Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1545089
Key Costumer and the Set Costumers—it is keeping all the plates spinning. I think you only learn how to do that by doing it. And luckily, I have done it a lot. Patrick Glendening: On Fallout, I was a Fier for the entire run of the show, responsible for fiing background, stunts, and day players. I pulled and fit 1950's period costumes and samples, armor and uniforms, and established costumes on the day. I worked directly with Costume Designer Dayna Pink and her ACDs, Annie Jewel and Terry Anderson, prepped the show with Key Christopher Lawrence, Christine Casaus, and Fier Beryl Brachman; and for the bulk of the show worked directly with my fiing team composed of Christopher Lawrence, Beryl Brachman and Felicia Jarvis, and Costumer Ari Mussenden. Beryl Brachman: We were coming in as a Season 2 team, and there was no overlap between the teams from Season 1 and Season 2, because the first season was shot in New York with a different set of people and a different designer. We were doing a combination of things where we had a large stock of clothes from Season 1, and because that show is actually quite uniform-heavy, we had some of their uniforms from Season 1, and then we developed some new uniforms for Season 2. What experience did you have with Fallout that prepared you for this world-building position? Glendening: I've costume-designed a handful of commercials featuring video game characters, and when I was younger, I played the original Fallout games and studied 3D modeling, animation, and character design; so, fiing any characters for the show was a dream come true. I was excited to hear Dayna was designing Season 2. She has a sense of edge and cool that makes so much sense for the series and put together a team that gets it. To prep for the show, I completely immersed myself. I compiled a 10-plus-hour-long Fallout playlist I would listen to daily, rewatched hours of classic '50s films, and replayed the original games while drinking water from my Vault-Tec water container accompanied by my Vault Boy figurine, gis from [my wife] Kim. In the games, as you travel through the wasteland, you can essentially try on any piece of clothing you find. I meticulously screenshot my character wearing different armor, civilian clothes, and uniforms from the game for reference and inspiration, which helped when questions arose later about specific armor builds. The costuming equivalent of method acting, short of eating radroach meat and iguana on a stick, I was in it. Brachman: Both Patrick and I had come into the show with knowledge of the video game, which definitely helped. We were calling Patrick our lore master because he played the games the most. I was semi- familiar with the game; I'd played one or two of them. It's always a challenge when you're trying to take an existing property and turn it into something real, especially since a lot of these games are quite old MOTIONPICTUREC O S T U M E R S .O R G 25 NCR Rangers Youland: The NCR Rangers— that was a fun exploration to get to do and I think Fallout is definitely a great place to utilize some rust printing, probably in the future. The thing is, trying to let people know that dyeing is more than just flat color matching or flat color changes, that you can do things like rust printing or Shibari or pour dyeing or ombre to add dimension. Those are the things that it's my mission to try and let people know you can do. I did get to do a little bit of that on the show and God willing. Season 3 is taking place so I can get on it hopefully, and do more of that and see. McGunigle: It was a combination of purchased garments, built garments, and armor. The armor layers kind of went throughout the costume, they would be under stuff and over stuff. They would be integrated into the costume itself. So, it was constantly going back- and-forth between what we had, and then the armor pieces would need to get integrated. It would go and then it would come back to us again. It went back-and- forth and back-and-forth and it all had to be aged and the creation of it. We really spent a lot of time thinking about how it needed to look, how it needed to behave, how it needed to wear, how it needed to fall, all those things. We did a lot of prototypes. A lot of different materials went through those prototypes until we found the final look, and then there were versions that were then broken down for certain characters who had been wearing them for years and years and the lifespan of that garment went through its own story. So, there were the uniform versions, but then there were also versions of it that were very much broken down, very distressed and in pieces. We did a bunch of them in the first grouping of them, and then some copies were made at a costume house once we got it all figured out. And there were some more multiples. It was myself and Raina, who was a Table Person. She did a lot of the building of those jackets. They were not easy. It was like a workout for her. They're very heavy and very thick. She was over there in the corner wrestling with those a lot. It was a combination of heavy canvas, many layers of heavy canvas. And then there was this very heavy, sort of elephant-looking leather stuff that we had for the collar that had a really great pattern on it, but it was pretty and it was a workout to work on. And, the machines had to be working at all times. Otherwise, you were in trouble. Do: The NCR Rangers are really cool. Biff was the character name for Jon Gries' character, but his costume was a little different. He himself never put on the helmet, but he had a stunt double. I remember the first time that that costume worked. We were out in Rocky Butte in Lancaster, and it looked like a mini-Joshua Tree where we were and the stunt guy is going to be on that rock way up there. I thought 'that's gonna be challenging.'