Costume Design – FilmCraft Series Book Review

Posted By yonghow on January 21st, 2013

In this book from Focal Press’s FilmCraft series, sixteen of the world’s leading costume designers come together to share their inspiration and knowledge through anecdotes and interviews. They provide insights into the challenges of envisioning a character, working with budgets, and collaborating with production designers, actors and directors.

The designers featured are : Yvonne Blake, Mark Bridges, Danilo Donati, Shay Cunliffe, Sharen Davis, Lindy Hemming, Elizabeth Haffenden, Joanna Johnston, Michael Kaplan, Judianna Makovsky, Jean Louis, (legacy) Maurizio Millenotti, Ellen Mirojnick, Aggie Rodgers, Ruth Morley, Penny Rose, Julie Weiss, Janty Yates, Mary Zophres, Shirley Russell.

Costume Design – FilmCraft Series Book

Costume design is one of the disciplines in film-making that I have no knowledge in, which also makes it very fascinating and intriguing.

Often, with the exception of the more grandiose and ornate costumes featured in period/sci-fi films, where it can be more easily appreciated, I feel costume design is similar to editing; when done well, it is invisible and unobtrusive, serving only to aid the narrative.

Costume Design – FilmCraft Series Book

I think one’s understanding and appreciation of the cinema increases with more knowledge in each of the disciplines, and this book is a great way to learn more about costume design in film-making. Highly recommended.

“Film Craft : Costume Design″ details :

– Author : Deborah Nadoolman Landis
– Dimensions – 9.2 x 0.7 x 10 inches
– Soft cover, 192 pages
– Full color

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Tags: book review, costume design, Film, FilmCraft, filmmaking, Focal Press, movies

Posted in Book Reviews, Film

3 Responses to “Costume Design – FilmCraft Series Book Review”

h park
January 21st, 2013 at 2:22 am

I’m sure that people who studied fashion design understands costume design better than film students. Everyone has specialty of his or her own, right?

Personally, I wish more anime/videogame cosplayers study some fashion disciplines to come up with better costumes. When they just copy 2D sensibility to 3D world, they always seem to be out of place. Instead of becoming the character they represent in 3D world, a lot of them feel “just another cosplayer”.

yonghow
January 24th, 2013 at 12:55 am

h park – I don’t know much about cosplay, but its probably true. A background in costume design will certainly help in creating more practical, and therefore realistic designs.