Unsightly and Peculiar

So, the other day, my husband emails me this image…

Granted, it was with a bunch of other ones, but my first thought when I saw it was “Oh! I wanna shop there!!!!! Where is it?!”

Sadly, it looks like false advertising. I mean, I don’t see anything truly unsightly and peculiar in that photo.

And I should know what unsightly and peculiar clothes look like… This is only a tiny part of my wardrobe:

Not just one ugly polyester pantsuit, there’s three or four there…including one that’s plaid burlap. Oh yeah…unsightly…peculiar… That’s my taste in clothes.

Here’s a section from what I call my “everyday” pants…

Do you see why I got irritated by the costumer who told me “less is more” on Yes Man? These pictures are only a fraction of the clothes I have. I’ve also got a little over 100 yards of fabric in my collection. Some vintage, most not, but it’s all ready to go the moment I get inspired to design and build a garment or two. In fact, I did that last weekend and screwed up pretty bad!

I created a pattern using an existing, well-fitting pair of pants…and then forgot to add the seam allowance! When I went to try them on, I couldn’t figure out why they were so small…so tight I couldn’t even pull them all the way up. My husband started laughing with me as I wondered what the hell I’d done wrong.

Thankfully, I had about a half yard of scrap with which to fashion a peculiar solution to my dilemma. He thinks the pants are still somewhat unsightly, but I haven’t hemmed or put the waistband on them yet. He did agree that my creative attempt at salvaging them went well. They hardly look like I screwed up. They look more like I meant to build them that way. Yay!

This from a man who thinks my clothes are unsightly and peculiar… I don’t know why he’d think that…

And let’s not forget:

 

Okay, so perhaps that pic is best left forgotten. 😉

I wish I could talk about it

I know it has been a long time since my last post. There’s a damn good reason for it–two, actually–but I can’t talk about it. And since I gotta keep my mouth shut, you know it’s gotta be some pretty cool shit.

Wait. I can talk in generics, though…

The thing that has sucked up most of my time is the fact that I’m adding something new to my resume: special effects costuming.

That reads like a really neat thing to do and I assure you, it is. It’s hard work and ventures into the great unknown for me, but I love it. I really do. I mean, it’s even for a major motion picture that’ll likely come out next summer, too. To get jobs like this, you gotta know someone. Well, my hubby has been friends with a particular sculptor/effects costumer since 5th grade. Welcome to Hollywood. Nepotism is fine as long as the person actually can do the job. Yay!

I haven’t work this hard since I built my Leeloo costume, but that was way more me. I had to do a lot of thinking on that costume. For this new venture, I just do what I’m told and when I don’t know what I’m doing, I just ask someone. I’m learning a lot…

I’m basically a costuming grunt. So far, I’ve traced and cut out patterns, hand sewn various items until my fingers turned crimson, discovered new glues and my personal favorite: sewn enough leather strapping for a BDSM convention. I have totally been sewing leather straps in my dreams for the last few days. If it wasn’t so much fun for me, I’d seriously be worried. On top of it all, the actor we’re doing this costume for is one of my all-time favorites. He’s really, really hot and I’ve already met him and I love him and he’s awesome and I still can’t believe that my introduction to effects costuming happens to be on a costume for him and it’s so freakin’ amazing and, and, and… Yay!

The other thing I’m up to hasn’t officially started yet, but the massive upsurge to get it rolling happened last week. It happens to do with writing, which is always a plus, but instead of novels, it’s for a movie. I really can’t say more than that without giving too much away, but it’s something I never would’ve dreamed I’d get to have a part in, let alone for this particular movie.

Things are looking way, way, way up for me right now. I get all giddy and giggle just thinking about it all.

Monumental Undertaking…

The further I get into inventorying my wardrobe, the crazier stuff gets. But I know it’s all going to be worth it eventually. So far, it inspired me to grab the following pictures from their various locations so that I can post them here.

On the milder side of strange for me, but fun nonetheless.

I actually made this stretchy teal velvet get-up for the 1999 Grammys. I was a seatfiller and really didn’t have a formal dress in my wardrobe at the time, so rather than lament and pray I could find an appropriate dress in a thrift store, I made this outfit using $1-a-yard fabric.

I have no idea what the designer was thinking when he or she brought this creation alive. And even further no clue why someone bought it and held onto it for about fifteen years before I found it in a thrift store. In all honesty, I didn’t even know what it was when I pulled it from the rack and didn’t even look at it until I got home. It was just weird-looking and sort of sticking out, so I grabbed it, spent $4 on it and went home. You can imagine my surprise when I finally held up the skirt and shirt. Well, more WTF? than surprise! Now, it’s one of my most requested outfits and is the one get-up that I really have to get up nerve before I leave the house while wearing it because it not only stops traffic, it amazes, astounds and grosses it out!

I posted this as part of my Leeloo adventure, but still…a peacock jumsuit? WTF?

This dress is amazing. The picture kind of sucks. The back of this dress continues the cut out with only two clasps holding it together. I was initially going to remove the shoulder pads, but they’re so huge, the dress wouldn’t fit without them! And besides, wasn’t that part of the charm of 80s clothes?

Here’s the teal velvet thingie again. It took about 8 hours total to design and build. 2 hours for the shirt and pants, the rest went into the shawl. Initially, the shawl wasn’t included in the design, but since I fucked up the neckline of the shirt, I really didn’t have much choice but to cover it up. That’s part of the reason I put some of the remnants with the grain going one way and some with the grain reversed. I figured if I was going to be pieceing it together, I might as well really have some fun with it. But what a pain in the ass!!!! It has been almost a decade since I made this outfit and I still remember how hard it was to put together that shawl. However, this outfit does definitely stop traffic when I wear it, so the hardship was worth it.

This last one was my answer to a shirt and a dress that while I like the fabrics, I’d never wear either of them. Plus, the shirt was a little too big. So, I removed the zipper from the back of the dress and sewed it up. Cut it down the center of the front. Removed the eyelet collar from the dress and swapped it for the same shape, but made from the shirt. Removed the short eyelet sleeves from the dress and installed the sleeves from the shirt. Then, finally added the frogs I’d found at a little shop in Chinatown and voila! A coat I’d wear. And even better…a merge of two garments I wouldn’t wear into one that I totally do.

I gotta laugh…

So, I had this wonderful blog post all thought out and ready to go. I’d noodled out some notes and everything. Now, I can’t find my notes and while that normally wouldn’t be much of a problem, apparently with this particular post, I did one of those open-cranium, bleed-thoughts, promptly-forget-everything-because-it’s-all-on-the-napkin sort of things.

I betcha it was sheer brilliance on that napkin. Uh huh. Oh yeah. And then I probably used it to wipe up after lunch. Nice.

But I’m sure that happens to everyone, so I’ll do my best to get on with what I was going to post about…well, some of it, anyway.

The main part of the post was going to be a little more on Leeloo and the can-can dress I made. But, while I snapped a few shots of the stockings I was going to describe, I didn’t actually upload them, so there’s nothing I can do about that part of the post. I’m not using the computer right now where those currently reside, so the Leeloo stockings are just gonna hafta wait a little bit.

Another part of the post is about yoga. I’d gotten busy and had gone to maybe three classes over the last five months where generally, I go to three or four classes per week–sometimes more. But yesterday, I realized I had some time to spare and was coincidentally wondering where one of my favorite teachers went after she left the studio I’d been going to… So I Googled her name.

And discovered that she’d opened her own studio about five minutes from my house!!!!!! Yippie yippie yay!!!! And I love the name of it: Just Breathe Yoga Studio. Part of my joy toward the name comes from the Drew Barrymore movie Ever After which I so adore. Danielle says, “Just breathe” when she arrives at the masque and that line has stuck with me. The rest of the joy comes from what is actually going through my mind while I’m in handstand or candlestick or some days even triangle or warrior 2. It’s amazing how just about anything gets easier when you Just Breathe.

So, I’m back in regular yoga practice and feeling better already.

The rest of the post was about something sort of odd that I’ve always wanted to do, but I’m almost afraid to admit the real numbers… I’ve started photographing my entire wardrobe and am posting the images to Flickr so that it’s searchable when I’m mid-bargain-hunting and can’t remember whether my pair of 80s, pointy black pumps are leather or suede. Recently, I’ve found great deals at thrift stores and then once I got them home, had to immediately re-donate because I already own something similar to what I bought.

Through this inventorying process, I also end up with total amounts of things I have and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. For instance, I now know I own 105 purses. And while when I’m trying to find one to match an outfit, I feel like that’s too few and I never have quite the right one, I also know that that’s a lot of freakin’ purses, so I’m gonna hafta cull. The hard part is figuring out where to start.

Now, I’m going to make myself another cup of tea–probably some sort of oolong–and ponder which of my 257 pairs of shoes needs to be re-donated. I know, I know, that’s a lot of freakin’ shoes, too, but the scary thing is that the only ones that I seem to have collected similar pairs of are rubber-soled, beige leather, lace-up shoes from the 70s. I have 5 that are similar. WTF?!?!?! I would’ve expected to see more black flats from the 80s, but I’ve only got 3 of those. The rest are reasonably unique and therefore difficult to part with.

I’ve only just begun photographing garments. I’m sure I’ll post highlights here as I get up the nerve. Some I own solely to amaze and astound guests when they come over for parties. Seriously. Friends request certain outfits sometimes…and New Year’s has been legendary because I change outfits several times throughout the event. Other than Halloween, there are very few times I can wear a pink herringbone polyester pantsuit or white M.C. Hammer pants with a matching half-shirt. And even fewer times those outfits would be requested of me. But I have them. And I’m not afraid to wear them.

In fact, just the other day I wore a gray and beige large herringbone, polyester pantsuit–complete with one of the largest butterfly collars I own!–to the grocery store with Jason. I’m not convinced he was amused by my outfit, but he was definitely amused by the odd looks I was getting. I, of course, remained oblivious.

Yes Man

This movie stars Jim Carrey. I was in Fun with Dick and Jane a few years ago…which reminds me…that’s another one I need to write up. I’ll have to take a wild guess about exactly when I was on it, though. I really don’t remember details other than where it filmed, it was fall and that I was booked with my Prowler, but got to drive a BMW production vehicle in a couple of takes because they needed a different car in the background and I’d worked with the coordinator before.

Things were different on Yes Man, though. Much different. I recalled from Fun with Dick and Jane that it had been a very long day, so I assumed it’d be more of the same for this gig, too. Comedies often take awhile because the actors will try different ad libs or different ways of delivering the written lines and see what works best. Scenes evolve rather than being static, cut and dried. All of the Will Farrell gigs I’ve been on were like that. To me, it has never been a hardship, either. I like to watch how everything unfolds and morphs and I find it very interesting. Plus, it’s neat to see inside the head of the comedian in those cases because there’s a general brilliance to be seen. It’s truly amazing.

I’ve heard from various people that Jim Carrey is unfunny when the cameras aren’t rolling. I didn’t find that the case. I saw him as very focused and serious, but not unfunny. When you’re making a movie, you can’t be silly all the time or nothing gets done and lots of production money gets wasted…which also makes no sense. Jim Carrey was great. Even when things weren’t going too well, he got over it and got on with the scene. (More on that later.)

I parked. I was shuttled. I went through wardrobe who almost liked what I was wearing. Almost. They were very, very, very picky on this show. I was a coffee house patron. The look was supposed to be very funky, but drab. Those are some of the toughest gigs to dress for. If I’m wearing funky clothes, they’re loud and well…funky…not drab and boring. I did my best, but was still given a shirt off the wardrobe truck. Oh well. I realize that the principle actor was wearing a dark suit for each of the scenes we were working on so if the extras were too bright, we’d accidentally upstage him.

I think, perhaps, my bone to pick isn’t with the costumers themselves, it’s with the vocabulary used by the casting directors when they’re trying to describe what sort of clothes we should bring. Had I been told to bring drab colors with interesting cuts to the garments or perhaps casual, hip grunge I might have faired a little better. But oh well. I got to wear my stuff for the first change and then add their shirt for the second change.

Then there was a little mix-up as to where we were supposed to go–catering or holding. I ended up going to catering, then holding, then catering, then finally to holding. I was okay with that. My only real hang-up was the general disdain for extras on this show. Between one of the costume assistants really talking down to us, the people on the car call who seemed soooooo much better than regular extras, plus the others who’d worked the show before, and a few general comments made by crew members that I’d overheard, I really dreaded working this day. I got out my book on Medieval history and tried to lose myself in it because I just don’t understand the mindset that extras are trash and should be treated as such. Don’t people realize that if they treat us like humans, we’ll act accordingly and even try to be good?

Anyhow, I sat in holding for the first scene, but was used in the second one. In fact, I did a cross right in front of Jim. On the first take, I thought we were going to collide! Doh! He didn’t get mad, so I figured everything was okay. And no one told me to do it differently, so I just tried to stay a little further out of his way. All was well. I did my little cross over and over for all the different camera angles and such. The day was feeling better. One of the ADs and a couple of the PAs were really cool and I appreciated that.

Lunch was good. I didn’t know I was supposed to be segregated on tables without tablecloths in a separate, walled-off part of the catering tent, so I plunked down at a nearly empty table and a group of PAs sat down with me. I had great conversation with a cutie named Tex.

When lunch ended, we were instructed to change clothes. I put on the shirt I got from wardrobe plus my jacket. All was well. I was placed at a table outside the coffee house and did the scene as I normally would. Two paparazzi guys showed up and were quite disruptive. That sucked pretty hard. I felt bad for Jim.

I then went back to holding for the following scene.

And then plans changed a little and all of us extras had to go back to wardrobe for another change. Okay, whatever. I was given another couple of shirts and off I went. We were instructed to stand outside so that the Costume Designer could inspect us again. Okay, now this is where everything went pretty far south for me.

Throughout the day, I was wearing two necklaces–one a choker, the other regular. I had been instructed to keep the same jewelry on through both changes. I did. Then, for this third, unexpected change, the shirts I was given had a higher neckline, so I had to lose the regular necklace. I left the choker on, assuming it’d keep me in that funky look they were going for. But at no time was I instructed anything in particular as far as jewelry went, so I just used my best judgment.

Okay, at the beginning of the day, there was a lot of degradation of the background actors, then it cleared up for me and I wasn’t annoyed anymore even though there were still a few “fuckin’ extras” comments here and there plus a few ridiculous attitudes. But standing there in front of the Costume Designer’s assistant–not the Designer himself, mind you–I heard the most humiliating thing ever said directly to my face. I realize it may not read rude or mean, but she said, “Take off that necklace because sometimes less is more.” with the attitude like I’m too stupid to dress myself.

A simple, “Lose the necklace.” or even, “We don’t need the necklace for this scene.” would have been totally fine. I wear what the costumers tell me to wear. I don’t second guess unless there’s something really lame about what I’ve been instructed to wear (ie. the gigantic scrubs I wore on Numb3rs). I wanted to tell the bitch that I’d been wearing it all day and the reason we were all here was so that she could make those kinds of changes without degrading us, but I was so flabbergasted at how rude she’d been (without even batting an eyelash, like it was totally acceptable to speak to extras like that) that I just unhooked it and tossed it in my purse. When the Designer arrived, he said we all looked wonderful and that it didn’t really matter much because we weren’t really going to be seen anyway. That pretty much shut her up, but she was still looking at the rest of us and still wanting to make us change something.

Even in the morning, when I walked up to the wardrobe truck, I’d sensed that she was one of those costumers who changed extras just for the sake of changing them. I swear some of them do that. They may not realize it, but some of them do. If there are four costumers checking out us extras, I’ve noticed on some shows that there’s one or two who feel like they’re not doing their job if they don’t change anything about what an extra shows up in while others do a thorough once-over and say we’ll pass or maybe ask if we have something simple like a different shirt or pair of pants rather than a complete overhaul. I understand they’re just doing their job, but when I change from one green outfit into another green outfit, I wonder whether they’re really doing their job or just exerting their control over us stupid little fucking extras. Can you tell I was irritated?

It doesn’t even have to do with the fact that I’m very into my clothes and have a wardrobe the size of their truck all in my size at home. (No kidding! Just ask Jen or Jason!) That’s not even what pissed me off. It’s the attitude. Hell, I could be in the position to hire her someday and I sure as hell won’t…and I’ll tell all my friends not to hire her, either. These people should think before they talk down to extras. They really should. They just don’t know who we are or are going to be someday.

So, for that last scene, I was feeling pretty crappy and didn’t want to verbally vent about it… I got out my iPhone instead. Here’s an excerpt of what I wrote during the whole time (At this point, I was playing coffee house patron with iPhone and using it in the scene.):

I am so pissed off right now I could scream. I handled it with grace, but that was fucking mean. Does she really think all extras are stupid? Does she realize that if she showed us some respect, we might try a little harder? …It’s clearly not us, it’s her. I don’t even care if anyone is reading this over my shoulder. I am that pissed off. I’m even writing this between takes I’m so incensed. I want to cleanse this feeling because the day was resurrected until that moment. And I’m almost at 12 hours of being here… This was a record worst. And she clearly felt no remorse at her words. This was an acceptable thing to say to an extra…to another human being. How mean!!!!!!! Venting on my iPhone sure is nice. Then I don’t have to be outwardly grumpy. I can keep this all to myself. Whew… I’ve been treated pretty badly before, but that really took the cake. Seriously. Totally mean…totally rude.

During the scene and in between I got everything out of my system and started feeling much, much better. Here’s some of what I wrote after I calmed down… (the scene itself was going to hell, however.):

Rolling again. Should work great then. Going again. Quick scene. Having trouble tearing a sheet of paper without it going screwy. Rigging in progress. I love Hollywood. Again. I am trying to make it look real. Wide at the beginning. Split second only. The shot is real quick. I don’t think they realize that I’m really writing. This is fun again. My iPhone saved my day. Might not actually still be in it. All well and good to me. I’m having a good time again. I’m so calmed down now, I want to sleep. I like this, though. Makes me feel better. Got to IM with Jason during a take or two. He just randomly SMSed me during the scene. That was funny. Day’s getting long, but I’m totally okay with that. Sometimes it’s the little scenes that stick. Still going. Not too bad, though. Having a good enough time. Enjoying what I can while I can. Maybe I could use some caffeine. Broke a prop. Had to fix. Back in action. Slow going. Going. Going. Gah. And again. Long day getting longer. Painful for the crew. Painful for the actors. Been on worse, though. West Wing with Rob Lowe was worse because the scene was longer. It’s just the way it happens sometimes. And it happens all the time. I’m totally okay with it. A couple keep having to go in and out. They’re not thrilled. Yay! Got a great one, too.

Each of those sentences represents a take, I’m pretty sure. The trouble was with the action that Jim was trying to do. The props just weren’t agreeing with him and such a simple scene dragged on and on and on and on. But in the end, we had a really great take and then everyone was wrapped.

I can laugh about it now, but that’s the only part of being a background actor that I truly hate. People make assumptions that simply shouldn’t be made. I’ve met plenty of other extras who are producers, have gone on to bigger and better things, who are very important people and do extra work for fun. It makes no sense to treat us like shit. It makes no sense to treat anyone like shit. If it weren’t for the attitudes, this gig would have been absolutely fine. Sure, that last scene was a killer, but during it, there weren’t any anti-extra attitudes, so I was totally fine enduring all the troubles of the uncooperative pieces of paper and cork board. In fact, I can’t wait to see the finished product because the premise sounds great: A guy who used to say no, says yes to everything for a year.

Leeloo’s Wig

One of the main identifying characteristics of Leeloo is her orange hair. I’d assumed that finding an orange wig wouldn’t be that difficult.

It wasn’t…

However, finding one that was a deeper orange than traffic-cone, fluorescent orange proved to be much more difficult. And since the wig had to be reasonably precise, I couldn’t just surf the ‘net for one. But I also didn’t know where to go other than Hollywood Blvd. That was the only place I’d seen more than two wig shops within about five blocks of each other.

However, whenever I’m anywhere in the vicinity of a vintage shop, I can’t resist the magnetic pull. I must go in. I must shop. I rarely walk out empty-handed, but it has happened a few times. On the day I got the wig, I also found this beautiful *cough, cough* peacock jumpsuit.

Oddly enough, about six months later, I found a dress made from the same fabric. I’ll be merging the two garments eventually. Right now, they grace my crap room with the rest of my projects in various states of not done/not started/I dunno what this was for, but it was nifty, so I acquired it because it was cheap.

So, after going to all the shops and sighing because they just didn’t have a short orange wig, I settled on a longer wig–more expensive, of freakin’ course–that I’d swindle my hair dresser into cutting. The styling would happen over the course of two weeks, with lots of hair gel, bobby pins, and T-pins. The wig experience was the easiest piece.

Actually, that’s a lie. The boots were the easiest: I walked into my closet and picked out the pair that looked the most like Cancan shoes and the boots Leeloo wore in the movie. I had about fifteen pairs of black boots to choose from. This was not a difficult decision, either, because I still had to be able to dance in the boots, too. (More on my shoes and boots collection in future posts, I’m sure.)

The Changeling

This is a first for me. I’m writing this a couple days after this shoot actually happened, but not posting it until after I’m supposed to be back on the show. There were very strict rules and a lot of paparazzi on this show and rightfully so. I don’t want to jeopardize my returning for the second part of this gig. There’s always a significant chance that I won’t be recalled, but since I really want to come back, I’m not taking any chances! This was an awesome day for me.

It took an eternity to get to the set because the freeway by my house lost a few lanes in a tunnel fire and it hasn’t been repaired yet. But I did get where I needed to be on time at least. I’d left early enough.

I parked. I was shuttled. I got my wardrobe (1928…I’d been fitted a few weeks earlier). I got into my clothes. The costumers let me use my only 1920s purse (YippieYay!). I was shuttled to holding. I had my hair done (well, the lady made it look appropriately yucky and messed up for the role). I walked to make-up and something interesting happened.

Normally, I don’t wear make-up. I might put on eyeliner twice a month for the fun of it, but I’m really inexperienced when it comes to putting on make-up and for this show, there was a whole list of instructions on how to do it. I was terrified and didn’t feel comfortable doing it myself, so I packed a few things into a little bag and brought it with me to show that I wasn’t trying to be difficult, I just suck at make-up. Well, when I sat down in the make-up lady’s chair, she didn’t say a thing about me not wearing any make-up. I silently yelped for joy.

I’ve got a red spot on the bridge of my nose which make-up artists usually spackle over immediately, so I wasn’t surprised when the make-up lady went right for it with a brush… Except the palate she was working from had all these crazy colors like blue and purple and dark green and various shades of red.

She wasn’t covering my red spot, she was using it! I was now the proud owner of a slightly bloody nose!

Then, she darkened the circles under my eyes a little and made my cheek look like someone had punched it a day or two ago. Woohoo!!!!!! Best make-up experience I’ve had in a very long time. First blood since Angel, too.

I then walked back to holding while getting many a strange look. Yay!

I sat in holding for what felt like eternity but was perhaps a couple hours. It was a pretty nice day. Not too hot, not too cold. Same holding I’d been in when I worked on the Ring II, except the set wasn’t a women’s home in present day, it was a loony bin in 1928. I was what was called a Code 12 patient which means that I probably wasn’t crazy, but I was perhaps having a bad PMS day and my husband called the asylum to take me away because I was being rowdy.

Clint Eastwood is directing and has a different, much quieter style than every other set I’ve been on. Usually, there’s a lot of yelling of commands and such. On his set, there’s a peaceful respect and serenity that comes from speaking rather than yelling. I wish more sets were like that. It was because of that lack of yelling that I hadn’t even realized they’d started filming for about an hour into the time.

When I was finally brought to set, Mr. Eastwood watched us all go up the stairs and then as we awaited further instructions, picked me to be in the front. I was, after all, the only one with blood on my face. I really looked like I’d seen better days. There was a principle actress fourth in line behind myself and two other extras. Our action was simply to walk down the stairs because we’d been freed. Angelina Jolie’s character had gotten us outta there and she was at the base of the stairs, but we weren’t instructed to react to her, so we guessed that we didn’t know it was by her doing that we got out of there.

Some sort of moment between the principle actress and Angelina happened, but that was the extent of the whole thing. We were all just supposed to keep on walking past her and down the sidewalk.

This was the first set I’ve been on where a rather large group of paparazzi showed up–complete with rocket-launcher-sized lenses on their cameras. They were seriously slimy and had no consideration for anyone who was working there. They didn’t even get out of the way when locals with strollers were trying to use the sidewalk. How very rude.

I suppose some of the tight security rules were because of those people, but I’m not sure. I’d just never been on a set with so many specific rules about things we could do, couldn’t do, identification regulations, all sorts of stuff. I was okay with it all, but I also found it a bit tiresome and annoying. I mean, why can’t people just be good so we don’t have one or two spoiling everything for the rest of us?

Anyhow, I spent a few hours or so leading the group of extras down the stairs in each take. It was great. I got within about three feet of Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich and about a foot away from Mr. Eastwood–whom I can now also add to the list of celebrities who have spoken to me. Yay!

If this scene makes it into the final picture, there’s a great chance that at least one frame of me will, too. That’d be nice.

The Original Design of Cancan Leeloo

Found amid the wreckage that is my craft room (affectionately dubbed the “Crap Room” by my husband–and rightfully so. The room is always a pig sty because ‘creative messiness is better than tidy idleness’.) is the original design for my Cancan Leeloo costume as drawn by Shawn Crosby.

As soon as it came out of the printer, we decided that the black ruffle hanging out of the bottom had to go. Other than that, the stylized elements we’d talked about worked great. In the movie, Leeloo’s wearing a shirt and baring her midriff. With my corset, that wasn’t possible, so we figured we’d try the opposite–bare my shoulders as much as possible and hide my midriff (and corset).

In the drawing, the skirt’s a little long, too. Oops. The pattern we had for it was the correct length. If it was too long, I wouldn’t be able to easily lean over and grab it to hold it up…well…as easy as it can be while wearing in a corset!

From here, I considered fabrics and colors. The shirt was going to be white. the suspenders, wrist bands and skirt accents were to be orange vinyl. The skirt itself needed to be more of a champagne than yellow. I was on my own for the bloomers and stockings underneath. I chose more orange satin and some black and white fun stuff for trim.

The stockings…well…I’d never done anything like those before. I knew I needed something super stretchy. Hmmm…How about this $1/yard stuff I’d gotten 10 yards of ’cause I thought it was kinda neat but was now collecting dust and getting in the way? (I do that a lot…hence one of the many reasons the craft room is the crap room.)

So, that was my game plan. I also had some white, ribbed cotton knit (also purchased in a $1/yard binge and collecting dust while getting the way) to use on the shirt.

But what I needed in order to really do it right was a coverlock machine… Best investment ever in my sewing hobby. Yeah, I was a very happy girl once that thing arrived and after I spent the eon figuring out how to thread it for what I needed it to do.

I think I’ll stop here on this journey and break it up a little. There’s still many more posts to be done from wig to boots on this costume!

Oh! And… More Leeloo

I’ve noticed that there are many people coming here to see my Leeloo costume. Perhaps its creation as well as me wearing it and dancing the Cancan in it, I dunno.

Well, I’ve decided to make a series of posts about it. I didn’t take pictures when I built it. In retrospect, I should’ve. I had no idea it’d be such an ambitious undertaking. One I’d do again, but not so enthusiastically because that dress practically owned me for a month and a half. It was totally worth it, but it was also a lot of work.

From design to finished product, it wasn’t a picnic. First came the screen shots to see what Leeloo was actually wearing and what her hair looked like with those long, weird, gummed-up, not-traffic-cone-orange, just-bright-orange twists. The hardest part was seeing what her shoes looked like. The only times her shoes were onscreen where when she was kicking ass and most of the freeze frames were too blurry to make out the detail on her shoes. Granted, I was doing a different rendition of her costume, so I could vary a little, but I wanted a good base to start with.

It was a combined effort between me and Shawn Crosby. He did a wonderful drawing of the design. I have it somewhere. I’ll post it if I can find it.

In the end, the costume cost me hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours. I really stepped up to the plate on this one and I’m amazed that it turned out like it did. I’d never worked with vinyl or stretch netting or even some simpler things like snaps and interfacing and decorative elastic and iron-on bonding. Okay, so some of those things aren’t as common, but you get the picture. This wasn’t an easy job, but I did learn a lot. Not only did I learn how to physically do stuff, I learned something more important: That I could do just about anything I set my mind to…yes, just about anything.

Yes, I really did dance the Cancan on a stage while dressed as Leeloo!

Okay, so you saw my previous posts about my adventures as Cancan Leeloo for the Lux After Dark halftime show of the 2006 WorldCon Costume Masquerade. (dress rehearsal, before the show, in the audience, backstage) But did you notice that one kind of picture is absent from the line-up? The kind of picture that proves I did what I said I did:

I danced the Cancan on a stage in front of people. I believe thousands were in the audience.

Well, thanks to Essentialsaltes posting these pics on Flickr, I have visual proof of my escapade.

Notice how I’m leaning over further than the rest of the girls? My wig was falling off and I was frantically trying to get the bobby pins back in order to keep the darn thing on! It already cut off my peripheral vision, so I never knew whether I was on step with the rest of the girls. The last thing I needed was for the darn thing to launch off my head. It didn’t, thank goodness!

There you have it. My complete Cancan adventure complete with photographic proof…
Even a year later, I still look back fondly at this experience. It was definitely one of my more odd ones, but what’s life for if not to live it and love it?

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