Hope Hanafin has been working as a costume designer since the 1980s. She’s received two Emmy nominations for her work, and in 2001 she won an award from the Costume Designers Guild for her work on the show Geppetto.

She came on the show to discuss some of the things she’s learned about filmmaking throughout her career, and then we discussed some of the specific wardrobe choices she made on 500 Days of Summer, The Newsroom, and Thank You for Your Service.

Some of the things we discuss include

• How to dress for success on set
• How a costume can inform a character
• Where to find information about costumes in notable films
• Best practices for how filmmakers can work with a costume designer
• The differences between creating costumes for actors and for musicians
• Ways that a costume can upstage a scene and when to avoid that
• The strange but alluring appeal of the sweater vest!
• What the costumes on 500 Days of Summer, The Newsroom, and Thank You for Your Service reveal about the characters on those shows
• How she collaborated with Aaron Sorkin on The Newsroom

If you’d like to hear another interview about working with actors to create a certain look for a film, then you might appreciate this episode with Dana Boisseau, who has worked as a hair stylist on films like Ray, Django Unchained, and The Butler.

Show notes for that episode are here:

#

#

Films & Shows Mentioned

• 500 Days of Summer
• All That Jazz
• An American in Paris
• Because of Winn-Dixie
• Bugsy
• Confirmation
• Enemies: A Love Story
• Father Knows Best
• Game of Thrones
• The Graduate
• Law and Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders
• A Lesson Before Dying
• The Newsroom
• Romeo and Juliet
• Scenes from a Mall
• Thank You For Your Service
• Toys
• Warm Springs

#

Music Mentioned

• The Beatles
• Burt Bacharach
• The Clash
• The Jackson 5
• The Smiths

#