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Part I
NL: Could you introduce yourself and tell us what you do here on LOTR?
Carolyn: I'm Carolyn Fenton, the Wardrobe Supervisor. Basically I liaise with the designer, put her designs into action and produce the garments.
NL: Did you plan to make film your career, or did you just fall into it?
Carolyn: Not originally, but I always had desires to work in costume, and then I sort of fell into film along the way.
NL: As the Wardrobe Supervisor, what is your day to day role?
Carolyn: I basically just keep everything rolling along. I have to know what is coming up in advance, so I have to know the schedule, who is arriving or leaving as far as actors go, and time frames for getting things done. So I'm pushing to get the fabrics and pushing to keep everything moving. I have two assistants who help me directly and they make sure there is plenty of work for everybody to do. Which on this particular project is not a problem, finding things to do.
NL: What unique issues have you had to deal with on LOTR's that you haven't dealt with before?
Carolyn: The scale was one issue. It wasn't too bad once we started and got an idea of where we were going with it. It's not a big deal anymore, like it was when we first started.
NL: The scale issue being the process of getting the hobbits to appear 3 foot 6, even if they're not, next to a 7 foot Gandalf, played by Ian McKellan, who is also not as tall as he's portrayed in the film. Is there a formula for creating the different scales?
Carolyn: There is, but you can't actually use it because people don't turn out to be exact to the scale we're using. There is a scale that is used for making belt buckles and things like that, but we just make garments to fit the person.
NL: Originally they were using mechanical Big Rigs for the extra tall scale, but now they're using Paul Randall, a tall human. Did you have to change any of your costumes for that?
Carolyn: Paul is, I think, seven foot one. He is tall, but not really huge, whereas the Big Rig was a scaled up version of a human so it had really massive hands and shoulders, but Paul is a tall human being. So things for him are more lengths as opposed to widths his shoulder is not that much bigger than, say, Aragorn's. Which makes it easier, as it's easier to make something fit a human than it is to make a garment fit something mechanical. It was very difficult because with the Big Rigs they had trouble putting their trousers on; there was no give, like flesh has.
NL: When Ian McKellan puts on his Gandalf costume does he begin to walk and talk like Gandalf?
Carolyn: Definitely. You can see the majority of them start to think about how the costume is going to work for their character. But there are some actors who literally put on the costume and their accent changes, the whole thing. Grima Wormtongue did that, it's quite bizarre. He is an American guy and when he puts his costume on he picks up his Wormtongue accent, and starts acting like him and walking like him.
NL: It must be very satisfying for you to see that.
Carolyn: Yeah and then being on set and seeing the scenes acted out is quite amazing.
NL: One of Peter's main aims with this film is to make this feel real, like it actually happened. Do you think he's capturing that?
Carolyn: Yes I do. Particularly with what I have seen in the last couple of weeks with Galadriel, Elrond, Celeborn, and quite a bit of the Fellowship scenes with the high Elves. What I have seen is looking really good and its looking very real. It's quite exciting. Just thinking about it, I start to get excited again.
Part II
NL: Which costumes did wardrobe work on at first?
Carolyn: We started off with the hero hobbits, Frodo and Sam, Merry and
Pippin, then we went on to Gandalf and Aragorn, then the other members of
the Fellowship, Legolas and Gimli. The next big things were the Bree extras
and the Ringwraiths. The Ringwraiths were huge because they take so much
fabric; they're heavy to work with and they're awkward shapes. I think each
one of their costumes has something like 48 metres of fabric in it. They
are enormous, heavy and long, and there were so many of them. There were
four or five hero characters, stunt doubles, riding doubles, then back up
costumes.
NL: Each of these actors and extras have their own version of the costume?
Carolyn: Yes, there were stunt doubles, riding doubles, burn doubles, so it
was quite intense for a while there with the Ringwraiths.
NL: When Ngila [Costume Designer] tells you about a design, does she sketch it out? How does it go from her to you?
Carolyn: She sketches it and then she'll bring Liz [Wardrobe Coordinator] and myself in for a brief, explaining each part of it. I'll break it down with her, asking how she wants that sleeve, that neckline, and while I'm toileing and getting the patterns made, Liz is getting all the fabrics
together and dye samples done. Once the toiles have been okayed, sometimes
we get a body double in to try garments on if we're not sure, but that was
more so in the early days when we hadn't seen a lot of the actors. Then we
have the fabric and we cut and make.
NL: When you're dying the fabric etc, how do you ensure that the color is just right, and that it will fit the actor absolutely perfectly?
Carolyn: I have a tendency to cut a little bit big because you can always go in when you fit, and if somebody is slightly uneven it is always easier to fit it exactly to their body. With dying it is a matter of getting close to the color that Ngila wants.
NL: Does she have a color palette?
Carolyn: Yes, she has one she works from for each character. We work
towards that, then sometimes it's just a quick dip once the garment is made
up.
NL: Can you walk us through the process from when a design is done to when it arrives on set. You've outlined how you get it to the cutter from Ngila, but what happens after the pattern is made?
Carolyn: The patterns are made and then we toile, which is making a mock up in calico, or if it will be a leather garment we'll do it in canvas or
something like that. We keep cutting and toileing till we get all of the
lines right, the way Ngila wants them, then we will cut straight into the
fabric. Once that is done, if it is a coat or something, we'll make a shell
which won't have a neckline finish, and quite often no linings this is the
first fit. Then we take the alterations from that, do those alterations for
the second fit, and by that time the garment should be up to doing its hems.
We'll do the hems in that second fit, then we'll finish off and add any
detail, which we'll quite often do on the mannequin, such as braids and
buttons and things like that.
NL: Does one machinist make each garment?
Carolyn: Quite often not, unfortunately. Because it gets so busy we often have two people working on one garment. Ideally they do, and quite often
they do, but often they don't.
NL: A huge amount of costumes are being produced here. How do you keep
track of them all?
Carolyn: It is very difficult to keep track of them because there are so many units. Costumes also have to travel quickly between the units. I have
a record of what we send out and the three units keep track of what they
send between them, though sometimes there is the odd glitch. Sometimes
units will swap costumes during the day because a stunt double may travel
between three units, he'll go to unit 1A, 1B, 2A. It gets quite hairy and
quite tricky. So once I deliver the costume I have to let that costume go,
even though I don't like doing that, but I can't keep track of it because
there is so much, and because there is other stuff happening all the time.
Sometimes I don't even know if they've ended up using the stunt double.
NL: Say a hero costume is on unit 1A and you have to reproduce it for a
riding double. How do you go about doing that?
Carolyn: If I know there are going to be doubles I try and make a hero and a double at the same time. So before the hero costume leaves we have at
least one double costume that is exactly the same. Other than that we take
heaps of photos and measurements. We have what we call costume bibles which
record each character, what the costume is, length of arms, sleeves, hem
lengths, whatever we can measure. There are fabric samples in there as
well. There are so many costumes you just cannot remember what is what.
NL: Have you had to modify the stunt and riding double costumes in any way to make it easier for them to move when fighting?
Carolyn: We generally have to allow for harnesses. Quite often you have to make the costume overall a bit bigger with holes in the sides so that the shackles and harnesses can come through. The harnesses are for anyone who
gets thrown into a wall or whatever. I think they have something called a
jerk harness which jerks them back in a controlled manner, rather than
somebody just throwing themselves. Or if someone is falling from a great
height they have a safety harness. We do things like action crutches, which
are elasticized crutches, so they can do their kicks and things. Sometimes
their costumes look quite funny. We allow for them to be able to wear knee
pads and arm pads, sometimes they wear full body pads depending on what
they're going to be doing.
NL: All these elements were designed specifically for the film. Were there other elements such as fabrics and embroidery which could not be purchased, but had to be created here?
Carolyn: We have an embroidery specialist who does machine embroidery for us, and there are people here who do quite a lot of hand embroidery. We
have also had quite a few fabrics beaded and for us in India, so they've been imported especially for us. The fabric for the Elven cloaks was woven especially here in New Zealand. It was woven by a woman who usually only weaves small quantities but we had quite a big order. It is made from alpaca and something else, merino I think, all natural fiber; it is a beautiful fabric.
NL: Each costume has so many different elements, what kind of crafts people are involved here making the costumes?
Carolyn: The team is quite big, about 35 of us altogether. That ranges
from a specialist jeweler who has two to three other jewelers who come in to
help her. We have a hat and boot maker who also make bags and gloves. Then
we have all our sewing technicians, and four pattern makers. We also have
dyers, which I think is one of the hardest jobs, color can change with just
one speck of dye and it can go completely in the wrong direction. Everybody is specially trained, so generally the people have a good knowledge of how to do a variety of things, though some may be stronger in particular areas. We tried to employ people that had a good, wide, general skill base who we could pull into whichever area we needed them in.
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