Costume Designer's Biggest Challenge
60sReveals the behind-the-scenes pressure and scale of costuming an entire cast for a Western, appealing to fans of filmmaking and costume design.
▶ Play ClipAI Summary
Lane McGovern, costume designer for Rocket Jump's High Plains Drifter short, shares the intense preparation and problem-solving behind dressing an entire cast for a Western. From week-long fittings to color palette coordination, she reveals how authenticity and practicality were balanced on set.
Chapters
[00:01]
Introduction and Project Scope
Lane McGovern introduces herself as the costume designer for the High Plains Drifter short, noting it was the first project where every single person was costumed by her department.
[00:14]
Project Dominance
The entire run of the show was consumed by High Plains Drifter, with all other decisions based on whether they could be accomplished with this project in mind.
[00:50]
Week of Prep
A solid week of prep was needed before the first day of shooting, with every background actor required to come to a fitting so costumes could be pulled, tagged, and ready.
[01:05]
First Day Logistics
On the first day, all principals and backgrounds were on set at dawn, with no staggering. Costumes were handed out with names tagged to streamline the process.
[01:42]
On-Set Dressing Challenges
Women's costumes had buttons and hooks down the back, so the costume team helped them dress on set, highlighting the authenticity of the period clothing.
[02:29]
Color Palette Coordination
The designer veered away from the principals' color palette to ensure background actors didn't stand out. Bad guys wore black with red pops, so no one else wore those colors.
[03:00]
Rental Houses
Most costumes, especially for background, were rented from houses specializing in early 1900s and late 1800s clothing.
[03:12]
Stunt Coordination
Ellery wore pants for horse riding, requiring coordination with the stunt coordinator for safety while maintaining the vibe and color palette.
[03:40]
Costume Multiples for Stunts
Multiple costumes were needed for stunt doubles, with adjustments like larger sizes for padding or cuts for wire work, ensuring visual consistency.
Costume design for period pieces requires meticulous planning, from fittings to color coordination, and this breakdown shows how authenticity is achieved through teamwork and preparation.
Mentioned in this Video
💡 Key Takeaways
💡
First fully costumed show
Highlights the scale and novelty of the project for the team.
00:38
🔧
Color palette coordination
Shows how background actors are visually subordinated to principals.
02:29
📊
Rental houses for period clothing
Reveals the practical sourcing of authentic costumes.
03:00
🔧
Costume multiples for stunts
Explains how safety and visual consistency are balanced.
03:40Full Transcript
[00:01] Hey guys, I am Lane McGovern and I was the costume designer on Rocket Jump the Show!
[00:14] My entire life was consumed by High Plains Drifter, the entire run of the show. Every other decision I made for the other shorts and the timeline for the other shorts was based
[00:26] off of can I accomplish it with High Plains Drifter still in the back of my head. This was the first rocket jump show, short, anything that every single person was costumed.
[00:38] Every single person was given stuff by me or my department. We've never done that before. We've always had modern day, present day background in video game high school, kids at school. And so all of our background always show up just what they already own and then I look
[00:50] through them. So it was a big show. It was a big short. It was a solid week of prep just to even get to the first day of shooting. Every single background had to come to a fitting so that we could fit everybody, pull their costume, tag it with their name and have everything ready to go so that day of getting to set,
[01:05] we were handing them their fully pieced together costume with their name on it So our first day on High Plains our I think second shot of the day included all of our principals and all of our backgrounds There was no staggering of times,
[01:18] and here's 10 BG, and here's 10 BG an hour later. Everybody was all in at the crack of dawn up at the ranch. That's why we did fittings on the week before, so that everyone had a costume with their name tagged on,
[01:30] and we could just hand it to them, so that at least helped the checking out process. But it's the guys were pretty okay with going and getting dressed on their own, but then the women would all go and change halfway and come back to us half-dressed,
[01:42] and it was me and my supervisor Erica on the show in the set costume or Jordan just kind of standing in a line and letting the women kind of walk through the line and button them up or tie them up or do the hook and eyes all down their back and do their bonnets.
[01:54] Most of them have buttons and snaps all the way down their back. So we are getting real authentic where women can't dress themselves. I can't, I don't know how to tie an apron backwards.
[02:07] I'm not, we just realized that I'm not smart enough to figure out how to do this on my own. So I always have to run the lane for help. For dressing background you do have to already know what your principals are wearing so you have a color palette of what they wearing so you can kind of veer away from it because you don want background to stand out you want your principals to stand out and your background is supposed to just be a presence an
[02:29] atmosphere with the set that they're walking onto but you're in general veering away from a color palette or a pattern that your principals may be wearing so I know that our our bad guys were in black and had pops of red so there's not anyone else in black Ellery's character ended up being
[02:45] a little more modern looking because she had so many duplicates and stunt doubles, but no one else was wearing the silhouettes or the color palettes that she was wearing. Majority of it was rentals, especially for the background, because it was a period-specific clothing. So we had to go to the
[03:00] rental houses and pull from early 1900s, late 1800s. This one's cool. This is a good one. Let's get this one. And so for Ellery, she actually was wearing pants because she had to be on a horse.
[03:12] And so it was much more of a conversation with the stunt coordinator in making sure that his stunt people were safe and could do what they needed to, but still fit the vibe and the color palette that me and Matt and Freddie in production design were creating
[03:24] together. When I doing a short that is stunt heavy and you have stunt doubles there are a lot of different reasons of why you have multiples of costumes for the actor and for the stunt double and you have to be able to Potentially go up a size if they are gonna have a moment where they gonna put I think the the female baddie
[03:40] The rider she had to get a pair of jeans that we're gonna fit slightly larger for one shot when she falls off the horse Because she had all of her hip pads on but you want the pants to still look the same as when they're tighter on her So but you go up a size because with the padding then it's gonna look tight even for the keep off the grass
[03:56] we're doing all the wire work, so we're cutting into the clothes. So there are several different reasons of why you would need multiples of a costume for the actor and for the stunt double. Hope you enjoyed my commentary on the costumes for the High Plains Drifter short that is already out on hulu.com
[04:11] slash rocket jump. If you have any questions, hit me up on Twitter. I'm at Lane McGovern. Hello? Can you put some little glitter right here, somebody? Or on the forums, so just let me know. I'll totally get your questions. I have like two followers on Twitter, so hit me up. Later!
[04:26] .
