“I know some new tricks”, said the cat in the hat, “A lot of good tricks. I will show them to you. Your mother will not mind at all if I do.”

The cat in the Hat, Dr. Suess

Tricks they are what we build our trade on.

Skill is where we start. I will never say that skill is ever replaceable. The more we know about what we do, the better we are.

For me knowing how to build clothing helps me know better how to take it apart, break it into components, and do what needs to be done on the day to get the shot no matter what is required!

But it is the tricks, the little things that we stumble over, learn the hard way, and then Share!!

Yes, I have used that word again!

Share, share, share… That makes our jobs so much better!

So I am sharing just one such little trick that we stumbled across last year while solving a problem.

Venice never quite seems real, but rather an ornate film set suspended on the water.

~ Frida Giannini

Hanging with new friends at the Fortuny Museum!

What do you think of when you think of Venice; canals, gondolas, Carnival, masks, opera, glass, lace, rubber boots, velvet?

Venice is more than any one thing.  For costumers and clothiers it is an amazing city that has an astounding history with many wondrous things to see, arts to touch and passionate people that want to share.

Have You Ever Been Tied Up?

Have you ever been tied up?  Not in the 50 Shades of Grey kinda way but in the fly me to the moon kinda way?

Maybe not, although… you may have felt the pinch of a climbing harness in your past.:)

I’ve been busy… but having fun!

I got a call from my mother the other day wondering if she had missed my last few blogs.  “The last one I read was in May?”  She questioned.

Yep, sad but true!  It was ‘Duct Tape‘… and it was May.

I’m so sorry!  (How very Canadian of me… but I am sorry!)

But I do have an excuse… how good it is, I don’t know… but it’s a good jumping off point for today’s blog.

D is for duct tape.

Click here are get some instruction on how to make a” Judy” of yourself with duct tape!

I love duct tape or as I have always called it “Gaffer’s tape”. I grew up in the film industry so we always had silver rolls of duct tape around the house that we used to close, hold or fix just about anything. I didn’t even know that it was called ‘duct tape’ until I went to buy some after I moved away from home.

“‘Tis healthy to be sick sometimes.”

Henry David Thoreau

I have made it! All the way to Easter that is!

Some years the first few months of work can be really, really slow, and some years they can be booming. This year pilot season in Vancouver was crazy busy… our local union was putting every available person to work just trying to get bodies to fill positions… regardless of experience.

What does that mean? Well, don’t get sick!   Sickness is not an option!!

Always Wear Clean Underwear: Golden Rules are Golden for a Reason!

During the Digital Days Conference that I attended in February at the Electronic Arts Campus in Burnaby, British Columbia, Claùde Parè was the opening speaker on the first day… and let me tell you; he helped start the conference off with a bang!

His talk was called, The Rules of Cinema: Rated ‘R’… and he was just amazing!

Now, as you may have gleaned in previous posts, I’m a big fan of Jessica Sitomer‘s seminars that she gives here in Vancouver each year.  She travels everywhere, so take a look and see if she is coming to talk in your area.  One of the things Jessica says when going for a job interview is, “When some one asks, ‘How do you feel you excel at your job?’, find a way to tell them by using a story about you doing your job.”  Draw the people in around you with more than just an, ‘Oh, I think I am great organizer’.  You could say, “On Tron I had the challenge of bringing multiple departments together each morning before the cast arrived to start the process of getting dressed.  The specialty costume took an hour or longer from start to finish to dress the cast and once on, they were a challenge to remove quickly. A Sound Assist was needed to wire the suit before we started testing of the lighting systems and a costume tech was needed to asst sound…”

This shouldn’t have happened…

This is way beyond costumes; this kind of incident can and has happened to someone in every department, and I would love to say that from this day forward it won’t happen again… but I can’t.

February 20th, 2014 a horrific accident happened on the set of the feature film “Midnight Rider” and a young camera assistant, Sarah Jones, was killed.

The same accident injured many other crew members, some very seriously.

If you are reading my blog and are trying to get into film, or are fairly new to the film and television industry, you may not yet have an understanding of all of the things that can and do happen in our workplaces.  We sometimes work in dangerous places, with dangerous set pieces.  We sometimes work in hazardous environments.  We lift heavy things and the ground is rarely even underfoot.  We work until we’re bone tired… then we drive home.

#Future Proofing… Are you ready for the future?

Last weekend I attended the Digital Days; The Future is Now seminar, at the Electronic Arts Campus in Burnaby, British Columbia.  It was enlightening, eye opening and wonderful.  When I signed up I wasn’t sure if all the talks were going to be about something I was involved in; meaning did this have anything to do with costumes?  As I sat through each talk, I realized that even when it was completely focused on other departments there are still so many little bits that directly relate to many aspects of our department.

“Let’s talk about sex, baby, Let’s talk about you and me, Let’s talk about all the good things, And the bad things that may be, Let’s talk about sex….”

~ SALT ‘N’ PEPA

Shot from the opening credits of the TV series Masters of Sex

We costumers are some of the ‘lucky’ few that get to be on set during a sex scene.  Yep right on set, really, really close.  Some of you who have had the experience may know this already; it isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be!