Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1529398
42 WINTER 2025 Hagen looks for in her crews are aitude, communication, flexibility, and ability to follow directions. "You notice I didn't say 'experience,''' Hagen said, "because experience can be taught." Her priorities when building a team were based on the more difficult to train aspects, noting those so skills are most important in the teams on set, in the office, and the workroom. With Lessons in Chemistry's '50s period and scientific aesthetic, Hagen had to be proactive with the hey workload and try to anticipate needs of the production. Period pieces inherently require more prep time due to the time it takes to procure all the appropriate layers and items needed for background characters, planning out which items may need multiples which usually meant needing to build the multiples. Hagen emphasized the need to carefully communicate with the UPM and line producer. Communication when it comes to priorities, timelines, and what is needed from them to achieve their goals. Facilitating communications across the board kept emergencies to a handleable minimum. Logistics was also a major aspect of her work on Lessons in Chemistry. She ploed out potential needs and weighed their likelihoods with costs in time and money; anticipated and prepared for as much as possible, along with making the needs of her team a priority and making sure everyone had what they needed to work efficiently. When building the Lessons in Chemistry workroom team, Hagen collaborated with Costume Designer Mirren Gorden-Crozier. Designers oen have specific desires on the hiring of their workroom and Hagen makes sure they have collaboration time together. Gorden-Crozier wanted David Wallace as their workroom head. Hagen and Wallace have known each other for years as she met him when he worked for Cherokee Apparel. El Vez, who's a big performer at the time, wanted a costume that was made for Elvis for his comeback. I was asked to make his white double-breasted suit." Hagen saw this El Vez suit and got Wallace into the industry through his first job at Mad TV in 2003 where he worked for several seasons, winning two Emmys. Wallace learned to make his own clothes in his young teens and learned from a dressmaker in his neighborhood aer seeing his interest and taught him how to sew properly. He then learned Construction of the "Lile Miss Hastings" dress with cinched waist and pleated full skirt detail, inspired by dresses from the '50's yet reflecting a scientific aesthetic.