the clothing of animated films, but that really isn't the case anymore. So what I would love is if you can kind of share a brief maybe sort of summary of what your dissertation focused on. And I think that might be kind of a nice setup for why you're such a fantastic person to chat about the film that we're going to chat about today.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Well, why I became very interested in computer animated films and animation in general was the fact that when I started to search for ideas for my doctoral dissertation,
00:02:17
Speaker
I realized that in animation, throughout the history of animation, costume design has been an integral part of character animation, and there has not been a specialist costume designer or costume specialist involved in the films, mostly, and only very recently during computer animated films on those productions.
00:02:45
Speaker
There's been a growing interest to either integrate a costume designer to advise the design development of digital costumes or to have a specialist costume designer in the film productions.
00:03:05
Speaker
So I wanted to focus on, in my thesis I wanted to focus on those films that had engaged a professional costume designer in the production. To
The Incredibles: Costume and Storytelling
00:03:18
Speaker
be able to highlight some of the important aspects of costume design for animated characters and then also to discuss the digital element of the films.
00:03:32
Speaker
What does it mean when you design costumes for a digital character? When the costumes are not physical? And also, very often the character's physical appearance is different from human body form, for example.
00:03:54
Speaker
And yeah, so those were like my starting points and the first interests. And I focused on six films in my doctorate. And since then, I've been researching more and also wrote the wonderful article with you, Marley, about the incredible films.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, we had co-authored an article about Disney and Pixar's Incredibles films where we had talked about the historic dress influences in the costuming and the digital process of creating those costumes. So today for this discussion, we're gonna be focusing on 2004's The Incredibles as a basis for the conversation where we discussed the sort of procedure of costume design
00:04:45
Speaker
in character development in digitally animated films. So we'll get into a couple things like who designs costumes for animated characters? What is the intent of the costumes in this film specifically? What effect does digital technology have on animated costumes? And what makes the costumes for this movie unique? So before we really dive into that though, I do want to first start out with kind of a fun question.
00:05:13
Speaker
What is your favorite Disney fashion moment? I guess it would have to be a few, not just one. I do like the way in Cinderella and in Frozen and in Frozen 2. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, the way the
00:05:38
Speaker
the kind of the dress transformation is part of this very strong moment in the film.
00:05:50
Speaker
Cinderella's dress transformation from that beautiful torn dress to this even more magnificent ball gown designed by character designer and animator Mark Davies.
00:06:10
Speaker
and then in Frozen and the way they've used Elsa's dress transformation to visualize her to revealing her true self and leaving her behind and even the
00:06:29
Speaker
entire dress silhouette changes quite quickly from 1840s, 50s dress style to the more figure hugging dress that is actually used as Elsa's silhouette in the sequel. And
00:06:51
Speaker
And then also in the musical scene of Show Yourself, there's also a very strong moment of Elsa.
00:07:02
Speaker
finding her mother. And then again, the dress transformation is quite magical and also incorporates the, the, the, the spatial design, the, the jewels of flying the space and landing on her dress and things like that. So
00:07:22
Speaker
I quite like the way costume is used as part of storytelling, which is not often done in animation because they like to maintain the same character costume.
00:07:40
Speaker
and their costume changes are not done so often. These ones, the ones that you were just pointing out, are very dramatic visually. I think the point about Elsa's first one, and even her show yourself one, but the let it go one,
00:07:58
Speaker
It's so interesting to me that the transformation is coming from herself. So when you see like Cinderella's, she's getting it. It's kind of like showering down on her. Somebody is giving her this, you know, beautiful costume and Elsa. She literally, I think she's raising her arms and she's bringing the ice and her magical dress up through herself. So she's kind of providing her own transformation. And yeah, those are, those are really good ones.
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah, and on top of that, the Elsa stress is again something that cannot be done in real life, although there is a Disney Frozen musical on Broadway. Yeah, that's right.
00:08:37
Speaker
Ideally, anyway, her dress is made out of ice and that's something that also interests me in animation in general to be able to do something imaginative that we are not able to do in real life.
00:08:56
Speaker
Let's get into it.
Character Analysis: Bob and Helen Parr
00:08:57
Speaker
Here is a quick plot synopsis. So The Incredibles is a 2004 American computer animated superhero comedy film written and directed by Brad Bird about a family of superheroes who tried to live a normal life after the government forced superheroes to retire due to public damage caused during their crime fighting. The film is set in a 1960s-esque alternate universe
00:09:25
Speaker
The family consists of the father, Bob Parr, AKA Mr. Incredible, who has super strength, the mother, Helen Parr, AKA Elastigirl, who can stretch her body to extreme lengths and shapes, violet their teenage daughter who can become invisible and create force fields, dash their 10-year-old son who has super speed, and their one-year-old baby, Jack-Jack, who we learn at the end of the first film has a vast array of powers.
00:09:53
Speaker
Bob desperately wants to resume a life of crime fighting, living sort of openly and proudly as supers, whereas Helen is sort of fully entrenched in the practical responsibilities of non-super daily life, raising her family. After losing his mundane office job, Bob is offered the opportunity to perform contract work as a super on a mysterious island, but he must keep it a secret from his family.
00:10:21
Speaker
Over time, Helen becomes suspicious of Bob's new behavior, ultimately tracking him to the island where he's been moonlighting as a superhero. Although she instructs them to stay home, Violet and Dash stow away on Helen's mission, leaving Jack Jack home with the sitter. The kids get a crash course in using their powers in dangerous situations and must help to rescue their parents from the villain's syndrome.
00:10:46
Speaker
who is revealed as the island's mysterious owner who wants to destroy Mr. Incredible and position himself as a new kind of superhero. The family ultimately escapes the island following syndrome back to Metroville where they need to work together to thwart his evil plan and save the city. I think maybe what we do is we just get into the characters kind of one by one. When we first meet the adult characters
00:11:15
Speaker
So they're in kind of full-on super mode in their hero costumes, like at the very beginning of the movie. They're living their best superhero lives. Smash cut to 15 years later, we're seeing them living as ordinary people in suburbia. And Bob Parr, I think in particular, we're seeing sort of at his low point, having a bit of a midlife crisis type situation.
00:11:40
Speaker
He's deeply unsatisfied with his life. He's a bit overweight and depressed. He loves his family and he has a job, but he misses the superhero lifestyle and doing that work. He works now for an insurance company and he has a little bit of a uniform of kind of like, it's a white collared shirt, black pants and a black tie.
00:12:01
Speaker
such a well done costuming scheme because he looks exactly the way he feels. He's sort of disheveled. He looks so restricted by his clothes and his posture is completely slumped and he looks totally downtrodden.
00:12:17
Speaker
According to the production designer, Lou Romano, I guess Brad Bird wanted him to look like kind of an aging football star who was someone past his prime. Let's talk about Bob first and then we can kind of, we'll move on from there.
00:12:33
Speaker
Yeah, first of all, for storytelling purpose, the families present it like powerful in their super suits and also establishes their
00:12:50
Speaker
their own particular silhouettes and then that against that then Bob Parr's forward leaning posture and also his white shirt which could be also a very nice formal shirt but the way they've
00:13:11
Speaker
they've animated it to be like not so fitted from the chest and then it's kind of loose from the front as well and a bit saggy emphasizes the posture and then when we've seen him
00:13:30
Speaker
at first in a totally different attire than those two work really well together in terms of costume and a costume change and it's clear also to the audience that what happened and he's not happy and costume reflects that even though the technical animation it's not as well
00:13:55
Speaker
uh it's not so sophisticated as in the in the next film but it's still uh good enough effective yeah good enough to make the point i his bob's clothes are it's such a humorous contrast to his like overly large upper body so like
00:14:18
Speaker
The other thing too is the impact of clothing is really powerful in this case as it completely supersedes any other defining features about the character, even obvious ones in the eyes of his coworkers. So like the physicality of Bob's enormous upper body could easily give away that his super strength
00:14:38
Speaker
abilities exist, like regardless of the ensemble he's wearing just because of how he's like physically built. However, his somewhat slovenly appearance at his desk job, you know, the loose and the tightness in the shirt at like the different places
00:14:51
Speaker
kind of coupled with the body language, it renders him sort of completely downtrodden that his coworkers are completely unsuspecting of his abilities and previous life as a superhero. It's quite funny and that's quite effective that clothing can be so impactful to other people and how they perceive you that that's the first thing that they notice that that we wouldn't even dawn on them that, oh, this guy is like obviously very built and could, you know,
00:15:21
Speaker
probably break through a huge brick wall. Later in the movie, we see Bob kind of coming back to life a little bit once he resumes his superhero work secretly. He starts working out more, dressing a lot more put together and has recaptured some intimacy with his wife again. He definitely starts channeling some kind of Sean Connery era James Bond vibes with his professional wear, which is a really,
00:15:49
Speaker
stark contrast to the kind of loose shirt and the black tie that he was wearing at his insurance job. You also get to see him in some casual wear, like I think he wears a pair of khaki shorts and like a bright yellow polo shirt at one point and
00:16:06
Speaker
some brighter colored knit shirts later on. So the variants and textures of his clothes, you can tell there's variants, but like you were saying, it's not quite as sophisticated. Yeah. But anyway, in the first film, again, like the fit of the garment, and he starts working out and he
00:16:32
Speaker
feels better and and positive about his life and future. Again the fit of the clothing is is like tight against the body rather than
00:16:48
Speaker
that's hanging and having wrinkles and so on. So again, that kind of conveys the point that what they want to tell in the story anyway. So it doesn't necessarily need that kind of really realistic texture to do that. So Helen Parr, AKA Elastigirl,
00:17:18
Speaker
When we see her kind of post superheroes go into hiding, she's a full-time parent and she's seemingly accepted this forced retirement from superhero work. And she's fully focusing on being a parent and adopting the sort of homemaking and management role in her family. Her costuming is sort of bland and unassuming. I mean, just like Bob's, we see her, I think in a bathrobe a couple of times when she's at home
00:17:48
Speaker
And she seems to have kind of a generic uniform of button-down blouses, trousers, and flats during her regular daily activities. They do a good job using the costuming to kind of underscore the underlying emotional or mental loads that each of them are carrying as well, highlighting their powers. So like when I see Helen's everyday clothes, her pants are always cropped, and she has a lot of three-quarter length sleeves, which to me, when I'm looking at it,
00:18:18
Speaker
maybe cheekily suggesting that she's stretched a little too thin. But that's kind of cute. Her clothes have to be functional because she's a busy woman. And again, she's trying to blend in. They're really just sort of unremarkable clothes. She doesn't want to call undue attention to herself. Something interesting and noticeable about her styling is that her shirt, we don't ever see her shirt ever tucked in, which is different.
00:18:46
Speaker
from how you would kind of see the same outfit styled in photos and ads from the mid-century, where we still see women with a defined waist and pants and a top. We'll get into the sort of timeframe of the film in a minute. But I was kind of curious about the tucking in the shirt versus untucking, because when you see some background characters, you do see a lot of tucked in shirts, but she's the only one who's got her shirt kind of loose.
Costume Design Influences and Techniques
00:19:15
Speaker
And it goes back to what you were saying about like the fit of the clothing. And I think that's really interesting because that's a very stark contrast to the super suits, which are very tight, very form fitting. Yeah. But on the other hand, she's very confident in what she wears. Yeah.
00:19:33
Speaker
And yes, we will talk about the mid-century modern style later, but I'll just point out here too that the crop pans and the three-quarter length sleeves do reflect on the time period as well. So they work well both ways.
00:19:58
Speaker
I think the kids are actually dressed pretty well as far as indicating their personality types and accommodating the nature of their powers. Violet's really interesting. So she's struggling with sort of teenage angst and wants to disappear. So she wears all black and hides behind her hair when we kind of first meet her. Dash is dressed like a pretty typical little boy, jeans and t-shirt.
00:20:27
Speaker
There are some casual nods to like racing and speed in his clothes, like stripes or numbers on his shirt, especially in the concept art. But Jack Jack, you really only ever see in like baby pajamas or a diaper. And he doesn't get a lot of play in this movie, but it is sort of fun to see how the kids change over the course of this film, getting to do more with their powers after having to hide them from their whole lives.
00:20:54
Speaker
So Violet, she in particular is interesting to watch. She gains a lot more confidence. And by the end of the film, we see her beginning to wear her hair back off her face and brighter colors in her own clothing after she's had some more experiences wearing the super suit and gaining some confidence back. Yeah.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah and then towards the division between the first and the second film is cleverly done, her story art is cleverly done by first having the dark colours on her because she feels like hiding and then
00:21:32
Speaker
By the end of the film, she has the brighter colors. And then in the sequel, in the second film, she wears the violet color shades. This is probably gonna be a good point to get into. What year is this? So I guess there's a point where you can see on a newspaper that Bob's reading where it says 1962, but the production team actually isn't committed to that as the timeframe in which the story is taking place.
00:22:03
Speaker
I guess this is kind of closer to an alternate reality sort of situation. John Lasseter, the film's executive producer, he says, Brad Bird's story takes place in a world that evokes the future as imagined in the 1960s. This I can see. So it's very much pastiche mid-century modern design elements and general references to fashions from that time period.
00:22:29
Speaker
I think pastiche, it has sort of a negative connotation, but I'm not sure it's necessarily a bad thing here. So I know the Pixar designers, they found inspiration in TV shows like Johnny Quest, early James Bond movies and Walt Disney's original Tomorrowland. And all of this made its way into the film.
00:22:51
Speaker
All of these references are really easily found in the concept art, most of which is actually beautifully laid out in the Art of the Incredibles book by Marc Caravans. So the 1950s and 60s were a fairly dramatic time in fashion history with lots of radical shifts
00:23:11
Speaker
in clothing for men and women and for young people who were finally being looked to as sources of inspiration for mainstream fashion. So you have Teddy Newton, one of the character designers for The Incredibles. In the concept art, he has some very modest looking people.
00:23:31
Speaker
So like women with wide bandana headbands and cat eye glasses, little pillbox hats, and those capri length pants and like white sunglasses. So you definitely get a very, you know, 60s vibe from it. Yeah. And the cool thing too about mid century fashion styles is that they are really great. There are really great subcultural
00:23:55
Speaker
examples to contrast with mainstream styles. So I think about the sort of carryover of like, you know, Christian Dior's new look in the 40s into the 50s, and you still see that nipped in waist and a big skirt shape. You see it in the 40s, the 50s, and the 60s, but then you also see the emergence of beatniks and mods whose styles have different shapes and silhouettes.
00:24:17
Speaker
Lucius Best, aka Frozone in the movie, he has an air of this with his fitted turtlenecks and the tapered slacks. At one point we do see him in a leather jacket and he's really just the epitome of cool. It's very Steve McQueen.
00:24:36
Speaker
And in that same vein too, speaking of the textures, the guy at Violet's school that she's really into, Tony Righttinger, he's also sporting a turtleneck and slacks. And I didn't notice this until this last time that I watched it. The turtleneck actually has a really great knit texture too, when you get a close look at it, which I thought was really impressive compared to some of,
00:25:04
Speaker
some of the other garments that you do get kind of close ups of. Yeah, and they have more of a plasticky look on them. Yeah, true. In that vein, I think we all sort of know the benefit that costume designers add to live action films. You don't have a movie without costumes. People can't run around naked. I don't think that a lot of people consider the costuming that has to happen for an animated film.
00:25:34
Speaker
And until pretty recently animated films did not have proper costume designers involved in the development. All of them don't, but some of them now do. So one of the questions, and this kind of goes back to your thesis and a lot of the work that you've done. What do you think are the most important benefits of having professionals with real world costuming experience involved in the animation process? The many.
00:26:01
Speaker
but one is that, first of all, having an experienced designer who can directly link the costumes to storytelling and also to bring out ideas for character identity through costume.
00:26:26
Speaker
I think those are the most important. And then secondly, the technical execution benefits from
00:26:34
Speaker
custom designers presence because custom designers also know how to build or make garments but look good on on a person and what doesn't it doesn't always necessarily mean when you characterize something somebody that the clothing fits on on the person because we on
00:26:57
Speaker
like in Bob Parr's clothing, we on purpose design costumes that does not fit to emphasize something through costume. So then going back to advising the technical people how to create the digital garments, I think that's essential. And that's also saving money from productions because they don't have to, the technical people don't have to,
00:27:26
Speaker
like find out themselves how to build a certain garment that costume designers can advise on that.
00:27:37
Speaker
And I think also the fact that, in all, having an experienced person throughout the production, also in the production stage when they finalize the costume's textures and finalize the details in costume, also to consult a specialist designer on that.
00:28:06
Speaker
I think that it makes a big difference. I think this is going to be fun to revisit when eventually down the road I get to Incredibles 2. Then that situation changes.
00:28:23
Speaker
a little bit in how those characters are designed. So I hope you will come back and do this again when I have to get to Incredibles 2, and we can talk about that a little bit more. Definitely. So the costumes in this film, they're really a collaboration between the production designer Lou Romano and the character designers Tony Fucille and Teddy Newton. It's interesting to consider how developing the costumes for a film like this is different
00:28:52
Speaker
than for say a traditional animated film. What is unique about digitally animated film costuming versus more traditionally like kind of ink and paint? I mean, is the process generally the same or is there more emphasis on practical components of a costume given the capabilities of the technology at the time that the film is being developed?
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, traditional in-compaint costumes are for sure they are more stylized and
00:29:29
Speaker
because everything like in the past, in the past before computer animation, everything had to be drawn by hand. So all like the most details are omitted. And then only the most important things of the costumes are included or most important things about the garments are included in the costume.
00:29:57
Speaker
And it was very difficult to visualize any texture. So texture was mostly visualized by movement. So whether it was a lightweight fabric or a very heavy fabric when the character moved. So that was the secondary motion that the clothing creates was used to show what kind of material it was like.
00:30:27
Speaker
Similarities with traditional hand drawn animation and digital animation is the way animators, character designers, they study physical costumes in motion.
00:30:47
Speaker
in hand-drawn and as well as in digital films. So there's still need when we reproduce anything from real life, there's a need for us to study the material or the garments in movement to be able to make them.
00:31:14
Speaker
either by hand drawn or digital forms. So I think that's interesting as well. Yeah, and that's a really good point. And I don't know how this compares to other studios, but certainly the Disney Animation Studios having live action reference points for movement reference, but also fabric texture and movement as well.
00:31:44
Speaker
So it's not just how someone's moving their arm or how they're moving their leg when they're spinning. It's watching how a skirt twirls and what does it kind of naturally do so that when you're recreating that, it doesn't look robotic or weird. That's a really good point. As we get into kind of more of the story set up, Bob ends up, he ends up losing his insurance job. He gets roped into doing superhero contract work.
00:32:12
Speaker
for this mysterious company on this remote island. Basically, he gets to start fulfilling his fantasy life as a superhero again, but he keeps it a secret from his family.
Character Focus: Mirage and Edna Mode
00:32:23
Speaker
He starts to get back in shape. He starts dressing kind of James Bondy. Speaking of James Bond, another character who has a really distinct style in this is Mirage, who's Bob's contact person on the island. She's kind of
00:32:39
Speaker
Bond Girl E, you do get a slinky black dress on her at one point. At the times that we do see her though for the most part, she's dressed kind of business casual. I think she has like a black pinstripe suit at one point and then a black turtleneck another time. She sort of reminds me a little bit of Lady Gaga with her really iced out blonde hair, especially in some of the concept art for her. But anyways,
00:33:06
Speaker
The whole time Bob's been secretly working as a super, he's been wearing his old suit from the glory days, and it gets beat up to the point that he needs to get it repaired, which brings us to E. Let's talk about E. I have a hot take.
00:33:24
Speaker
I don't think there's an Incredibles movie without Edna Mode. I think Edna Mode is one of the most directly fashion referencing characters in Disney at all. There's actually quite a few characters that are in some way or another designers or
00:33:42
Speaker
arbiters of dress and style, but Yi is very much a fashion designer. So I guess Brad Bird, he looked to Japanese and German fashion designers when he was putting Yi together, and she's an amalgamation of a lot of visual inspirations, like Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo. And for a lot of people, myself included, it's really hard to not see the Hollywood costume designer eat it head.
00:34:12
Speaker
with the glasses and the little bangs. I think it's hilarious that Brad Bird is the voice of Edna also. So Bob needs a suit repaired, and he takes it to E, the designer who made it for him when he was back in his heyday. She's introduced as being the designer to the supers, but since the ban on superheroes, she's had to pivot to designing for the fashion industrial complex and supermodels, which she says she hates.
00:34:42
Speaker
the highly stylized version of 60s futurism is obviously it's present across the whole film and where it really applies the most to the costuming is kind of unsurprisingly is in the super superhero costumes that he has designed. So
00:35:02
Speaker
Edna, she decides she's going to make Bob a new suit with an updated design because this one is completely outdated. I think she literally calls it like a hobo suit and she tries to throw it in the trash. And this is where... It's an opening line of my doctoral thesis. This is a hobo suit darling, you can't be wearing this. It's so perfect. Yeah, she's...
00:35:28
Speaker
She's this whole movie for me. And this is the point where Bob gets the updated red and black suit with the eye for incredible across the front that we kind of associate now with the Incredibles. So Helen, she's starting to become suspicious of Bob and she notices that the old super suit has been repaired. And right away, she's like, Oh, he must have gone to see. So she decides to go over to visit herself and see what Edna knows. And this is where we get a little super suit show.
00:35:58
Speaker
because he has been making them now for the whole part family. This is where I'm sort of fully invested in Edna and her story because she's explaining this mad science and technological development that she's doing in her designs. And it's amazing. She has developed material that can completely disappear, that's bulletproof and completely stretchable. And at the same time, she's thinking very comprehensively
00:36:27
Speaker
about things like the washability and the texture of the materials so that it's comfortable for these people to be wearing. So I want to talk about those for a minute. Compared to the everyday clothing that the PARS are wearing that are maybe a little less fitted, there are obviously different types of material. What are the challenges with fitting super suits digitally, that kind of form fitting
00:36:57
Speaker
Are these a little bit easier to do? Are they more complicated? And the super suits, the texture of them, I wouldn't mind hearing a little bit about why they kind of look like they're kind of shiny and you don't really get a noticeable fabric texture.
00:37:17
Speaker
could be on purpose, could be a technical thing in the first film, being able to do plastic surfaces more easier, or could be a storytelling thing, like differentiating the textures from the everyday wear. Could be both.
00:37:43
Speaker
And also, what about the fit? It might be so that they're not actually costumes put on a character. They could be actually just painted on the character body or made like that. Usually, technically, if
00:38:04
Speaker
If we do a very tight fitting clothing on a character these days, for example, with Marvelous Designer Program, which is used quite heavily in animation and in gaming these days to build costumes, it's very difficult to do a tight fitting clothing because it starts to do this cloth and object collision against the skin.
00:38:31
Speaker
And it's a bit problematic sometimes. So it's actually easier to change the texture of the characters in and then just make it an illusion of their wearing a tight fitting clothing. Yeah, I think the fitting process might be done like that because usually
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah, you don't animate anything that you can't see. And in this case, you can trick a little in computer animation. And I guess it's been done like that. I think that's so interesting how that works. And I've said it before, I have no experience or training you in that kind of technical realm. So to understand and hear more about
00:39:29
Speaker
how it is physically constructed as, you know, costuming versus, you know, just simply changing, you know, a texture on skin. That's really, really fascinating how that all works. Yeah. And then it looks like they're wearing a garment. Yeah. Yeah. That's how they do it. So E herself, she's dressed in a really distinctive way. Her clothing is very sculptural and she doesn't look like any other character in the film.
00:39:57
Speaker
She's very like space age chic and she's writing this wave of futurism that was so prevalent in many designs of the 60s. When I look at her, I'm kind of getting
00:40:10
Speaker
Pierre Cardin, André Corregé, Paco Rabant, even maybe a little bit of Mary Quant. There's this great card in quote where he says, the dresses I prefer are those I invent for a life that does not yet exist, the world of tomorrow. And this is just so easy. It's also very much in line with Brad Bird's watchword for the film.
00:40:32
Speaker
Plus the ideas of space age fashion, which wasn't just about living on the moon. It was exceptionally functional clothing and clothing that improved the wearer's life. And that's exactly what a super suit does in this movie. In the 50s, the application of science to everyday life was becoming really important. So manmade substances like nylon and plastics were cultivated and turned into wearable fabrics.
00:41:01
Speaker
Synthetic materials like nylon and polyester were often physically lighter and were able to retain prints and colors in a different way than spun fabrics. So now there were these fabrics that were waterproof and quick drying and they had minimal shrinkage. So sportswear really gained a new life in the mid-century.
00:41:21
Speaker
And all of this advancement is just so inherent in the super suits in this movie. So I think that the general reference point of 1950s and 60s is a really appropriate window for this story. Yeah, it fits with the superhero setting as well as it fits with the Edna Mode's design philosophy.
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'd be really curious to see what her fashion line for non supers was about. I can't remember if there's any of that in the concept art, there might be some in Incredibles 2. I'll have to look that up again. Yeah. And this is interesting that the costuming of superheroes in the real world, it's kind of sporadically influenced mainstream fashion. And it's interesting to see the focus on things like
00:42:16
Speaker
utilitarianism in garments and the imposed metaphors of power in specific garments that have been designed in the real world in the last 30, 50, whatever years. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, they had had an exhibition, I think it was back in 2008, called Superheroes, Fashion and Fantasy.
00:42:38
Speaker
that explored how fashion designers have been influenced by things like capes and cowls. And I think of designers like Terry Mugler and Hussein Shalayan and others who lean into the benefits of technology and the possibilities of the future. I think avant-garde is usually the term that gets kind of thrown at these designers who incorporate any manner of stem elements into their design process or
00:43:06
Speaker
actualization. And conversely, too, it's interesting how costume designers, like real costume designers now, they pull from Okator and mainstream fashion to pour back into superhero costuming when they're designing now. So I think about like,
00:43:26
Speaker
that Ruth Carter did for Black Panther, which I think she pulls in some McQueen and Balmain footwear, which is really cool. What do you think about the super suits in this movie?
00:43:37
Speaker
In the first film, they quite nicely emphasize the original concept art, that the geometrical style, kind of the collage technique that Teddy Newton used to create the original concept art. That's really cool looking. Yes, I think the geometrical shapes in the design, in the prints and in the cuts.
00:44:08
Speaker
of the super suits really. You can see the link between the concept art and the super suits. I quite like it and I like the sort of also with the link to the super heroes link to the
00:44:29
Speaker
The mid-century modern design style, it's almost like I think it draws back to Bauhaus design, real design and things like that, the geometrical shapes from Bauhaus. Yeah, it's evident in the film too. You were talking about earlier the kind of the reference points that they use in the film
00:44:54
Speaker
And mostly in animation, they're not tight in any specific time period. I think this is the most evident film having like quite tight time period frame. But you do see design influences from
00:45:13
Speaker
other periods and other design styles as well. And that's the point when you do animation. I think that also the creativity of animation, that you can do that. Having that same set of mixed design styles in a live action wouldn't work at all. The audience would be like really confused. Yeah, it's confusing and it doesn't look real.
00:45:39
Speaker
Yeah, so it's an interesting point about making an animated film, but you can actually do that. Having so many reference points, and this is not the only film, there are so many examples from other films.
00:46:00
Speaker
design influences from number of eras and number of aesthetic designs. You get them all across, you know, Disney films as well. One of my favorite things to do is kind of look at background characters in films and kind of see what they're wearing and what they're doing and
00:46:24
Speaker
one that I always end up coming back to as such a good example of this kind of mishmash, hodgepodge of visual references, is the background characters at the ball scene in Cinderella. I won't get into it here. I feel like I end up talking about this all the time because it's such a great example of this, but people are wearing all sorts of styles from several hundred years of fashion history. So if you look at that, you're kind of like, whoa,
00:46:53
Speaker
What is happening right now? This is not a real place. This is not a real time. So if you were to be in Metroville, where the Incredibles family, where the Parr family lives, if that was like a real place that you went to, you would be.
00:47:06
Speaker
probably enormously confused and feel like you were on some kind of movie set. Because there are a lot of different reference points. But as you say, it is pretty squarely mid-century vibe. That's what they're going for, is the vibe of that. Yeah, in the first film, for sure. In the second film, we will talk about it later. But yeah, in the next, one of the following episodes, we will talk
00:47:37
Speaker
But talking about background characters and Disney films in general, on the other hand, Sleeping Beauty and the background in Princess Aurora's christening, for example, without the guests in the christening,
00:48:04
Speaker
wearing those medieval clothing, they kind of the overall aesthetic design, taking the audience to the medieval setting would not be as strong without. So that was quite nicely done at the period clothing, but it was like really detailed depiction of one of the
00:48:32
Speaker
illuminated manuscripts. Yeah. And so the reference points were taken from there. And in the Incredibles, again, the audience does kind of blend in with the setting of the environments of the mid-century modern architecture.
00:48:55
Speaker
So it does work quite well as well in helping to state the setting for the audience to understand what they are looking at and what period is the film about. I think the super suits
00:49:17
Speaker
They give you a pretty decent range of the styles across the various supers that they show you in this universe that everybody in the pars are living in. So like Mr. Incredible. So he starts out with the blue and the black suit, has an eye on the chest. Elastigirl, when we first meet her, she has sort of a silver and red palette going on. She reminded me actually a lot of from the Avengers TV show in the 60s, Emma Peel.
00:49:48
Speaker
Very similar, like that kind of full body suit. And it seemed like what Edna Mode might have done was made a combo of the two distinct suits from Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl when she made them for the family in the red and black. It seems like she kind of drew maybe from both of them with like the color scheme. Frozone's super suit is very
00:50:12
Speaker
different. He's got this kind of speed skater costume looking design. When Edna is telling Bob, you know, no capes, she rattles off this huge list of supers that she's that she's remembering Thunderhead who, interesting side note, he makes an offhanded comment about this supers cape accident happening in 58, which is yet another reference to the mid century.
00:50:42
Speaker
Strategale, another super who has a cape death story. She's referenced as being in 57. I don't think they say 1957 or 1958, but pretty squarely mid-century, whenever it is. Dynagai, Metaman, Splashdown. All of these are supers who had capes and Edna says, no, I'm not designing you a cape. Get that out of your mind. Syndrome.
00:51:11
Speaker
who we do finally get to, we see him. He's got a black and white, the two-tone suit with the big S in the center, and he's given himself a cape, which ultimately ends up being a big problem for him at the end. All of the suits that you see, they have a singular emblem or visual focal point at the center of the chest.
00:51:35
Speaker
Um, so this kind of goes with every, almost every superhero. I think we're used to, you know, Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, everyone's got like the one major, um,
00:51:49
Speaker
focal point right in the middle of the chest so you can see what it is and hopefully identify who this person is right away. All of the suits seem to have mostly two, maybe three colors. And I think the masks are really interesting because you get a range of different types of masks, like between the Zorro black eye mask and then ones that cover larger portions of their faces. I didn't really think about this until recently, but when I was looking at all of the other supers in this movie the other day,
00:52:19
Speaker
and an Incredibles 2, because you get a lot more supers in that film. I was reminded of Pierre Marler's designs in the 50s and 60s. He designed these really incredible and very large eyeglasses and sunglasses that were super avant-garde and enormously popular with celebrities. So like Elton John, Serge Gainsbourg, Audrey Hepburn,
00:52:46
Speaker
I bet Edna probably would have been super into his designs. They're lots of fun and very visually striking and they could very easily be a superhero mask. Yeah, I agree. Have you seen the Pixar short, Auntie Edna?
00:53:04
Speaker
You seen this? Oh my gosh. I love this short because you get to see so much more about the breadth of Edna's skills and her knowledge. So she's a scientist and she applies her science to fashion design. In a way, she reminds me a lot of Iris van Herpen.
00:53:24
Speaker
who approaches her materials and designs in a really scientific way, as well as she creates these beautiful, technologically influenced garments. Right? Kawakubo is also a really good reference point for Edna anyways, because her designs, they were so unconventional and dynamic when she started her Comme des Garçons line in the 70s.
00:53:47
Speaker
He's also, she's sort of old school in that she's kind of like an Okator designer of like the previous decades. And she's not really into the mass manufacturing that became really prevalent in the mid century. And it makes me really curious about like, what was she was designing for the fashion industry when supers disappeared? Because I think she sort of offhandedly talks about doing shows and Milan.
00:54:17
Speaker
But I don't think she could sell any of her super centric designs at a regular consumer price point. So I just I wonder if she's doing like contract work for the military or something like, is she the Iron Man of the fashion world? Yeah, I'm able to be able to use her talent in
00:54:40
Speaker
kind of the way she uses the technical materials in her ways as well. Maybe they do a spin-off film of Edna Mode one day. Interestingly, she is not, she's quite, she has a very small part in the film. So she's a very, very strong side character.
00:55:02
Speaker
And that's quite interesting that even though she is a side character, she is such a strong personality and strong characteristic that takes quite a lot of attention.
00:55:16
Speaker
So I think she would deserve a full-length feature. I would love to see whatever that is. But check out the Auntie Edna short. You said you just got Disney+. This is great because you get a much closer look at her studio and where she works and her materials. It's not like super in-depth. It's about her and Jack-Jack. It's very cute.
Storytelling Through Costume Design
00:55:42
Speaker
and you get to see her doing a little bit of sort of research and it's very interesting and it just makes me ask a lot more questions. Maybe one day what we'll do in the future is I just want a whole episode just about Edna because there's so much to discuss about
00:55:59
Speaker
her inspiration and her construction, how she's kind of come to be, and even her house and the amount of detail and attention that has been focused on her for, like you said, somebody who's just a side character. It's really, really interesting. Yeah, and her design, like the principles of the designs are so integrated into the technology, the fabric technology.
00:56:25
Speaker
And then that's very integrated into the principles of making computer animated films. And you can do whatever in like to make even in computer animation you can make fabrics disappear. Right. Or being blown out or whatever it is.
00:56:50
Speaker
Yeah, you can do anything you want. You can do anything you want, so it's quite nicely interwoven with the imaginativity that you can do.
00:57:00
Speaker
animation in the fabrics and the superhero suits in the in Cribbles because you don't see that very often or I would like to see that more often I used the imaginativity and they're like breaking the laws of the gravity for example and then breaking the laws of the real world in general in costume in animation because
00:57:27
Speaker
that's doable and as when it's integrated into the storytelling it's really really nice. It's interesting and it's like more comprehensive and you you feel like you're getting a little bit more in that in the story in the narrative and you're understanding the characters a little bit better um which i think is the point you know when you're making any kind of movie you want to
00:57:48
Speaker
you want to feel some sort of connection to the people that you're watching, you know, good or bad. But, you know, for me, and I think for many people, clothing is such an immediate and obvious way to forge those connections because we all have some sort of connection to clothing in some capacity or the other. So we can imagine what it's like to wear, you know, the skin tight cat suit or, you know, the vinyl gloves and like,
00:58:17
Speaker
Elastigirls stretch boots. We've all worn something similar to that at some point, so you can kind of get a feel for it. You know what polyester feels like. You know what nylon and rayon and these plasticy materials.
00:58:30
Speaker
are like, so it kind of helps kind of make that connection in your head while you're watching this. We had talked a little bit before, I want to bring it back to the background characters. In The Incredibles, these background folks, they're all dressed in comparatively ultra-mandane clothing. It's pretty squarely mimicking mid-century styles, a lot of tapered suits on the male characters with narrow ties, a lot of men in hats that are sort of generally fedora-ish,
00:58:58
Speaker
They almost look maybe a little pork pie hat-y since the crowns aren't quite as tall as like most proper fedoras. Something else too about the menswear that I find really interesting is that you do see a bit of variance in the outfits. Not a lot, but dark colored tapered suits that have a mix and match style. Like some of them will have gray slacks and black jackets or dark gray sports coats with light gray pants.
00:59:25
Speaker
Um, and this was pretty common in the fifties and sixties actually to wear complimentary, but not necessarily matching pants and sport coats. So I think that's kind of nice. Um, there's a big action sequence with the robot destroying Metroville. All of the civilian men are dressed in that kind of gray to black scale, maybe some Browns and like taupe and they all have white shirts, I think. And almost every single man is wearing a hat. Um,
00:59:51
Speaker
The women, they kind of, the women actually in the kids in the backgrounds of some of these two, they sort of take me out a little bit of that mid-century kind of pastiche. The women have short pencil skirts and cardigans or button-down blouses. A lot of them also have the same cropped pants that Helen wears. You do see some more casual looks in the last scene. When the family goes to the track competition, everyone's wearing a few variations of pants and skirts and shirts.
01:00:21
Speaker
Incredibles 2, I think, they have more of the variants in 50s and 60s fashion styles than I think this movie does, because you do see wider skirts that you don't really see in this one. The women's fashions and the background characters kind of take me a little bit out of that.
01:00:49
Speaker
But I guess I want to talk just a little bit on the process of designing for the digitally created extras, because that's really interesting, because you're not doing one by one for hundreds or thousands of people who show up in these background scenes.
01:01:06
Speaker
Yeah, you're multiplying only a few, a set of few different design ideas on the background characters. So, I can't remember if there was any discussion like how many line styles there were for the backgrounds. I would need to check. Okay, so she's, Brenna Magear, she's an art and shading artist on film for Incredibles 1 and then
01:01:36
Speaker
She says, we had about 80 pieces of clothing on the film, a process not unlike normal tailoring, only we're making patterns in CG and fitting 3D clothes onto the characters. So I'm not sure if the 80 is inclusive of every super suit and all of the background people. I assumed it might be. But yeah, that was for the first film, so The Incredibles.
01:02:00
Speaker
And it's not a lot. It's a full length feature film having only 80 pieces. Yeah. So it tells a lot about computer animation as well. Not very many costume changes there. But anyways, usually the process of designing costumes for any character
01:02:22
Speaker
the most time-consuming process is to create first the structure of the clothing and then you can recolor and re-texture it very easily.
Comparative Analysis: Animation vs. Live-Action
01:02:34
Speaker
Even I could say that you can recolor the clothing and put a new type of texture or pattern
01:02:44
Speaker
on a costume with a click of a mouse. But the most time-consuming process is to create the garment. And usually in computer animation, for the background characters, they create only a set of few tops and bottoms, and then they mix and match them.
01:03:03
Speaker
And sometimes I'm jumping from jumping to another film, but in Shrek in the first film, for the crowds, they only used one design style for the entire crowds, for female and male characters. And then they just changed the colors, color tones. So it looks like they are
01:03:29
Speaker
wearing a different garment, but they're not. And is this true also? I've read a little bit about this and I've seen for individual films how they do it, but when they change hairstyle or color or body shape, they have something similar where there's, you know, X amount of variations and then they change within those two because you don't, you know, as
01:03:55
Speaker
as this animation style is getting more sophisticated and, you know, as a viewer, you can see a lot more details. You don't want to see the same person like five different times. You want to see that kind of healthy variation of, oh, this is not what every single human person looks like or whoever your background characters are.
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, and it makes the background also more interesting when there is a variation of the height of the people or the width of the people or even the geometrical style usually. The animation is based on like round or square shapes and triangular shapes like the Incredibles. And then the variation makes it more interesting and makes it look like they are different people.
01:04:46
Speaker
in the background. I think that it's so interesting how how all this comes together because I think when you initially when you're seeing a movie and maybe for the first time you're not really considering that breadth of work that's gone into it but I don't know if probably most people most parents experience this when you're watching you know your kids have movies that they like and you end up watching the same movie
01:05:08
Speaker
over and over and over again. I start looking at the backgrounds and I start noticing other details about what kinds of cars are they driving? What do the buildings look like? I've heard the narrative so many times. I know the story back and front. What else can I look at? And I think that was one of the many things that kind of got me really interested in Disney fashions in the costuming of these animated films and other films.
01:05:34
Speaker
is that I've spent so much time now looking at them and really appreciating the amount of the detail and the thought process in designing the costume for an animated character. Because it's in many ways very much the same process for a live action, but also it's very different. So that's really cool. I think that's really interesting.
01:05:57
Speaker
The design principles are the same for both films, both mediums, and at least it should be in animation, the same design principles not always used, but the production processes are
01:06:15
Speaker
are different and it takes at least three years to make an animated film and it surely doesn't take three years to make live action even though post-production these days is like such a long time when they are
01:06:31
Speaker
so many CGI effects done and the Avatar films, I think, Avatar 2, The Way in the Border, the production time was like, I don't know, six, seven years. Oh my gosh, that's wild. Yeah, that's incredible. So as we're going to start wrapping up here, final
01:06:59
Speaker
Any final thoughts that you have on The Incredibles film from an enjoyment perspective, from a technical perspective? How do you think it compares to other animated films that were made around the same time?
01:07:15
Speaker
I think the Incredibles have an incredibly nice aesthetic design style that is different from the films that were made during that time period. And even though they aim for the sort of realistic textures, realistic costumes, realistic
01:07:42
Speaker
reproduction of real stuff, things from real life. In general they have a really nice aesthetic design style in the film that really works well.
01:07:58
Speaker
in that particular film. And I think it's a part of the film's success as well. They succeeded in representing the mid-century modern, but also the overall aesthetic works really well. I completely agree. I think going for that vibe of mid-century modern
01:08:24
Speaker
was a perfect choice for the narrative and for the characters. I think everything fits very well together. And I think only now having seen, you know, Incredibles 2 and having what, you know, since 2004 to now, having so many years, you know, between the films, you can kind of see, oh, you know, the tech wasn't quite as sophisticated when they were doing that.
01:08:48
Speaker
compared to now. But overall, I think it's, it's effective. And that that's irrelevant, because it, it looks appropriate, it is well positioned.
Further Resources and Closing Remarks
01:09:00
Speaker
in a general timeframe that works for the story that's being told. And it's a fun movie. It's fun to look at. And overall, I think fashion-wise, there's a lot of really good stuff there to look at. So we talked about a couple of things that I want to go back to. I always want to leave a couple of references for folks who are listening, if anyone ends up listening to this, besides myself. There are a few sources that came up during the conversation. I'm going to point out
01:09:29
Speaker
that you should check out if you're interested. Definitely look up The Art of the Incredibles and The Art of the Incredibles 2 published by Chronicle Books. I know we use these quite a lot for our article. These are fabulous visual resources for the two films that have concept art and character sketches.
01:09:49
Speaker
rendered environment, everything. They're beautiful and they're so full of information. There's tons of books out there on 1950s and 60s fashion. Daniel Milford Cottons, or the Fashion Institute of Technology, they have great fashion history, timelines on their website. That's just a great resource. There's also a lot of scholarship out there on superhero fashion. So like Vicki Karaminas article, no capes, uber fashion and how luck favors the prepared.
01:10:19
Speaker
That's a great one. See the accompanying publication for the Met's exhibition, Superheroes, Fashion, and Fantasy, if you want to get some ideas about the influence of superhero costumes on mainstream fashion. You can read more about Marie and I's thoughts about the Incredibles in our article, Who Wants the Pressure of Being Super All the Time?
01:10:43
Speaker
mid-century modern fashions and their influence on costume development in The Incredibles and Incredibles 2, which appeared in the journal Film, Fashion, and Consumption. I think it was published in 2022 by Intellect. But also highly encourage you to read Merit's book, Digital Character Costume Design in Computer Animated Feature Films. Where is the best place for people to find that?
01:11:09
Speaker
alto arts bookstore. I think it's called shop.alto.fi.
01:11:19
Speaker
Yeah, definitely check that out. That's an awesome book. And it really talks a lot about a lot of things that we discussed here. But I think you get really into the details. And you know, that's what a thesis is. But it's very well done. And it's very, very interesting. And I think the examples that you use in your book, they're fun. It's it's a fun read. And it's very, very interesting.
01:11:44
Speaker
But you're all done with your doctor now. You've moved on to many other projects. Is there anything that you're currently working on that you're really excited about or like do you have a project coming up or speaking engagement, something you want to hype up that people can look for that you're doing if they want to hear more about your work? I'm currently writing about costume design in CGI films because I've been focusing on gaming and animation before and now
01:12:14
Speaker
Even when I was thinking about my doctorate, I was already back then, nearly 10 years ago, interested in CGI films with a very, live action films with a very strong CGI focus, like the first Avatar, for example, or Gravity, that is also digitally done, but with human actors.
01:12:43
Speaker
And now I'm currently writing about an article focusing on the process for CGI costumes, digitally created costumes, and using Avatar and Avatar the Way of Water as an example. And I have interviewed Deborah Scott for the article. And some people at the wet effects also.
01:13:12
Speaker
So that's coming up later this year, which I'm very happy about. And I'm also involved in a very interesting visualizing lost theaters project. And in general, that research project has been recreating historical theater buildings.
01:13:36
Speaker
digitally and then my task in the past and now has been designing the costumes for the audience and last winter I was working on the costumes for the Ibsen Theater in Bergen in Norway.
01:13:57
Speaker
And the performance that we aimed to do was from 1857, I believe. So I was doing like,
01:14:10
Speaker
1850s costumes for the audience members. But in that case, the design is different because there are a number of people in the audience, again, multiplied costumes that I've made.
01:14:31
Speaker
And you cannot have very detailed, accurate details in the costume. So I really have to emphasize the silhouette of the era. And most people are also sitting down, so you can't have a distinct crinoline dress. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. If you're trying to... It's such a distinctive skirt shape. It kind of gets lost when you're sitting on your butt. Yeah. Yeah.
01:14:59
Speaker
But then now we are moving on to the next stage to start recreating one of the Ibsen's plays. So I believe that's the first time ever that a historical play is brought to life digitally. So we have to be part of doing that. Now, is that something as the project, you know,
01:15:23
Speaker
is finished, is that something that people are going to be able to view virtually? Yes, on the Visualizing Lost Theaters website, yes.
01:15:33
Speaker
And it's a long, long process. And I'm not sure whether when it's finished and it's also requires more research funding. And like most things, sure. Yeah, most things. So a bit by bit what we can and then build from there. So I am not sure when it's done, but one day it will be.
01:15:58
Speaker
That's great. No, wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, it's such a pleasure to chat with you and have you join me for this this first real inaugural episode of Disney undressed. Thank you so much, Marie. Thank you. All right, guys, so thank you for listening and be sure to follow Disney undressed on Instagram and threads and heaven help me if I decide to join the artist formerly known as Twitter.
01:16:25
Speaker
where I'll be posting some fun visual references for the episodes as well as info for the next episode. So keep an eye out for that. And I hope you'll join me again as I undress your favorite Disney films.