Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538245
32 FALL 2025 Lisa Marie Evans KEY COSTUMER isa Marie Evans went to Otis College of Art and Design for fashion design before going into costumes. Aer deciding fashion design wasn't for her and knowing friends who worked in production, she decided her next goal was to become a Costume Designer. "It was important for me to learn all the positions from production from Costume PA to supervisor and now that I'm in Local 892, I'm starting as an ACD, and then I want to work my way up. So, I know what everybody does and how hard every position is, and I can relate and know what is required of everybody." Lisa got her Local 705 qualifying days through United American Costume. "I was working on a nonunion Western film and I met with Diana Foster, who's the owner, and was trying to get her to cut me a deal on the costumes on this project that I was assisting on." The two got to talking about the possibility of Lisa working there and a few weeks later, she started her yearlong employment at United American, learning from then head of the women's department, Mary Muzinski (Muzinski retired from 705 in 2022). Since then, she has worked her way up to Key Costumer and works in both Local 705 and 892. As a Key for Freakier Friday, how did you facilitate working with the creative aspect and the workroom in the office, and geing everything to set? LME: Freakier Friday was very busy all the time. It was a costume-driven movie. I think a lot of people will watch it for the costumes. We were a big department, and I was prey much helping out everywhere. Trying to help the supervisor coordinate a lot of things, I was helping in fiings because there were a lot seing up for the fiing rooms, and we did a ton of background pre-fits. We had specific looks, and we set up the pre-fits with the AD department and shopped and fit those pre-fits and got those pre-fits through alterations and to the background truck. It was a prey background-heavy movie, so I did a ton of background work. When I wasn't doing that, I was doing stunt fiings which were either at the office or on the day, and geing those to the principal truck. Can you touch on a lile bit of what the responsibilities of a Key are? LME: It's confusing because it's different on every project, and it's different with every supervisor. Some supervisors have a coordinator, and you do a lot less coordinating. It's not just paperwork but seing things up. And when there isn't a coordinator, the Key helps. If there are background pre-fits—seing those up, helping the Costume Designer. If there's not an ACD, the Key helps the designer, and kind of acts as an ACD seing up fiings and assisting in fiings and shopping. I do a ton of shopping as a Key; it's just something I enjoy so I always offer to shop. I also help get returns organized and out of the office. The Key, to me, really does anything and everything that's needed in the department. Facilitating the changes to the principal truck; geing all the costumes there on time; explaining it to the set people or the Truck Costumer; going to set helping dress background in the morning or helping any last-minute principal fiings on the day. Depending on the project, it could be just doing mostly background. Once production has started, the Key will go to set, help dress the background, kind of start their day that way, and then make their way back to the office. Prep everything that's needed for the next day or for the next couple of days, do pre-fits, do shopping, help with returns. I mean, it's anything and everything. If there's an ACD or multiple ACDs, some projects have a Principal Key and a Background Key, and those roles are different. Were there any significant challenges that you had to overcome, or anything that happened in the process of production that was challenging, that you're like, 'I got this?' L PHOTOS BY GLEN WILSON/GLEN WILSON - © 2025 DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.