Filming On Location

People often ask me which of the TV shows or films I have designed costumes for is my favorite. That’s a tough one as each show is so unique. It’s like asking which of your children you like best!

I loved doing “A League of Their Own” ( see my last post) because of the 1940’s period costumes and filming on location. I loved doing “Family Law” because, as a 60 minute prime-time drama, we had top level actors, wonderful scripts, and spent 3 out of 7 filming days on location, which lends lots of variety to the job. 

One day we’d be on Venice Beach amidst the roller skaters and beach-goers, another day on skid row, another in a beautiful arboretum, another in a high school. I never got tired of driving to an entirely new place (usually at 6 am!), looking for the parking lot where all the trailers were parked, finding my wardrobe trailer, and getting started with my crew preparing the actor’s wardrobe and setting it up in their dressing rooms.

One of my favorites was the day we shot “Sweet Justice” at the racetrack. No matter how long I am in the costume designing business, there is ALWAYS something new to learn, some new aspect of “clothing” that I knew nothing about prior to finding it in my script. I had never really paid any attention to  jockeys’ outfits, other than that they are brightly colored. But I learned that the jockeys and their horses wear specifically designed outfits called “silks”  which are provided by the horse or stable’s owner. Though we had professional jockeys in our shoot, I had to know what was ocrrect so I could outfit my actor jockey in the right thing. (Who knew jockeys wear four or five pair of goggles so they can peel them off one by one when they get mud kicked up over them? I didn’t).

Another day in the same script we were about an hour out of Los Angeles at a gorgeous ranch with beautiful stables. Inbetween takes we walked around and looked at the gorgeous horses grazing in green pastures, or being exercized in their water treadmill. It hardly seemed like work! (for me, not the horses!)

Not all location days are that pleasant. I remember one day we were downtown in a very seedy neighborhood and it poured with rain all day, a cold, hard-driving rain. Since on location we work out of “trailers”, every time we had to deliver a costume to an actor, or head for the set, we had to deal with getting soaked, but keeping the costume and the actor dry.

I’ve also filmed at a prison, which is weird. The coldest I ever felt was during an all night shoot in Detroit in March. The hottest I’ve ever been is on the beach in Fort Lauderdale in mid August.

The saddest day on location happened to be the first day back to work after September 11th, 2001, the day of the terrorist attack on the world trade center. We were filming, ironically, in a cemetary. Everyone, cast and crew, seemed to be walking around in a fog. We were so overwrought anyway, the cemetary setting made it worse. I had worn a vintage American flag pin, and when one crew member (a big burly male) saw it, he burst into tears. 

Well, I had started out thinking I was going to write about one of my favorite shows, Ned and Stacey, but that will have to wait for another post.