Recently I’ve done several poll on the SFF Facebook group to determine the Top 5 of lots of different things. For the 24 days leading up to the 25th Anniversary (and the day itself, of course) I will be posting a new Top 5 list each day, using the highly scientific and unbiased results from those FB polls. I’ll try to make these posts short but I’m pretty long winded and like to talk so…they’re probably all going to be pretty long. Enjoy?
Top 5 Costumes
Today just so happens to be my birthday so I'm going to spend this post talking about my favorite thing: COSTUMES!
I love costumes. They're my favorite part of...well anything - plays, parades, Halloween, and of course SFF productions! My mother was a costumer who both designed and built costumes for community theatre productions, high school productions, madrigal groups, the Bloomington Shakespeare festival, and even for a few TV specials that were filmed locally through WILL-TV but aired nationally. Yeah, she's very impressive. She also rented costumes to local theatre productions and had a MASSIVE collection of not just costumes, but also accessories like hats, gloves, belts, jewelry, cloaks, and even some set pieces and props.
My love of costumes came from her and she taught me by example how to design the costumes for a show, keeping in mind characters, colors and their meaning, time periods, and style. She showed me how to take everyday clothing items and jazz them up or alter them to look like a certain time period. She taught me that accessories make the costume look it's best, and that costumes need to coordinate and blend a bit to make the production look best.
Obviously I used her costumes for the SFF productions, although many items or costumes were provided by the actors as well. I'm not good at making costumes from scratch, but I can alter things pretty well and build onto an existing piece of clothing. All of which is thanks to my mother. I helped her name her rental business as Parasol Productions. I don't think she ever really used the names, but it shows up a lot in the credits of SFF productions.
Top 5 Costumes
#5 - It's a tie between
Brother Bob and El Banyo
Brother Bob's Monk Outfit
(Pandora's Box)
In Episode 8 of Pandora's Box a new character is introduced named Brother Robert (aka Brother Bob) played by Neil Cappetta. He's a monk from the Order of Saint Vidicon, the fictional saint my father created in his books the Warlock Series. Saint Vidicon is the patron saint of engineers so I wanted Brother Robert's costume to reflect that. Obviously the base is a monk's robe that was made by, for, and borrowed from my brother Edward. I covered the robe with a fisherman's vest full of pockets to store things and a baseball cap, all provided by Neil Cappetta. Then it was a matter of adding accessories like headphones, a tool belt, a hammer, and for some random reason a croquet mallet. The best accessary, however, was a cross made from discarded computer motherboard bits. I'm glad he made the Top 5 because the outfit is a lot of fun.
The El Banyo's Pirate Outfit
(Destiny III)
The Great El Banyo, played by Rachel Zoralee, is the self-proclaimed Greatest Pirate in the World and captain of the all female pirate ship, La Mara Manita. She is flamboyant, over-flowing with confidence, completely in command of every situation, and believes that she is the best at everything. I want to reflect her over-the-top personality with an over-the-top outfit filled with bright colors, lots of trim, and plenty of gold jewelry and accessories. I wanted her to look like a colorful parrot. The variety of fabric textures was intentional with the velvet jacket, satin shirt, fringed pants, and cotton vest.
I took a plain pirate hat and sewed on a bunch of trim, glued on jewels, and added as many feathers of ever color that I possibly could and throughout the film shoot feather kept falling out of her hat like she was molting. I took a plain pink vest I got at a costume sale, added trim and painted patterns on it. The embroidered hot pink belt didn't stay on very well but that's probably because I shoved a jeweled dagger and a gun in there. The scimitar was sheathed in the glittery turquoise sash. Despite the motley of pieces I think the costume pulled together really well and it very much fit the personality of the character.
#4 - Melantha's Gypsy Garb
(Destiny)
Melantha's costume is iconic and it's only natural that it make into the Top 5. Melantha, played by Annamarie MacLeod, provides the entertainment as the dancer at a royal banquet/picnic. What she wears is a beautiful red and gold outfit with a full skirt. The basic elements of the outfit were my design but the majority of the actual costume was made by Annamarie.
The dancing troupe I formed with my friends that sort of led into Destiny had what was kind of a uniform I suppose you could say. Each girl wore at least two skirts, a narrow overskirt full of glitter, sequins, and/or trim, a peasant blouse, a corselet, and a sash. However the colors where a mixture so they looked more like a rainbow then just using one or two colors.
At first we used costume pieces from my mother's collection but eventually some of them decided to make their own. One of the dances we were going to do (but never actually did) was going to involve the four elements so Annamarie decided to make her outfit based on fire, which is why it's all made of red and gold. The only part of her outfit she didn't make was the sheer yellow overskirt which my mother actually purchased at a science-fiction convention. In my opinion that overskirt is what transforms the outfit and looks spectacular when spins around. Obviously when a gypsy dancing outfit was needed in the movie for Annamarie's character she used her own.
The Gypsy Wanderers had a part to play in the founding of the company and was represented by Melantha in Destiny. The faceless dancer footage I filmed for Destiny has been used in multiple productions and montages when I want to tie all the SFF productions together. The dancer is a central motif which is why I decided to use the image of Melantha dancing as the primary element for the logo when I redesigned it in 2006. Morgan Thomas used my design and made it much better and Morgan's version of the logo is what I use today. Thanks for letting me use it Morgan!
#3 - Baste's Final Outfit
(Eidolon)
Baste is the Ancient Egyptian Goddess of Cats, but in Eidolon she is a powerful sorcerer and the Goddess of Life. Played by Annamarie Macleod, Baste actually has three outfits. The first is a short skirt, jean jacket, t-shirt and boots, the second is a dress and sash, and the third and final outfit is a tank top, short skirt, belt combo. I'm a little surprised this made the Top 5 - and so high up the list - because it wasn't planned out ahead of time like the other ones. I threw it together in a single day because Annamarie was coming over to film her lines for three scenes and I needed two outfits for her to wear. I love the outfit, don't get me wrong, but there wasn't the hours of design, assembly, or construction that went into it, it was more a matter "what do I have that looks Bastey and Egyptiany?"
The coolest part of the costume is definitely the black lace, long sleeve undershirt that actually belonged to Jen Weber. I'm not sure if the red tank top belonged to Jen or to Annamarie, but it definitely did not belong to me. I know the white leggings were mine because I'd used them before in other productions, but I have no idea if the black skirt was mine or Jen's. Basically we raided Jen's closet to see what would work. The turquoise belt was "mine" (ie I stole it from my mom) and was part of a set built for my high School's production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. The jewelry all belonged to me, well the collar and pendant did. I'm not sure who the turquoise necklace we put on her head belonged to. I think it was Annamarie's but I could be wrong.
Even though it's a strange mish-mesh of clothing pieces it pulled together nicely and the vivid colors combined with the collar necklace gives it a strong Ancient Egyptian feel with modern gothic punk elements. It worked out much better then I thought it would and I think it's pretty cool. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks that. Also, Annamarie had the right attitude - or should I say "cattitude" to pull it off and make it look good. Thanks so much for letting us raid your wardrobe Jen!
#2 - Mordecai's Sorcerer's Robes
(The Curse)
In Episode 3 of The Curse Zandra meets the ghost of a thousand year old sorcerer named Mordecai, played by Mike D. He was put into a magical centuries long sleep while wearing his ceremonial sorcerer's robes. I had a lot of fun designing Mordecai's robes. I wanted something that would have a vaguely medieval feel but also be full of fantasy and other worldly. He needed to look powerful, magical, and ancient and I think I did a pretty good job with that.
The Curse was filmed in the spring 200, but in the fall of 2000 I had been to the costume sale for the U of I's theater program and purchased several costume items including the brown kimono style robe that forms the main part of the costume. The robe was probably made for a production of Mikado at some point, but I'm not really sure. I just thought they looked cool with the red and gold patterned trim, long wide sleeves, and bright patterns sewn on them.
Under the main robe I used a red velvet tunic I found at Good Will around Halloween, but it wasn't long enough so I searched for and eventually found fabric that matched the tunic. I switched it on, added trim to cover up the bad sewing, and called it good. The outfit still lacked something so I added a black...stole? It's not exactly a stole, or a cape, or a cloak. It's basically a robe without sleeves and I have no idea what the technical term for that is. It was also too long. I never hemmed up the tunic because I didn't know how tall the actor who played the part would be when I made it and I never bothered to hem it up after he was cast, so there was tripping involved on set. Sorry Mike.
The big and dark gold belt along with the gold chains and amulet added the finishing touches. I will say that it wasn't not an easy outfit to put on (or walk around in) because there were so many layers. The main brown robe was also very heavy, and between the heavy robe, velvet tunic, and black jacket/stole/robe thing it was a very hot costume to wear. Luckily we were filming in February so it was pretty chilly out. If he had to film in that costume on a hot day I think Mike might have passed out from heatstroke. Over all the costume looked great, and that's what's important. I'm really glad it made it into the Top 5 list because it's one of my personal favorites that actually took a lot of time to design and assemble.
#1 - The Balthazar Costume
(Destiny)
It's no surprise that the Balthazar Costume from Destiny got the #1 spot. I was pretty sure it would since it's the most awesome costume every created. Technically speaking the full Balthazar costume actually includes the cape and hat. The pants that were made to go with the costume were not actually used for Balthazar, he had plain black pants because I was pretty sure they would be so big on him they would look silly, but they've been used with the jacket in other productions.
Although it's called the Balthazar Costume because it was first worn by Balthazar, played by Jacob MacLeod, in the very first SFF production - Destiny, it was actually created for a different character. In the spring of 1995 my high school did a production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing that was costumed by my mother. The outfit was designed for the main villian, Don John, and was originally worn with the red shirt that I used for Malacite and Fernando in later productions.
The actor who wore it in Much Ado About nothing actually borrowed it to be his madrigal costume in the winter of 1996/97 and we didn't get it back for almost a year which is why Balthazar never wears the iconic costume in Destiny III. When I filmed unfinished scenes from Destiny III for the Destiny Mini-Series in 1999 I did have the costume again and made him wear it for a few of those scenes.
Over the years I've used the Balthazar Costume, sans cloak and hat, for other characters such as Malacite, played by Mike Baym, in The King of Eflin's Daughter. The jacket was used for De Carlo in Episode 11 of Pandora's Box, although it doesn't work as well for De Carlo as it did for everyone else. It was also used as the costume for Fernando in Episode 1 of The Curse and as Drake's costume in Episode 9 and 10 of The Gift Bearer where it was worn by two different actors.
I love the costume and I have always been attracted to the guys I've put in the costume (except Jacob) but only while they were wearing the costume and I didn't understand why the fall of 2001 when we were filming scene for Episode 10 of The Gift Bearer. Atlanta, played by Christine Komiskey, steals Drake's, played by Ja'e DeSoto, clothes for reasons. Despite a few rumors I am heterosexual so I was very surprised when I felt a serious and strong attraction to Christine which I had never felt before until she put on the costume.
That's when I realized it was actually the costume I was attracted to, not any of the people who have worn or may someday wear it. So I'm not actually heterosexual, I'm costesexual and I am only attracted to men when they are wearing costumes. As soon as the clothes come off and/or normal clothes are put on all attraction is instantly gone. I'm weird, but that's okay. I have been officially dating the Balthazar Costume for about 15 years now and we are very happy thank you very much. Although he's currently in storage. I need to get him out and hang him up now that I have room in my closet.
The Balthazar Costume has been used in photoshoots as well, most notably when I was doing costumed photoshoots in the Spring of 2003 and Christi Gerrish got to wear it (and looked amazing in it), and I think she borrowed it for Halloween one year. My nephew Asher also did a film shoot in it, but it was still a little big on him. Hey, Balthazar Costume likes attention and needs to get out and be photographed from time to time so the world can all bask in its magnificence.
Fun fact, the Balthazar Costume was worn on the first day of the first film shoot and has been used more than any other full costume in SFF, so you could say it's a part of SFF's anniversary too.
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