Costume Designer

Henry Budd

When costume designer Lisa Meagher gets her job spot on, audiences shouldn’t even notice her work.

The freelance costume designer is currently creating lifelike wardrobes for the characters on Channel 7’s latest drama Packed To The Rafters.

Ms Meagher says that for each block of filming, each character can have up to 30 changes of clothes.

“Your job is to enhance the actor’s performance and let them bring their character across without people necessarily noticing their costumes,” Ms Meagher says.

“I think you want to be watching the actors not the clothes,” Ms Meagher works closely with the producers and actors to come up with a “look” to help flesh out the character. Her involvement with Packed To The Rafters began in February, 2008.

“We mainly concentrated on differentiating the characters, especially the young ones, so they have their own looks,” she says.

“The tricky thing with something contemporary is to keep it looking natural but to give it a bit of style. You have to give it a heightened style of reality. So we think about colours and textures and making people a little more. While making sure the clothes don’t unnecessarily stand out,” Ms Meagher also has to make sure they don’t blend in with the sets.

“On Packed To The Rafters the interiors are very bright; we have a green kitchen and some of the bedrooms have strong colours,” she says.“I don’t put anyone in green if they are in the Rafters kitchen and if they are in a certain bedroom you think. No blue in there.”

After analysing the script and shooting schedule to work out all of the costumes, Ms Meagher then buys them or has them made.

“On something contemporary you tend to do a lot of buying from the shops and wholesalers, if it’s specialised or on a period film then you have to make them up,” she says. “After graduating from the Sydney College Of The Arts with majors in print-making and drawing, Ms Meagher used a contact to help break into the industry, working on the mini-series Bodyline (1984) with Hugo Weaving.

“I worked for nothing for about four months,” she says. “My main aim was to work on Mad Max, that’s why I launched myself into [production company] Kennedy Miller.”

Ms Meagher soon landed a job as a wardrobe assistant on Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

“That was fantastic, we were all given so much freedom and there was so much to do,” she says.

“They said, ‘Can you make shoes?’ I said, ‘No, I never have’. And they said, ‘Great, you’re making all the kids’ shoes’ They were all feral kids, so you’re making jackets out of two possums and a kangaroo.”

She then enrolled at NIDA and completed a bachelor degree in Set and Costume Design.

Since graduating, Ms Meagher has worked on films, TV series, commercials and theatre.

“That is one of the great things of working freelance; you don’t know what is happening next, really,” she says. “You’re not going to be with the same people for the next 10 years.”

How to be a costume designer

Qualifications

The National Institute of Dramatic Art offers courses in set and costume design for those wanting to work backstage in theatre, television or film.

The course, a Bachelor of Dramatic Art (Production Crafts), is three-years, full-time. First year fees for 2008 were $5572. Each student specialises in costume or properties construction. Production craft specialists are responsible for constructing and maintaining properties or costumes. Applicants must have completed their Higher School Certificate.

Insider’s Advice

Costume designer and former NIDA graduate Lisa Meagher says it is a hard industry to get into.

“The best way is to go and work for somebody for nothing,” she says. “You have to be willing to scrub boots for a while, but you do learn a lot by watching people.”

For more information go to www.nida.edu.au