Filming is wrapped and the actors have gone home – now what happens to the costumes that helped shape their characters onscreen? How do these garments get from a movie set to our galleries? And where will they go when our exhibition closes? Today, Deidre Thieman from NBCUniversal Archives was kind enough to answer these questions and more for a behind-the-scenes look at a studio archive. Read on to learn how Deidre and her team display and preserve costumes from your favorite films and television shows!
What is your official position with the NBCUniversal archives?
My title is Manager, Production Archives. I oversee all the acquisitions, processing, cataloguing, weeding, conservation, loans and exhibits involving collections from any film or television show NBCUniversal produces. These include costumes, props, photography, set plans, etc.
How did you become involved in the archival side of costumes?
I came to costume from Archives rather than the other way around. I am familiar with costume from theatre I did as a teenager and my own personal research interest in Elizabethan costume, but my background is in film, television and information science. I knew about costume from the perspective of production, but when I took over all the production collections at NBCUniversal, one of the first things I had to educate myself about was the care and handling of costume. I learned a great deal from colleagues from the museum and the conservation worlds, from my predecessors here at NBCUniversal, and I read everything I could get my hands on regarding costume preservation so that I could handle costume as well as I handled any other format of materials.
Tell us about your day-to-day; what does your job involve?
One of the best things about my job is how different it can be from day to day. I might spend the day pulling costumes from our Fast franchise films for use and/or reference by the upcoming sequel’s wardrobe department. I could be working on a request for new costumes and props from Bates Motel or Hail, Caesar. I may be updating locations from our recent facility move. I also work on our loans and exhibit program, serving both internal clients like Theatrical Marketing or Publicity and external requests like FIDM Museum. Additionally, I administer loan agreements, review facilities reports, etc.
This year, we have costumes from, Suffragette, The Danish Girl, and Straight Outta Compton from your archive. How do you decide which costumes to bring to the exhibition?
We actually look at it as collaboration with Michael Black, who coordinates all the exhibits. Usually he’ll send us a wish list of Universal/Focus titles for the year. We’ll then send him pictures from what we have, refer him to others if the films were pick-ups, or help coordinate with Focus Features Publicity when costumes need to be re-rented for the exhibit.
How long have you been working with the FIDM Museum exhibitions?
I think we as a department have been working with FIDM Museum Feature exhibitions since almost the very beginning. Personally, I wasn’t really involved until about 2006 with Serenity and Cinderella Man from a collections management perspective. I officially took over the loans in 2009, although I helped dress a few titles before that. A few years back we also started working with you on your TV exhibit where we’ve had The Sound of Music Live, Parenthood, Suits and Peter Pan Live all appear in the exhibit.
We love having the Universal archive represented in the FIDM Museum exhibitions – where else do you frequently dress the costumes?
We have an archival exhibit program on the Universal lot which features individual costume cases in about six locations. We also participate in one-off events for Studio Operations and our Publicity departments where costume is sometimes needed. Via our external loans & exhibits program, we loan to museums all over the world. We participated in the Victoria & Albert’s Hollywood Costume exhibition which had five stops worldwide, culminating at the new Academy Museum space and this year we’re loaning some costumes to the Imperial War Museum in London.
You have the Academy Award nominated costumes by Paco Delgado from The Danish Girl in your archive; can you tell us what the demand is like for costumes during awards season?
Actually The Danish Girl costumes all belong to the rental house that made them, so sadly for us, once they come down from exhibit, they’ll be returned to the rental house. We are fortunate enough to have some of the costumes that Paco made for Les Miserables, which was his previous nomination, in the Archives. We usually have enough costumes from a title to satisfy awards season demands and are, of course, thrilled to preserve several costume design winners like Jacqueline Durran’s Anna Karenina, Janty Yates’ Gladiator and Alexandra Byrne’s Elizabeth: The Golden Age costumes.
Can you tell us about the process of selecting costumes to go into the permanent archives? How do you decide what to keep?
Selecting what to keep is one of the most important parts of the job, as it obviously affects everything you can do with the collection afterwards. On films, I begin by reading the scripts and making a preliminary list of the scenes, and sometimes specific costumes if they’re mentioned, that I think will be important and memorable to the audience. Once the film wraps and the continuity books are sent to us, I generally go through those and define my selection more specifically. If we are able to see the film before we pull, we revise again to the final selection and make our request to Feature Assets. If not, we pull my revised list at picture lock.
On television, the process is similar. Between two of us, we watch every episode of every show we produce, both broadcast and cable. We send request lists seasonally to our Production Services department, who is our liaison with the productions themselves. Sometimes we get costumes in the middle of the show’s run, if they need to clear out their storage or the character’s style has changed, but most often we acquire once the show is finished its run.
Walk us through the “life” of a costume in your archive – what will happen to the costumes from Straight Outta Compton, for example, when they are taken down from this exhibition?
The costumes from Straight Outta Compton were thoroughly catalogued and photo-documented before they went out on loan to the FIDM Museum. When they come down, we will make sure all the photos are linked to the records, and all the barcoded tags are attached to the costumes. We check on the archival packing and whether the items will be either shelved or hung until they are needed again. Since 1 year of display equals about 10 off of the life of a costume, we will try to let them rest for a time before they’re displayed again, so we can lengthen their life span. We have other costumes from Straight Outta Compton that were not used at FIDM Museum that we can use if that title is needed/requested again in the meantime. We try, whenever possible, to rest costumes for 5 years after the initial film’s publicity cycle including release, FIDM Museum, Home Entertainment etc.
How much to you work with the costume designers in your job? Do they help decide what goes into the archive?
I very rarely work directly with designers directly, although sometimes I do hear about specific costumes they want to make sure we keep. There are exceptions. We worked extensively with Colleen Atwood and her assistant on the first Snow White and the Huntsman film’s publicity displays. On the recent Defiance (TV) acquisition, I was lucky enough to work directly with designer Simonetta Mariano to pull our selection from that show. It is always a pleasure when we get to meet the designers and hear their stories about the costumes we care for.
You house costumes from both film and television; does your collecting policy differ between the two mediums?
Actually it doesn’t differ, except in quantity. We are always trying to document the same things: the iconic looks from the production, the standard looks for the characters and how they change over time. On both, we look for costumes that are going to be memorable to the audience, that are part of prominent scenes or memorable because they are atypical for the characters. The volume tends to be greater for long running TV shows in order to cover the changes in the way the characters looked over time and on period, sci fi or fantasy productions because they’re more frequently requested. We try to treat all of our productions equally. I’m always being asked for my favorite costume, and always reply that if I had favorites, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly. I have a favorite on every production we acquire.
Many thanks to Deidre for giving us valuable insight into her work at a Production Archive! Remember, you have until April 30 to check out these costumes and more in our Art of Motion Picture Costume Design exhibition.
