- 6 weeks ago
Oscar-winning costume designer Deborah L. Scott closes out THR’s special edition of 'Behind the Screen' with a fascinating look at the unprecedented artistry behind the costumes in 'Avatar: Fire and Ash.' Each design was essentially created twice: first as a real-life, tangible garment and then as a digitally realized on-screen version.
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00:00the essence of what makes these designs really special and really what makes the end result
00:05really special is that you're getting this incredibly complex detail to each and every
00:12garment whether it be a tiny little bead the way things are knotted the way they blow in the wind
00:18you're getting all that because of the mass amounts of testing that we did to get the costumes
00:24understandable to the visual effects people and the hands-on experience of actually giving them
00:30a sample i see you damn right you do hello and welcome to a special episode of the hollywood
00:48reporters behind the screen in partnership with 20th century studios featuring artisans who helped
00:53to create avatar fire and ash from the oscar-winning filmmaker james cameron i'm your host thr
00:59contributing editor stacy wilson hunt my guest today is costume designer deb scott hi deb welcome how are
01:06you i'm good thank you for having me oh it's such a pleasure and i've had such a blast speaking to
01:12members of your team and i can't wait to learn more about the costumes and avatar fire and ash
01:17but i want to go back to when you first worked with james cameron and this was on titanic if i'm not
01:21mistaken and of course you won an oscar for your work in that incredible movie i've never forgotten
01:27kate winslet's gorgeous blue and white suit she wears to get on the ship absolutely stunning and i
01:35want to know what struck you as unique about the way james approached costumes on that film
01:41that then has helped to inform your process with him and avatar well basically what it gets down to with
01:47him is that um you know he's he's pretty much an all or nothing kind of filmmaker so and by that i
01:56means he goes big and he understands the complexity of his whole movie and therefore demands sort of
02:03everyone rise to that level of performance and you know that was a very historically driven drama even
02:11though the characters are fictional the time and the place and a lot of the people we were
02:16representing were historical so you really the deep dive into sort of the methodology of it and you
02:23know you wouldn't on titanic you don't necessarily refer to it as the science of it but it it becomes
02:30kind of the way we work it's a very scientific concept driven proof of concept and you start there
02:37and you build a very very big world for him so you know he sees things kind of outside the screen
02:46you know so you're you're working a lot larger than how what it may end up being but yeah so it's a
02:54whole world and avatar was basically the same way right there's so there's a there's a guiding light
03:00a mythology to to all these worlds whether they be sort of quote in the sci-fi space or in this case
03:05a historical epic he's told me this many times where he sets kind of a very kind of simple love
03:12story against some historic or grand background and you can see that in all of his films and i think
03:19it's kind of the secret to reaching an audience in a very succinct way because they really dial into
03:27the storytelling and then are very enveloped in the world that they're getting to see visually so i
03:34think it's very unique in terms of uh the you know directors for sure i'm trying to think what
03:40was the love story in terminator who who was in love with whom in that one yeah i know well
03:48so i can't be responsible for it right but it is you know that but it still has that kind of it's
03:55you know the relationship of the so funny it's like even if they're nine foot tall blue people or robots or
04:03whatever you know they still have all those human components great and i have to say through line
04:09in his films great female characters too i mean every single movie an iconic female character which i
04:13think really brings in this other half of the audience because i know i like to see a killer woman
04:19character yeah she loves female characters they kind of guide most of the movies i think yeah no you're
04:27you're so right so in terms of avatar i think and i'm no expert in costume design but i have to imagine
04:32this is one of the most unique processes in the history of costume design in terms of your task of
04:37creating these costumes essentially twice so can you walk me through that process it's just absolutely
04:42fascinating yeah it's very very unique i mean it's i i don't think that many other designers or many
04:48other films approach it like we approach it for this particular film and these films these avatar films
04:56we're sort of uh straddling to two complete worlds of design one is you're designing and making things
05:03in the exact same old way that you used to on every single live action movie you ever worked on
05:10however it's opened up this incredible world of pandora where your imagination can run wild it's
05:16fantasy it's science fiction i mean jim doesn't really like to call it science fiction because even with
05:22the uh the uh the human component in our films are very approachable and very you know it's not like
05:29uh you know crazy spacesuits and stuff it's it's pretty approachable to what we would consider
05:35accessible now you know with a little bit of a twist but uh really based in the human element humanity as
05:44we know it the history of our world as we know it and and then it works since i do then take
05:51it into the virtual space and people have done this before there's been other i would say animated
05:58films like we don't call this really an animated film this is an intense performance capture film
06:04but you could in fact take a drawing on a piece of paper and give it to the visual artists visual effects
06:11artists and let them create it right you could do that but that's not how we do it
06:17because that's that's not that's not the um the essence of what makes these designs really special
06:24and really what makes the end result really special to your eye as a viewer is that you're getting this
06:31incredibly complex detail to each and every garment whether it be a tiny little bead the way things are
06:38knotted the way they blow in the wind how heavy something feels you're getting all that because of the mass
06:46amounts of testing that we did to get the costumes understandable to the visual effects people
06:53and the hands-on experience of actually giving them a sample like this is what it is right there's no
06:59mistake about it a drawing can always be interpreted you know there's always interpretation and the fact
07:05that you know john especially was a real real uh cheerleader for this process and cost in the costume
07:12department and it's very unique in the film it's very unique so in the world it's hugely unique in
07:19terms of costume designers worldwide they don't you know it's hard to explain it to people and hard for
07:25people to sort of grasp why we do what we do but it's the way to get the as close to a live element
07:34in a cg film basically that's the only way to do it because you could draw a lot of things and six
07:41different people see it as a different thing right it's a very very in-depth scientific approach to
07:48getting hands-on handcrafted and especially this movie it's not like a you have a kind of conventional
07:54film and then are cg-ing it we do that with some of the uniforms but you have very complex world built
08:03you know working with production design building worlds and coming up with the techniques that we
08:08use to make the garments hmm so fascinating and i know you did motion and water tests on some of
08:13these designs are you dressing the actors so in this case zoe and sam are they actually putting on
08:18the clothes and you're submersing them or you're putting wind on their faces to see how the how
08:23the garments blow around what is the process it really depends on what we're using it for
08:29and sometimes the you know the performance capture while we're doing that we use a lot of what i would
08:34call stage pieces so that you have a reference for what the real thing might look like because you
08:39can't use a real garment in performance capture it blocks the markers and there's you know 8 000 little
08:45dots all over the actors but a material that allows the cameras to see through it so that anything
08:52an actor interacts with like a shawl where they could pull it up against you know so instead of
08:58faking it which you could fake it right james cameron doesn't fake a thing so you gotta have it there
09:06and veron's headdress is another interesting one because that's not only for reference but also like
09:12if she turns her head and you know you're getting camera angles and lighting angles and just taking
09:19up space so you're working in that kind of you know weird half truths i guess in there but then
09:26long after the actors are gone when the costumes are getting very much designed and built because it
09:32takes a really long time to make these things everything's handcrafted and one of a kind and
09:38you know so they're pretty it's a pretty lengthy uh process but then we take to the proof of concept
09:46which is again something like a barang headdress where you're like well how do you get it in her
09:52hair and not have it blow off when she's zooming around on you know you know they really they fly
09:57real fast and i did it with una i've also done it with other um of our troop members where you actually
10:03put some something similar tie it into their hair weave it into someone's hair and put them in front of
10:10a ridder fan going really really fast so you're like is that thing gonna just literally fly off her
10:17head or take her hair out at the roots or so you know but in the process of doing that it's it's a
10:23lot of experimentation but they got a lot of good good reference out of things like that because even
10:30when richie would do the footage of slow motion and you could literally see like just the slightest bit of
10:36of that or you know so it informs the the cg artists because they don't know the simulation
10:43is all based in reality just like the actors movements are based in reality right and you
10:50mentioned wrong who is of course una chaplin's character and she's a new addition to fire and ash
10:54she's my favorite character i have to say just stunning i love the red accents and she's just so
10:58beautiful and evil too but combination yeah um yes and in terms of new characters i'd like to talk
11:03about the wind traders who are also new in this installment tell me what aspects of their dress
11:08you most enjoyed creating well they were really fun they were they were kind of like uh because
11:14they're more joyful and they're not you know in this installment they don't have they're not in
11:20it for a lot of screen time but their presence is really felt and important because they have this
11:26sort of joyful storytelling world traveling we're gonna fly around and make everybody happy and bring
11:33things and sell things and gossip with all the other clans on pandora and the fact that you never
11:39really knew you don't really know much about them except that they live on this big giant ship right and
11:45they travel around so all the clans so far and i'm not you know you never know how many clans are on
11:52pandora because we're not we don't really know about the whole planet yet but every clan so far
11:58kind of adheres to a couple of the same rules they're all there and it's much like earth it's i always
12:04say it's exactly the the rules that we have on earth when you think about how for instance hoop skirts
12:11all of a sudden you'd be seeing them worldwide even you know even back in that in those times so you see
12:18certain kinds of things i think all around pandora that's how i've established it that the nafi people
12:26have they weave they make things with their hands they make things from their environments so it's
12:34just a matter of having kind of that rule book and then taking it off in different directions and some
12:39of them like the wind traders are a really good example of again sort of a scientific approach in that
12:44they live on these gondolas and they mostly live really high up in the sky so it gets cold up there
12:50or to the capes which are very chic i must say who doesn't love who doesn't love a cape a nice cape
12:59it's not like our mck hyena clan was it was always warm right so they sort of scantily dressed but
13:06it was an opportunity to work in more clothing we wove our own cloth we did everything like they would
13:12have done it you know big looms and sometimes finger weaving so that was really really fun and
13:17looking at the colors that they may have seen in their environment that was kind of where i started
13:26from them everybody's a little bit like that right material wise they could get stuff from everywhere
13:32because they touch down at different places for me the colors were really important because it's not
13:38like the colors of the sky but that kind of very much saturated colors that we get at at a sunset or
13:44a sunrise and using a lot of jewel tones and using a lot of i've tried to as the installments have gone
13:53on and getting into some of these new clans i've gotten very interested in my own work of representing
14:00motion in the garment not only that you know it started of course you have this this cape that just moves
14:06around like you know so it does all that which is what the wind does which is what the sky does when
14:11you think of being outdoors it it makes sense trees bend to the wind and you know so you have all that
14:17but you also have a very visual design on it that is meant to sort of bring your eye along with the fabric
14:25so there's motion in the in the graphic there's motion in the the piece itself it's so interesting i
14:33spoke to ruth carter recently about her work on the black panther movies and there's such an overlap
14:38which is interesting the infusion of indigenous designs into this fantasy space what do you think
14:45is distinct about the impact of the indigenous i guess influences on the avatar storytelling at large
14:52i think that's it's very it's huge and i think because we are inventing our own indigenous peoples
14:59animals and you can't you know you can't you can't really make that up successfully i i mean i suppose
15:07you can but not in jim's world you know so again it has it had to do with a tremendous amount of
15:14research of all sorts of indigenous peoples literally worldwide on our our world today because it's easy to
15:23say well i'm going to make them have wings you could make them do anything like that right you could
15:28make stuff up but if you do that the authenticity that you're trying to create in the design and in
15:34the movie will fall down eventually so in this research of all these um different kinds of clans
15:42and peoples worldwide it it literally didn't wouldn't matter what i was looking for if i was looking
15:47for when i was designing the tattoos and i would say okay what what's that look like to people in
15:52antarctica and people in southeast china and people you know so with and we're so lucky today because
16:00we do have the internet may not always be completely truthful but you know you can dig deep and get
16:07pictures a lot of pictures and and and a lot of uh um written text you know about different kinds of
16:16of indigenous peoples but that research it really reminds you that somehow peoples everywhere come
16:24together in the most unique ways and when i would get stuck in a design you know and it's like oh i'd
16:29really really like to have some flowers on it it's like well what kind of flowers first of all we're on
16:35pandora so they can be anything and then i would look at many many many many many many books on flowers
16:42and just like have it fill your imagination and then go away and make a flower so the research
16:48doesn't stop wow and there's a universality to all of that i think is sort of what unites us
16:55as people whether we be real humans or fantasy humans i think to your point there's a groundedness
17:00to yeah to your designs i think that i can relate to even though i'm certainly not navi yeah yeah and i
17:06think it's because too like when you really think about it that any kind of people through throughout
17:13time right no matter even if it's in western cultures where people wear a tremendous amount
17:19of clothing in the you know 1800s or that people decorate themselves this is the concept of wearing
17:26clothing in your relay and in movies we're relaying character as well but in terms of people it's a way
17:35to show this is who i am um so true right so everybody thinks you know like oh i should wear
17:44this blouse today or i should you know so it's it goes back to the same principles forever for
17:52since i think you know the world was created so we just sort of try to carry on that because why not
17:57it's the basis of who a culture is so true and for those who may not know and i feel especially tied to
18:05some of your credits including back to the future and et uh it's so overwhelming to think that you
18:12were actually on those sets what an experience and i think about i think about marty's vest and i think
18:17about elliott's red hoodie and not only did they contribute so much to the story but they are literally
18:23the most iconic pieces of clothing from those films at least in my opinion and i want to know what
18:28do you think is the secret to creating or even envisioning an iconic piece of clothing for a
18:33character how do you know when you have found something that is the perfect addition to in
18:38this case steven spilberg's vision well thank you for that first of all of course robert's
18:43is too for back to the future don't want to leave him out uh you know that's such a good question
18:49because i don't think that you know that i think what you do is you strive for some kind of and for
18:56me it usually comes down to some kind of intuition the the vest perhaps in back in the future was
19:03generated partially from a comedy from a joke that was needing to be written um some piece that needed
19:10to set him apart from in the 50s right something that when he walks into the diner and the guy says did
19:16you jump ship because he thinks he's a sailor yeah like i said it's like okay um but you know so
19:23so it needed that you know so it had to be something that set him apart but the the idea of something
19:31becoming iconic i think the things that i think of and you can think of you know audrey hepburn in her
19:37black dress or that it it's a it's a complete meeting of a bunch of things one is a story that
19:45people love a character that resonates somehow henry thomas and et resonates i think for every single
19:52human being who watches that performance you know so the screenwriting the directing and everything
19:59coming together in a moment and then the movie becoming in a popular enough that it stays in the
20:10popular culture and you have kids today that you know they don't they've never seen they don't
20:14they didn't see et when they were little but they do now you know and people go to
20:21film fest or see it in some in in a theater and everyone's wearing red hoodies it has to be some
20:29kind of alignment of a whole bunch of things but i think it becomes really a a treasured element to a
20:36look into a character in a particular time and place so incredible and i've spoken to other
20:42costume designers about the challenges of managing a work room it's not always an easy process especially
20:48and for most artists you're a solitary worker on your own for so many years and then suddenly it's
20:53kind of like a showrunner suddenly you're running a writer's room but internally you're just an artist
20:58you're just a writer you're just a costume designer what has been your biggest learning curve in
21:02managing large groups of people who are working under you but also relinquishing control to them
21:07along the way absolutely i mean honestly it's like i think the more secure you get in your own work and
21:14i think people would probably say this about anything the more secure you are in your work
21:18the easier it is for you to relinquish some control because there's no way that i can watch over the
21:27heads of if i'm you know supervising 45 different people every single thing they do right but i think
21:37you hire like like-minded people i work really hard i like to hire people who work really hard and there's a
21:42passion in the work room on the set from the people who really invested in the project invested in their
21:51work and really respectful to my work and what i can give them and i think really one of the things
21:57that gets down to too is one of the the best things is the ability to communicate because on avatar
22:06it was very particular because no one was allowed to read the script is that me really yeah oh my
22:13goodness no i mean no one in your workspace was allowed to read the script wow so and i wasn't
22:18really allowed i couldn't tell plot points i couldn't you know so we get to a certain design
22:23or a piece and i'd be i found myself i really honed my skills of how to express myself you know that
22:30how many adjectives will it take to describe exactly how i want this sea cape to look you
22:36know and so right and i and i carry that on with the the visual effects artists you know because
22:41sometimes you're over computer and you're like they're showing you something back to you that
22:45they've interpreted over your work and you're like it's too heavy it needs to be lighter it needs to be
22:50fluffy it needs to be you know so the word usage is very particular and it's the best you know the
22:58the ability to be descriptive for myself became very very important because i would have to say okay
23:05look you know even the designers in the on the project when we would get all together and we were
23:11doing the ash people per se or any character but the ash people we had a lot of meetings together where
23:18we would say i would say like okay here's the deal guys this is who they are this is what the materials
23:23are this is how they fight this is how they look this is a you know they use paint they use so it's
23:31really building it from from kind of uh a conversation and you started it almost sounds like a parlor game
23:40where you have to describe something without using the words i can't tell you you know so yeah it's it's
23:48it's it's really key to be able to communicate succinctly because then people go you know i get
23:53it and then the the most beautiful part of the process is that when people then take what you give
24:02them and like i say are very passionate about what they do and they go do something and bring it back to
24:10you and give you something like a little glimmer of like oh wait a second now that's that's interesting
24:17maybe we take it this direction or and i would always say in the workroom would say i love that
24:23but not for this let's put it to the side and i'm going to use it someplace else you know i'm going to use
24:28that idea that you just made with your hands and and it would it would spark another direction for
24:33something else perhaps so nothing's wasted but you know the the ability that people have to bring
24:39you something back like i heard what you said and you know i heard that even when people shop for you
24:47on a contemporary movie like i i'll say here's the character and all the rules and look for this this
24:52and this and really good shoppers will often bring back just something a little off you know and
24:58sometimes like wow that is such a good idea that's exactly what i i think i think you know that's that
25:04that's the direction forward it's a wonderful given tip between people absolutely and then they have
25:09the foresight to bring back the red hoodie or the red vest and maybe something that you or the
25:14director hadn't thought of absolutely and is there a moment in the avatar storytelling arc where you
25:21have seen one of your designs rendered on screen for the first time and you thought wow i i know i
25:28imagined this but i couldn't have imagined the magic that they were going to create in the final product
25:32was there a moment where you were just blown away by their by what they were able to achieve yeah i mean
25:37they're you know they are the actual way that they do it the actual way they get from the garment to
25:45the screen you know it's laying over my head my i i mean there's there's two things going on there
25:53one is which which i give them what i think is the perfect element you know like okay here's your
25:59loincloth it better look like this it better look exactly like this right so they have something to
26:06strive strive for they have an a level of what i would consider the level to do so and in that
26:17process like some of the things you know are difficult and some of the things i've asked them
26:21to do through the process have been difficult you know there was a very early on john lando our dear
26:27john lando had and jim had what you know they wanted me to stay on through all this post so that i
26:33supervise the virtual artists as well and that's for a reason because you have to have like the
26:39guiding light right the voice of here's here's what i want and again maybe they'll bring something
26:45new but they're not they don't often do that because they're really trying to get perfect what i give them
26:52so sometimes you know you'll be worried about like you know i had a couple of bad incidents for
26:59myself where i'm like okay clearly the weaving of this one little thing was too complicated
27:06so you know and that i would have to simplify it down a little to get my point across if that makes
27:12sense you know you can get a lot of visual noise and things and i wasn't really prepared for that and
27:20i thought that you know because i'm like i'm creating all this stuff and it's it's unbelievable that
27:24we can actually create it you know that it's how did that you know looking at all the stuff and
27:29seeing how it turned out and that's really the beauty of seeing the real pieces if you ever get
27:34to see them in person and then turning over your babies to be redone by in a different format you know
27:40and uh the complexities of all that and it's a lot of hard work it's a lot of hard work to keep
27:47them on track with my vision but sometimes like the varong battle outfit in the end of film three
27:56she has this cloak that's made of all these iridescent feathers i loved them i thought they
28:01just had their exact and of course i'm i can touch the things so it gives a whole other element that
28:07moviegoers can't have but you know so i'm like oh this is amazing this will be great it's gonna you
28:12know and i worked out i knew they could by that time it was one of the last things we made
28:17and i knew that we could work out the movement of it i wasn't worried about that i was worried
28:23because the feathers are so iridescent and so black in nature but when they shine you get green you get
28:32purple you get brown you get all these colors and i when they showed me their first pass of that
28:38in lighting i was like yeah wow you guys are amazing
28:40that piece is quite stunning now i'm remembering it's really just incredible and i did want to
28:49reach out and touch it it looks so touchable it's so soft and floaty it's amazing yeah but
28:55you forget that you know you really want people to that's one of our uh you know sent our senses the
29:02touch and so well it sounds like what you've described is a lot of compromise and a lot of deal
29:07making along the way where you have your ideal scenario and then you bring it to the experts
29:11and they say we love this but we may have to make a few adjustments which sounds like filmmaking
29:16really the entire process of filmmaking yeah yeah it's not what it's not one well if it's anyone's
29:21vision it's your director's right but yeah they can they could turn to me and say look we really
29:26having a hard time getting that because all the garments that i make are made for humans
29:31and all the things they make are made for nine foot tall blue people so their proportions of
29:37their body everything's different so that's that's the first thing we start out is trying to reproportion
29:43the garment and sometimes it's just like when we first developed them that kind of people where
29:47they have that thicker neck and wider arms and things wouldn't work as well and so we'd really have
29:53to go in and sort of reconstruct it like well then is it this proportion is it slightly lower to get
29:59through you know so it was like being in a really in a hands-on work room and if you had a real tall
30:05blue person standing next to you but yeah if only if only right yeah but it's it's a lot of that it's a
30:14lot of uh there weren't too many things they didn't ever really i gotta say god love them they never really
30:21turned to me and said no you know they would go you know it's hard it's going to be hard or would you
30:28consider this perhaps you know so we we compromise but yeah and i had to follow their guidance because
30:35they know what they're doing i don't you know i don't do that i don't draw on a computer i don't
30:40understand all the things so you know i i learned a tremendous amount from them through the process
30:46well it's clear that everyone on this film and this whole series of films are not people who shy away
30:51from challenges so that's very evident that's true i want to thank you so much for your time
30:58again the work is just so stunning i've learned so much speaking to you today and i really hope people
31:02take the time to understand just exactly how much you poured into this process because it really
31:07does show on screen so congratulations to you thank you for that i i think so i hope so i hope the
31:12audiences really like it oh i think they will thank you so much i'd like to thank deb so much for
31:18joining me on this special episode of the hollywood reporters behind the screen tune in for more
31:23conversations with other artisans from avatar fire and ash i'm stacy wilson hunt thank you so much for
31:29thank you so much for listening
31:36you
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