Finding the Time and the Space: part 2 of TBD

Last time on this blog: I only talked about the time machine... but what other masterful machinations are in store for you, the ravishing reader, this time? Well, this time I'll talk about figuring out the characters visually. That's a pretty important thing, I think.

You look quite tense.

From early on in our discussions, Daniel and I knew there needed to be something distinctive about the characters rather than just arbitrarily outfitting. Figuring out what that was for each of them would eventually reveal itself organically as we delved further into them, but starting out- you just go for what jumps to mind after hearing the basic type of character they are and what would happen in the script. For the main character James Pratt, that's how I recall the process going along.

This guy's got swerve.

All of those above sketches were some of the first of James. Before it was even set firmly in the mid 80s at that point, I believe. He didn't even have a name yet! Yeesh. He had the scar, the rolled up-down to business sleeves, a plain ol watch. The hints are there but this could still be any random fellow with his fists clenched. This's just what I got from what I was told about who this guy was immediately.

Caroline does her stuff.

Caroline was one of the other's that was thought about early on. One funny thing was that the whole reason her name was Caroline to begin with was because the song "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond was to be integrally played at the ending and provide quite a darkly tongue-in cheek note to leave us on. I'm not sure if any other thing I could say would give a better indication of how different this was.

Felix. Like it says.

Upon reading the first draft of the script, things started to feel a bit more lively for me as I started to get to know these guys better. One of the main reasons behind the 80s setting was to be able to do crazy things with the characters and have fun with it. We wanted a "heightened-80s" look going on, meaning to take distinctively 80s things that we enjoyed to help give it that placement present with the characters and also have the flexibility and room to craft our own world using those guiding principles. Achieving that would require lots of research, yeah. But immediately, I knew I wanted Caroline to have crazy frizzy hair.

1st meeting. This was cut.

I found myself digging through numerous clippings of clothing catalogues from the late 70s to mid 80s as well as looking through family photos of the period to have some concrete reference. Random movies from the period helped out a bit as well, but I prefer doing the rapid fire approach in calibrating the brain. I filled pages with my own notes and drawings of possible outfits for what extras might wear. I'm not sure if focusing on extras that early on was pertinent, but what the hey.

Reid Ackerman interview.

One idea I toyed around earlier on with was James sporting brighter colors against all the bad stuff he does, sort of a statement like he doesn't care- "Yeah, look at me!" Bright colors would permeate throughout much of the wardrobe in the film in the end, in an appropriate way that hopefully tapped that "heightened-80s" idea but didn't go completely overboard with zaniness.

Mara freak out.

But after the cast members were finally chosen is when things started to naturally fill in more concretely. It's very strange to think about, because there was a moment just before where we were wondering how things could work and how these characters would even work. Having the real life people behind them there now really brought these written ideas and whatever else tighter into reality, furthering along that molding process to more definitive levels. Around then is when it finally felt right to do the style guide for the main four cast members. That, and this stuff needed to get done next.

They are smart. Look at their labcoats.

I read through the script again to come up with statements about how these characters feel and what they would accordingly find themselves in. Among other things, I called James cocksure. I called Caroline snappy and inquisitive. Mara, yearning and flashy. Felix, habitual and stiff. Helped to move on to finding references of clothing that would reflect these things. What type of stuff would they wear when they're casually hanging around? At work? Sleeping? Accessories? Whatever? Taped a buncha crazy boards I was given full of all the stuff I found, all of it was driven by those helpful guidelines.

It's that guy.

James' ruthless actions would be reflected by his down and dirty look with the suspenders and pants pulled up along with the sleeves. The watch ring that James wears on his right ring finger was a touch I really liked for him as it was something both peculiar and imposing. I found that in an old jewelry box of my mom's, and it was something she wore in the 80s and let us use. Caroline tries to find acceptance after heavy stuff with her family growing up, dressing professionally for this fancy organization but also trying to get that security she needs with James so accordingly dresses pretty nice when around him. She also would have a special hourglass necklace as something unique to her. Earlier on, I didn't see James with glasses but it helped in making the actors look older than they actually were and the big thick-rimmed 80s glasses became too cool a thing pass up. Big funny glasses for everybody! Except Mara. Makeup instead!

James looks mad.

Mara's wild wear was inspired by Madonna. She dresses with all this shiny excess and it's because she desires to have back what she got a taste of for one perfect moment. She was probably the most fun character to work on in these stages and her bits are my personal favorites in the film. She actually didn't even become a thing until much later on, it was just the other three.

Mara looks crazy.

Felix is comparatively more rigid when looking at him against the other three characters. He dresses pretty safely and by the books. He's creative with science, not clothing! Felix even mostly keeps his sleeves rolled down as a visual hint differing him from James personality-wise (I wish he ended up only having the sleeves up for the scene where James gets him drunk, as a nudge that he's cutting loose for once and he ends up getting screwed for it- but he ended up with the sleeves up more often).

Felix looks scared.

After this is when the trips to Goodwill for boatloads of clothing started. I remember the trip where major damage was done- Mrs. Z, Mrs. Bagnall, Daniel, and Tristen were there and everybody was finding whatever they could that looked 80s. That's the thing, you find these ideas you really like but you need to actually find something close enough to it without compromising.  One fancy outfit we found had its old tag on still where we saw it was originally on sale for over $1000, that was pretty funny so we ended up using this one "expensive" costume for what James wears in the big final 15 minutes.

You can kinda see some of the style guide boards in the back.

After arranging around some of the wardrobe on the floor in different combinations for different characters, we had a base in front of us! Wahoo! From there, it was Mrs. Z putting her all into the costume department. Having her working directly with the clothes was great because she strived for ensuring authenticity and had a good system. Being there for costume tests was neat to see because it provided one of the first real indicators for me that this was becoming real finally after months of just seeing things in my head.

Speaking of seeing things in my head.

Before every shoot, the actors needed to be given the hair and makeup treatments by Mrs. Z and Kylee Jaeger which would take an hour or two every day. Jessica Mirl also did cool stuff with the scar on James' face, having to often work on it between shots because it would be at a different level of healing in the next thing being shot. Every day, Mrs. Z would have the outfits for each scene picked out and labeled.  Accessories would have to kept track of. Then the actors round out the whole picture by putting themselves into the characters, making them feel real. Lots of gears spinning around in the machine at the same time to make it function, I'd say!

Where should I put my scar?

Now, I hope that gives some sense into the way this went along. I probably won't have another venue to talk about these things, so I really need to get this stuff out of my head. Healthiest darned thing I can try. I know I'm real tired right now. It's not because of writing and thinking about all this stuff again actually, I'm just really tired. Well, that's it for now. I will probably have one more big Timespace post... probably. Probably on set design.

Ay!

Watch Timespace here.