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MOTIONPICTUREC O S T U M E R S .O R G 39 Production teven Butler is a Key Costumer who joined Local 705 aer earning his days in a now non-signatory costume house in 2008. He got his initial 30 days but stayed at the costume house for three years to learn as much as he could and told us, "I wanted to stay there as long as it took for me to feel comfortable before going and working on a show. My biggest fear was going to work on shows and not knowing what to do. Once I started to enjoy it, then I started doing a lot of research, and figuring out how everything worked. The military stuff is such a formula, I feel like once you get to a certain point where you understand the formula, then it translates into different countries, different militaries, different branches, and all that stuff. Now if there's something that comes up that I haven't done, it makes the research much easier and faster." When starting his career, Butler did learn from several Costumers, one of them being his late father, Murray Lantz, who was working in the same costume house when the industry was slow aer the Writers Strike of 2007. "He was a prey good Military Costumer, and we would carpool to work, and he would tell me everything he knew." He would also learn from Costumers working on larger productions that were prepping out of the costume house. "I think Jack Wright was the first person who taught me how the ribbons worked. He was making a movie called Baleship at the time. He gave me an order for 100 US Navy whites, and all of them needed ribbons and insignia. He came into the costume house just to teach me the ribbons. He basically told me, 'Here's the ones that have to be on there, here's the ones that you could play around with a lile bit; these are personal, these are units, these are this, these are that.' That's what made it click for me on how all that stuff worked." Once Butler felt ready to leave the costume house world, S the connections and recommendations he had built along the way helped him transition into production work relatively quickly, and he has worked on television shows and feature films ever since. Butler worked his way from a Set Costumer on earlier seasons of NCIS and Marvel films to becoming a Key Costumer and is currently working on projects like NCIS: Origins, now filming its third season, and he recently completed Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, coming out in 2027. Despite working out in the production world, Butler will tell you that the costume house is the most reliable source for show needs when it comes to uniforms. "There's a good handful of people that were there when I started, and they're still there now. We have a prey good relationship to where, if I'm in a pinch and I need something really quick, I can depend on those people to get it to me. They'll get you out of a lot of trouble when you're really in it." Butler has even had to pull favors from overseas costume houses when having to pull British uniforms for NCIS character Ducky when one couldn't be sourced in Los Angeles. "I set my alarm for two in the morning and called the costume house in London. I called and said, 'Hey, I really need these uniforms and not only do I need them, I need them shipped out today and overnight, 'there's no way that's gonna happen.' They ended up transferring me to Tom. Tom was the guy who ran the military side of it. I'm talking to him about the uniforms, and I say, 'I do uniforms all the time, I'll take care of your stuff, I just really need you to throw it in a box. It's for this NCIS TV show, and he goes, 'Is it for Ducky?' and I said, 'Yeah, it is,' and he goes, 'okay, let me see what I can do. What are the sizes of what you need, and what do you need? I had all my size breakdown ready, I had everything that I needed to the T, and I said, 'Don't even put the insignia on the uniforms, just put it in a bag, throw the uniforms in a box, and just ship them to us.' He got it out that day. The company probably paid a fortune in shipping. Butler on set for Godzilla vs. Kong in Brisbane, Australia.