#_behindtheblack

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Behind the Black

Making Maleficent: Costume Design with Anna B. Sheppard

The costume design of Disney's Maleficent is sweeping, graceful and dramatic, just like Maleficent herself. Here, renowned costume designer Anna B. Shepard tells us about her research, inspiration, and the process of dressing Maleficent for the big screen. Q: You have a both an extensive and varied list of accomplished projects- which did you draw the most experience from for Maleficent? A: The only project I can link to Maleficent was Captain America, The First Avenger - even though one is a fairy tale and the a other comic book, both contained a big array of CGI and reality mixed with fantasy. Also both involved creating the iconic image of the hero and represented vast production values. Q: How much of a role did the original animated version of Maleficent play in your designs? A: The famous black robes from Disney's animated Sleeping Beauty influenced Maleficent's image in our movie- we created a version of these for the christening scene as a tribute to the image that so many people have grown up with. Q: Can you take us through the research process when you work on a film? How did you immerse yourself in the world of Maleficent? A: Research for the movie is, in my opinion, the most important and interesting part of the preparation process. In the case of Maleficent, one of my main sources for inspiration was the 15th Century-to-Renaissance art period of both French and Italian art - paintings, sketches and sculptures. As I had to create two very different worlds, one with creatures living in a forest fairyland and the other an opulent human kingdom, my research was divided into using a lot of references to nature - the world of insects, birds and animals, which contrasted with the images of royal courts, armour and lavish adornments in beautiful fabrics. The latter was very different from the simplicity of the natural world. Research also helped to provide different sources of colour and shapes, creating a background tapestry of visuals that formed the basis of the actors' costumes for each of their characters. All of the images were then collated and made into big mood boards, displayed in my office and the workrooms for my crew and makers. Q: Which costumes in the film were the most challenging? A: The most challenging costumes were the ones for Maleficent and Stefan because they tell so much of the story and their relationship, changing dramatically through the course of the film.  Maleficent's costumes evolved from mossy colours and floaty fabrics to become dark and sculptural shapes in much heavier fabrics with lots of volume - artificial furs, leather and feathered accessories were used to form a much darker and sinister-looking character. Stefan changes from a peasant boy to a powerful and rich king obsessed with the use of iron to create his invincible kingdom. For the final battle, pieces of his armour were hand sculpted to create a much more modern and dangerous image than the ornate armour of King Henry. Q: What role does CGI play in your costume design? A: CGI played a very big role in Malificent, creating additional depth to the production design and amazing action sequences. In practice it meant not using certain colours in costumes (certain shades of green and blue), also it meant we had to take into account the weight and flexibility of structures as fabrics had to float in the air and be fire retardant in some cases and serve the image that will be created by CGI. Q: How much of a difference do you find between working on a film and working on a television series? A: I worked on two big TV series - Band of Brothers and The Prisoner - both with vast amounts of costumes. I think now that with the advent of HDTV the gap between film and television has shrunk visibly- apart from the faster pace of shooting for TV, there isn't much difference in production values. Q: Is a role's stunt work ever a factor in the costume design? A: Stunt costumes very often create quite a challenge for the creation of the garments involved. Sometimes the beauty of the costume has to be sacrificed for the safety of the stuntman! Metal pieces are often replaced with rubber, fabrics are made lighter but mirroring the image of the original and shapes are wired to help with maintaining the silhouette. With shoes, the soles need to be more flexible and with a good surface grip. Q: Could you describe the collaboration with the makeup artists on this project? A: The collaboration process between costumes and makeup in this type of movie is an every-day occurrence and necessity in this kind of production. My team and I worked closely with the makeup department, helping with the placement of hats, crowns and working together on hairstyles, particularly facial hair to complete the look of characters.

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Behind the Black

Awkward Situation

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Behind the Black

Making Maleficent: Makeup and Effects with Rick Baker

From superheroes to undead spirits to a galaxy far, far away, Rick Baker has had a hand in bringing some of film's most beloved characters to life. Lending his indisputable talents to the set of Maleficent, he now shares with us his experience reinventing this cherished character. Q: Could you take us through the process of developing Maleficent’s look and how you collaborated with Angelina Jolie to arrive at a final product? A: First of all, I was flattered that Angelina Jolie allowed me to do this and pretty much insisted that I do this. I had just finished “Men in Black III” and didn’t want to work right away but she was hard to turn down. She had some ideas, and it was my job to try to make her ideas work. She’s very specific and that’s really good. I like that. Sometimes you’ll collaborate with people who just say that there’s something about it they don’t like but they don’t know what it is. But Angelina would just say, “No, that’s too red or that’s not in the right place. I want it over here.” The first thing I did when I was first contacted was a digital painting of what I thought her look should be. Personally, I thought for Angelina Jolie, you didn’t really want to do too much to her. For me, it was maybe horns and ears. I pretty much left her face alone because for one, I was kind of afraid. Her face is so smooth and pretty; it’s really hard to put in appliances and I just didn’t want to be responsible for messing up her face. Q: What did you end up using? A: Angelina wanted to wear appliances for Maleficent’s look, so I did a number of designs with appliances that were subtle. She also wanted a nose, which I actually thought could give her more of a Maleficent look. We ended up with numerous sets of cheeks and ears and horns in the beginning stages. First we made sketches and then later we actually sculpted on a cast of her head and made pieces for her to review. From there, it continued to evolve after they went to England to shoot the film. She had her personal makeup artist Toni G, who’s worked with her for a long time and does her beauty makeup. Arjen Tuiten, who works with me, met with them and he applied the appliances with Toni G doing the beauty makeup part of it. Q: Was putting prosthetics on Angelina Jolie’s face a challenge? A: It made the makeup very difficult because the cheek pieces are subtle and they’re small and the edges are put right in the middle of her face, basically on her smooth perfect skin. That’s the hardest kind of skin that you could put an appliance on and it’s the hardest place to put it. Normally, we try to put them far back, almost where the ears are, or up under the eyes, but we had to put the edge right across the middle of her cheeks. Then she had a nose and ears too. Q: What are the cheeks, nose and ears made of? A: The cheeks and the nose and the ears that we have on her are all silicone, gel-filled appliances. They don’t weigh much because these pieces are so small but silicone is actually pretty heavy. The ones that probably weigh the most are the ears. Maleficent’s cheeks look big in the film but it’s amazing because the appliances are less than a quarter of an inch at their thickest points and only about a half inch wide. They sit right at the crest of her cheekbones. Q: Did you design her eyes? A: We had lenses made for her. Angelina designed them. She said what she wanted and we had them made. The lenses were hand-painted by an artist who is an expert in that field. I have a lady that does them all the time for us and we had some pictures made of these eyes and had the eyes amped up a little bit. Q: How long was the Maleficent makeup process each day? A: Maleficent took about 3 hours. It’s about an hour and a half getting all the pieces on and then another hour and a half doing the beauty makeup and putting the horns on. Q: Why did you choose to omit Maleficent's traditional green skin? A: I don’t exactly know exactly how that came about. We still wanted her to look pretty and attractive. That was an important thing and we didn’t want her look to be too creature-like. Keeping it relatable seemed like the right thing to do for this film. Q: Speaking of creatures, what is your favorite type of creature to create? A: I have so many favorites. I definitely like creating creatures more than say old age makeup. Creatures were the things that got me into being a makeup artist to begin with and they’re still my favorite kinds of things. Now I like aliens and werewolves too. I like any kind of monster, really. I went through an ape phase in my career. Starting from when I was very young, I thought that a gorilla was something that I could do with my skills. I liked the idea that you could put a man in a gorilla suit and really fool people with it. I set out to build the ultimate gorilla suit and when I did “Gorillas in the Mist,” we intercut our guys in gorilla suits with real gorillas and nobody knew the difference. That was when I knew I had achieved my goal. But just when I thought I don’t ever need to build another Gorilla suit again, I did “Mighty Joe Young” for Disney, which I think was the best suit that I ever made. Q: Do you have a certain creation that you return to for inspiration or is everything always new? A: Everything’s new. There are some kinds of re-occurring things that pop up when I do something, like a certain angle. I like 45-degree angles on things. Even in “Maleficent” the cowl that cuts into the side of her face follows that line of almost a 45-degree angle. In creating something evil, angles work. Q: What materials were used for the horns and how are they attached? A: The horns were one of the big issues because no one would want to walk around all day with big horns on his or her head. So, I wanted to make them as lightweight as possible and removable because when you have something that sticks out a foot beyond your head and you’re not used to it, you’re apt to run into things. I messed around with it a lot and we did a lot of experimentation on materials. We worked on how to make it work so that we could put them on and take them off easily during the course of the day since Angelina wouldn’t have to wear them in between shots. If they even weighed like a pound each, at the end of the day, it would really hurt. So we made them very, very lightweight. I couldn’t really tell you exactly what they weighed but they were very thin. Everybody who’s picked them up can’t believe how light they are. After much experimentation, we ended up basically with a maxi-form skullcap that had on it the base of the horns and the first inch or so of the horns. The rest of the horns stuck on with a magnet. They were very strong magnets that held them in place but we could then pop them off in between shots. It worked quite well. Q: How many sets of horns were there? A: I would say we probably made at least 20 sets of horns of different types and replacements. We actually sculpted at least four different designs of horns. I did some drawings and modeled some of the designs for the horns on the computer. Then we actually ended up sculpting them. We chose the one that we liked the best and did all the work using that one design. Q: From a safety standpoint, would the magnets disengage if Angelina Jolie were to become hung up on something or fall? A: Yes. For example, if she were doing wirework and something crossed over or bumped they would disconnect easily. But because of that, we had to make many duplicates because if they fell, they would break. We also had a stunt version of the horns that were more rubbery, so that they would not hurt anybody. It was a lot of experimentation on how to keep them affixed to her head and how to make them seamlessly removable. Fortunately the horns had a sculpted texture of lines, like a growth line basically, so that made really good connection points. They were pretty cool and very well made.

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Behind the Black

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