HAIR, MAKEUP, AND COSTUMES

Job Overview

Set costumers set up the actors’ trailers with appropriate costumes, sometimes serving as a dresser, and take photographs and notes on set during filming to maintain continuity. For example, whether a coat is worn or carried, the placement of a collar, or how a necktie is tied are all part of continuity.

“The set costumers are also in charge of the actors’ comfort,” says costumer Katrina Migliore. “If you're shooting a scene outside and it's 30 degrees, but it's supposed to be summer, you have to run in between every take and give the actor a coat to wear to keep them warm. The set costumer is in charge of keeping track of handbags and other items that the actor might not want to wear or carry all the time.”

Special Skills

Basic sewing abilities are an asset, combined with knowledge of period clothing and styles; also needed are organizational and people skills. “Physical stamina and costuming experience” are necessary skills, advises Kathie L. Pierson. “I personally know how to sew well and have twenty years experience in theater costuming.”

Advice for Someone Seeking This Job

Call your local film commission to discover productions coming to your area. Let the film office know you are interested in working as a day player or on low budget productions to gain some experience. A job as a production assistant is another way to make initial contacts. Let those people know you want to work in wardrobe. “When they come across a situation that they're not interested in, they'll pass your name along,” says Migliore. “That is how you get your first breaks.

“Go to Fashion Institute of Technology or a similar school for education. Work as a PA in a wardrobe department—get your opportunities from the people you work for. Meet the designers and wardrobe supervisors. They'll help you lots!”

Professional Profile: Katrina Migliore, Costumer

“I've always loved movies,” says Katrina Migliore. An art major in graphic design at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, she considered architecture and advertising as future careers. “I had freedom in my major to dabble in a bunch of different fields of art. I took photography, I took painting, and I took ceramics.” But it was a weaving class that started her on the path to being a costumer.

When Migliore wanted to learn to sew so that she could make something from the fabric she was weaving, a friend suggested she work in the University's costume shop for five or ten hours a week and they would teach her how to sew. “The woman who ran the costume shop became my mentor. When a theater production needed a dresser, she would suggest me. I was always watching her design costumes and sets.” In time, Migliore assisted in designing a show and eventually designed costumes for a friend's play. During the summer, she worked for a dinner theater, gaining additional experience.

After graduation, she served a summer apprenticeship in the Santa Fe Opera costume shop. “It was very good training in the right way to sew. It's a very hard-working, strict costume shop. You do it the right way and if it's not right, you do it over until you get it right. They are known for really beautifully made costumes.”

Her apprenticeship completed, Migliore remained in New Mexico another year, working for different boutique clothing and accessory designers. Through an employer, she heard of a feature coming to shoot in the area and faxed off a résumé. Late one night she got a call to be on set at 5:30 the following morning to work as a day player on Speechless. With another woman, she was sent into a field of 300 extras with Polaroid photographs to maintain continuity. “We had to go around and make sure the extras had the same thing on. It was one of those days where it was cold in the morning and got warm in the afternoon, but if they had their coat on when shooting started, they had to keep it on all day. When they came back the second day, it was a continuation of the scene.” Fascinated, Migliore knew she wanted to be part of filmmaking.

She moved to Los Angeles for a short time before returning to Virginia, where she discovered many opportunities to work in film on the East Coast. Through a friend she had met while working on an outdoor drama during college, she landed a job on the television series Ghost Stories. “It was grueling and I was working for a lot less than I normally accepted, but the appealing part was that the show was going to turn union and everyone working on it would get into the union free. You'd still have to pay your dues, but you wouldn't have to pay the initiation fee. That is how I got in the union.”

From Ghost Stories, Migliore went directly to working as a set costumer on the television series Legacy. Her next big break was on the miniseries Sally Hemmings: An American Scandal, followed by features Cherry Falls, The Patriot, Domestic Disturbance, and A Walk to Remember. Proving the importance of maintaining relationships, the supervisor who hired Migliore for The Patriot was the same supervisor she had worked with six years earlier on her first film, Speechless.

Although work has not proved to be as consistent as it might have been on the West Coast, Migliore has nonetheless established her name as a costumer with impressive credits. During leaner times, she worked various part-time jobs and formed Glamour Cats to sell purses she designs and creates. She is currently pursuing options to again relocate to Los Angeles.

Professional Profile: Kathie L. Pierson, Costumer, Set Costumer, or Tailor

“Seeing [my] name in the credits. I love that,” says costumer Kathie L. Pierson, who grew up in Delaware. A skilled seamstress, she began working in costuming when she was 20 to earn money for college. Her first costume job was in theater, working at The Grand Opera House in Wilmington, North Carolina. She later graduated with a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of Delaware, with distinction in ceramics.

Her entrance into filmmaking came as a result of membership in the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) union through her theater work, which is the same union for film costumers. Pierson's union card enabled her to land work on the movie Beloved when the production came to North Carolina. There she met and worked for Cha Blevins, “who is the best wardrobe supervisor from California.” Blevins later hired Pierson to work on The Time Machine.

Following Beloved, Pierson was hired as an assistant costumer for The Sixth Sense when it shot in Philadelphia, and as a costumer for Numbers when it shot in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. When not working on a film, Pierson can be found working at the same theater where she originally started out: The Grand Opera House.

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