AT THE AUDI PAVILION SALONS
Production and costume by any means necessary

The director provides the vision, the writer gives voice to the vision, and the actor animates the vision, but it is the production designer and the costume designer that combine to illustrate the vision, helping to create the world in which the vision comes to life.

On hand to kick off the first of this year's AFI FEST Audi Pavilion Salon presentations, "Production and Costume Design: The Vision behind the Vision" were two noted designers who joined moderator Monica Corcoran, LA Times Style Editor, to discuss some of the ups and downs, as well as the ins and outs, of production and costume design on Saturday.

"It's impossible to overstate the impact that the production and costume designers have on a film," Corcoran said. "What a character is wearing and where they are located says so much about a character that dialogue can't."

Rafi Mercado, who pulled double duty as both costume and production designer for MANUELA Y MANUEL, agreed that it's often the colors and the costumes set the tone and mood for a film.

"What I do is really very much like a painting; I get the script and start coloring the pages," Mercado said. "For MANUELA Y MANUEL, I tried to create the environment where Manuel lives, so we know at least a little bit about him even before he ever speaks."

Negar Ali, costume designer for THE LIVING WAKE, also uses the film's script as her starting point. "Everything starts with the dialogue," she said. "Read the script, talk to the director and the writers and the story winds up making a lot of decisions for you."

Of course, a film's budget (or lack thereof) and shooting schedule can also wind up making a lot of those decisions. But, Ali noted, a little imagination and a lot of resourcefulness can go a long way in overcoming most budgetary restraints.

"We didn't have the time or the money that bigger budgeted films have. Then, there were characters in our film that were literally cast the night before shooting," she said. "And we were shooting in Maine where all we had was a Salvation Army store and a Wal-Mart. That's where the bulk of my budget was spent."

On the other hand, filming in Maine did offer Ali some artistic advantages. "We were shooting in New England in the fall, which is an incredibly beautiful time of year," she said. "I wanted the costumes to match the hues of the film, so we used lots of tweeds and lots of plaids. Basically, I came up with a color palette to match the scenery.

For Mercado, the goal was to come up with a palette that matched the mental and psychological scenery of the characters as well as the physical scenery of the film. That meant color -- and lots of it.

"The character of Manuel is a performer. It's such a colorful character and I wanted to bring to the film the idea that his whole life is really a performance," he said. "Even with the other characters around Manuel, especially the female characters, I wanted to go just a little bit over the top, give it an extra layer of edge."

Likewise, helping the actors get into both their costumes and their characters is the overriding consideration in Ali's approach.

"With costume design, you have to take into account who the character is, where they are and where they are going, and then try to reflect that in the costume design down to the most miniscule details from head to toe," Ali said. "One of the most rewarding parts of costume design is being able to create a look for a character that is authentic and helps the actor to feel comfortable in the skin of that character."