Hello and welcome to Big Gay Energy. I'm Caitlin. And I'm Fiora. Come along with us while we dive into the fun and nuances of queer media. Representation matters, and we're. Here to talk about it. Cheers quiz. Yay, the Big Gay Energy team is back with a super fun interview today. Our intro and our interviewee today is Gypsy Taylor from Our Flag Means Death. Thank you so much for being here. Gypsy is the brilliant costume designer that was behind that show and we are so, so, so
excited to talk to you. Welcome, Gypsy. Well, thank you very much for having me. I'm very excited to be on the Big Gay Energy Podcast. Before I begin, were did you work on both seasons or just season 2? Just Season 2. Oh. OK, because the the filming moved from LA to New Zealand, correct? It did. It did, yeah. Yeah. And during the first season, I was unavailable on another project.
And then the designer who did the first season, she was unavailable for the second season because she was off doing Loki in London. Yeah, very cool, very cool that she's a brilliant designer. Yeah. So if the timing worked out that I was able to jump on board and and funnily enough I was living in LA, so I had to relocate to Auckland to do it, yeah, which is fine by me. I love, I love working in New Zealand.
The last time I worked in New Zealand was about 18 years ago on The Chronicles. Of I want to go to New Zealand so bad. I just want to travel. So pretty. And it's the best people. It's just beautiful. Must go. OK, well we asked Twitter. I guess we should say X, but I I hate that. I refuse if they had any questions for you. And boy, did they have them. They asked Go. Many questions in fact, that we decided to just let them take over the entire interview.
So here is what the audience is dying to know about the costumes. OK. So our first question comes from a fan who has been designing their own concept costumes for the characters in Season 3, getting a season three, But you know what? This is helping it live on. Yes, correct. So at Indigo, under score Under score Key asked. Did the actors, personalities, interests, etcetera inform your
design process? I started designing a long time before I met the actors, like probably 7 or 8 weeks before I even met them. And I knew the actors work. So I was already very familiar with Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi and and that New Zealand crew. So I already knew their personalities from, you know, what I've seen of their work over the years. And it wasn't until the actors were in the room with me that then we put a few little twists on things.
So essentially I took what had already been established in season one and then read all the new scripts for season 2 and kind of did my little design tweaks and thought what I thought would look good and pretty much had it all designed. And then the actors arrived, just a few, you know, a couple
of weeks before we shot. So little things changed when they were in the room, you know, like different little character things that they thought, oh, I might like to keep this scarf or I might like to, you know, hang on to a few little items. But otherwise, it was all done by the time they arrived. Yeah, I had a lot of creative freedom. And I had a fantastic director, David Jenkins, who obviously lives and breathes. Our flag means death.
So you know, everything that I came up with, any concept, any drawing, any design, I'd run past him and he had. He had all the characters in his in his wonderful brain, so we were able to do that together. I don't believe someone asked this in here, but I'm curious what is it like going into a show that already is established rather than starting the show
yourself? It's a little bit intimidating because the designer of season one did such a beautiful job and and brought these characters to life. And so upon arrival I I was like, I don't know what more I can bring. These are amazing, you know? But then there was a whole new wild story and a whole new lot of new characters. And so I was able to put my stamp on it, but also pay homage to the beautiful work of season one. And it was a wonderful topic. No, seriously, killed it. Thank you.
We had a lot, We had a lot more girls in this season, which was really exciting to do. A lot more famous for cows, which also the boys were really excited about. Like when when they all arrived, they were like, oh thank God there's some women. That's really refreshing to
hear. And, like, it really made everything so much more fun because then you get like the different culture, you know, that was coming in with like the Chinese kind of like it was really fun in a lot of different ways to see like a melding of people in costumes. Yeah, yeah, so, oh, so fun to design. Like, so fun. All right. So the next question we have from you is from at everyone Get cake, Which love. That orange cake? They don't. Let us know if you're listening.
Everyone get cake. What kind of cake? But is this cake or is the cake by the ocean thing? I think it's like samba. Samba is the cake, you know, Roach. Roach with his orange cake could be like a little nod. Yes, the forty oranges. See. I immediately thought of Mary Antoinette, so definitely can fall with that one, everyone. Gets cake. Go What's the wonderful question? All right, so Roach's Cake is
asking for a gypsy. You've cited Prince at Adam Ant and Iggy Pop as influences for our Flag Means Death Season 2. I would love to hear more details about how these and other musical icons inspired specific costumes on the show. Oh yeah. I mean, I think. I mean, music always inspires me whenever I go into any kind of
job. Right now I'm working at a job that's set in 1989, so I've been like delving deep into like the Billboard charts of 89. And so as a designer, I will always go to music first, music and art and anything pop culture around that period. And our show, you know, was 18th century, which is very classic. But then David Jenkins said to me, he goes, you know, think of it like these characters are just walking down the streets of New York in the 80s.
And that's one of my favourite periods, 'cause you're thinking about like Patti Smith and Warhol and Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe and all these genius artists of that period were like bubbling away creating incredible art, including all the musicians. And so straight up I like started a playlist of my own and and you know, heavy on Blondie and Hot and all these just great artists of the time And that was really inspiring me just with the sounds.
And and of course each of those artists came with their unique style. And you think about someone like Prince and Chili and they were just so original and and unique and queer and all the good things. And so I straight up went to them and went, you know what? How did you know Prince had these like pants that sort of like instead of a straight fly just had this diagonal fly with with buttons. And even as simple as that I incorporated that into Archie's leather pants.
And instead of buttons we put big screws through. And yeah, so just like little bits like that And Adam and the Ants is like very new romantic. Lots of like they, I mean they were honing it on the pirate style in the 80s because of Vivienne Westwood. And so they'd already like, taken that inspiration from the 18th century pirates, but made
it 80s and flamboyant. And so, you know there was just so much good visual and and musical reference to bounce off of really, and just add into our show to make it feel like all the characters were walking down the streets of New York. So you could just see them and go, Hey, what's up? Good leather pants? I. Can see that now that you're saying that? It's funny that you do mention Vivienne Westwood because I immediately clocked your earrings.
I I there's there's this like, necklace lighter that I want to get so bad. And it's of that symbol made of you, Westwood. But it's oh God, she's. I'd have to save up to get a piece by her, but like, that's definitely the dream. And she's one of my heroes. I mean, she was such a unique designer and put her own stamp on on a time period and a she invented punk. So she's just the coolest. Classics people. Oh yeah. So I admire her so much. I have a couple of little pieces.
They're expensive, but I save up over time. But we're going to get that little tiny piece of beautiful things. I'm glad you noticed. I put them on for you guys today. I dressed up a little bit. Speaking of impressive work, we have a question from Emily Loves Kale. What is something you've worked on for the show that was technically difficult or impressive, but but something viewers may not realize because it wasn't on screen for that
long or for some other reason? Just because we'd love to see any cool details that we may have missed. Yeah. Oh, that's a good question. I mean straight up I thought of the mermaid, but then you all saw saw that on screen cause technically that was that was difficult and wonderful to come to life. Don't worry, we have multiple questions about that later. Yeah, so much curiosity. It was impressive. OK, good things like Zheng's army like it.
It seemed so simple, but we made every single outfit for her entire crew and they were these beautiful hand dyed linen tops and pants. And the pants were, they had this incredible cut that my my tailor and a Deacon invented, which was sort of this crossover pant that tied so you didn't need any buttons or zips or anything current it could have just been. They were just very simple but
so beautiful. And then we had to make about 300 of them because we had so many of Jean's crew in and you never knew their size because you'd get extras on the day. So we'd have to have like extra small to extra large in and and they all had to be broken down. We also individually made all their shoes because those little, those sort of little Chinese slippers are really difficult to get.
They look very modern. They kind of look like a little van slip on. So I went back to some 18th century reference of how they were made, and there were just two pieces of black cotton with this kind of woven base and we made 300 pairs of shoes. Like, when does that ever happen? Like, normally. Yeah. Wild. How long did that take? I mean jinx crew in general like outfits and shoes. It's hard to put a time limit on anything that gets made because we get a certain amount of pre
production. So you're doing all the things at once. So you're chipping away like by a little bit, by a little bit to get everything done in time for the schedule. So Jane's crew came up a little bit later in the schedule, so we were able to just chip away at
it a long, long time. But you know like in the dire room everybody was turning blue and and it had all this like really delicious piping and all this lining and yeah, it just, it was a lot of work and I think you see it on screen because it feels like there's a lot of her crew working for her. Another one that didn't didn't make it on screen, which was very sweet, was we hand knitted. We John's socks. And yeah, you never saw them, but they were so beautiful.
They had I I have this wonderful friend who's just the most incredible knitter in New Zealand. Her name is Sarah Shepherd and she hand knitted little socks with skull and crossbones on them. That is so darling beautiful. But you never saw them on screen, sadly. You have a photo of it. I do, yeah, I'll have to. I'll find it and I'll upload it. I'm sure everyone would be so excited to see it.
So beautiful. And we John, yeah, Christian is just the most beautiful man and he in like he's he's huge. Like we we had to hand make shoes for him too, 'cause he has a very large foot. And so when the socks came out, they were like these little Christmas stockings almost they were, they were so. And then they fitted him perfectly and he loved them. Yeah, so I've got a beautiful. They end up they end up keeping the socks after season 2 wrapped up. I can't remember.
I can't remember where they went. Usually we wrap everything up and put it into storage and let the producers keep everything should there be another season. So yeah, I'm not sure where they ended up. I'll put them online and maybe some knitter will come forward and and knitted pair to match. Sounds like a challenge, everybody listening at home. I've seen that. What about you, Microsoft? I'm curious. I know you've been talking a little bit about like actually
making things. Are the costumes mostly like handmade from your designs or are they like gathered from other things you find that are already made?
All the principles. So any of my main cast and my day players people like Ricky and and the likes of you know other characters they are all handmade from scratch head to toe like all the jewellery all the belts and we gather pieces So I we gathered a whole lot of belt buckles that were old and but then often in film like we need multiples for things So if we found some really old weird piece of chunky metal we would cast it and make a few of them you know so that we had
multiples But yeah everything was made even you know I was talking about those screws in the Archie's pants they were they had to be soft so we we sculpted them as well. We couldn't use real screws because otherwise she wouldn't be able to do all of her high kicking and that sort of, and Vico's fish hook belt was sculpted. And. Yeah, so everything, everything you see or screen printed and you know, inventing fabrics along the way to make it unique and original.
So I would draw the sketch and then I would detail it and say you know I sort of want it this colour and this texture and and then I had a workshop of just wonderful creatives and makers and yeah, we made it all anybody in the background was sort of like pieced together from from stock that we found and but we would Punkify it, you know we would rip it and burn it and do all the fun things sounds. Like what the crew on the Revenge would do, RIP. This. Yeah, this would. Look cool.
Yeah, we made like fake vomit that we put on things so that like like rum vomit. And then we had like fake bird poo from seagulls and anything that made it look like they were like living in A at sea. We had this kind of like salt rim texture that we would spray paint on everything so it looked like this, you know, that salt had eaten away at their clothes, yeah. That's such a great detail.
Yes. So I'm sorry, I you just keep saying the things that I have questions about how what did you make the vomit and the bird poop out of? Honestly, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it involved a lot of paint and sort of like Modge, Podge, Jesuis, stuff that you'd color. So it all had to be hard and in
place, but still look wet. So you can add things with like a little bit of resin or a little bit of there's like art materials, basically, so that they're safe for reactors and that we can also store it in a washing machine if we need to. But then it stays. Yeah, Black Pete always has had like one really big glob of seagull on his shoulder that a seagull would shat on him. He wouldn't.
I definitely did have a quick follow up question since when you were talking about like like burning clothing, adding vomit, stuff like that, that did raise the question of did you design Steed's cursed suit that they find on the the mercenary ship. I believe, I want to say, oh, that is so impressive. It was it was such a look like that. Like that was like like, I like it just it fit. It fit him so well. It was so like like
complimentary, like. I can see why he was very apprehensive to give it up when the crew was like, it's cursed, it's cursed. It oh, he had to look very handsome. And it which is not hard with Reese. I I found it very easy to make him look super handsome. And he just had to own it, you know. And the minute he put it on and it had those big matador shoulders and these kind of like dandy Oscar Wilde tails and and you know that it was velvet and
all these delicious things. And I gave him all these jewels like all the buttons there encrusted with jewels. And yeah, I mean he'd like danced around the room and and I I've, I've said, I've said before like we make everything first out of a calico, which also is known as a twil. And so you just make it all out of calico. So you make sure that it fits before you cut into the beautiful fabric and make the final costume.
And so even in the calico, which is just cream, he was spinning around the room and like started doing the tail flick and and like his shoulders went back and he, like his bum, got a bit tighter and all this like amazing actory things came out in just the the calico, which was rare and wonderful. Very, very lovely. That's how you know it's right. That's right. That's right. They're like, we've got a winner.
This isn't about the costume in particular, but if that's cursed, how is the shirt under it not cursed? Yeah, we also had that follow up question because we were so confused. I mean that's not really a question for you, but just a curious. I mean, well, look, going into this show, David Jenkins said to me. You know, a lot of that storylines are a little bit Looney Tunes. It's a little bit funny, you know, like we're going to say it's cursed. But then, oh, that shirt's so
cute. Maybe he just keeps it because he looks really hot in it. Like one of the classic ones was when Blackbeard put all his black Leathers and threw them over the ship into the ocean, like, deep, deep into the ocean. And then he finds them and appears and gets dressed in them and appears out of the ocean wearing them. And I was like, how is that how is that even possible? Like what? Don't you want me to make an outfit out of seaweed or something?
And he's like, like, he's like Gypsy Bugs Bunny, Looney Tunes. Like, he just it. He finds it like he finds it in the ocean. I was like, all right. And his Leathers are fine. Just like the boats, they can magically find, navigate in the ocean, and find the right person they're trying to find. Yeah, well, it's a comedy. We don't think too hard about them because we just make it cute. I know, it's amazing, yes. So for the question I'm actually supposed to ask.
And I first might be why you ask the question. Please do. At first, Watch Live is curious about the Calypso's birthday party scene and anything that a non expert might not notice about the details of the costumes in there. There's so many everybody's there on the ship, I know. Oh, fancy too. I mean, Ned Lowe was a really wonderful costume and I've spoken a lot about, you know, Wee John's drag and Izzy's beautiful look and but I think someone like Ned Lowe was a
really beautiful costume. We we made just a pure 18th century cut for Bronson Pinchot and it was based on Paganini the violinist. And I just thought, look, we'll just go straight up 18th century. I know. So I was again, I was like pumping Paganini in the background and going, oh, it's so evil and stringy and metally. And so we made this full 18th
century outfit. But then again, we did the calico on the trial and then before we sewed the whole thing, we painted all the fabric silver and Chrome. So it had that metally feel. So normally an 18th century outfit like that would have been, you know, beautiful velvet or some sort of lushes, but we made it this metally silver Chrome to kind of punctify it up a bit. And and then things like his little buttons were these beautiful little like metal coils that are like the end of a
violin. You know when the violin strings go up and they tighten. I wanted all his little buttons to look like that and for him to feel really evil. And he and I think that was a costume that that kind of disappeared a little bit into the into the chaos that ensued at the party. But he was definitely one of my favourites. I loved his look. Oh, and I gave him like silver cowboy spurs, which was not even invented in the 18th century, but it just felt right.
And like I love that you bring up Paganini cause like it that's he like embodies him like with like the evilness and like especially with like his his fixation on like the the orchestra of pain or whatever the Symphony of pain. Like it was it was just like just you saying that I'm making that comment about the inspo for him. Like it. It just puts every like puzzle piece into place because like it just adds more of an extra depth to it. Like it's just like told the
name of the devil's violinist. Like whenever he plays, surely the devil was playing and I was like, oh, he's such a good, bad character. I always like the bad characters. They're the funnest in design, just so that's one in That's one in Calypso's party that I really love making. Everything about Calypso's party was fantastic. All the so many fun costumes for all the people that were at the party or crashed the party.
Yeah, that's right. Our next question comes from Pirate Girl. How did you communicate the character's growth slash transitions through your medium? Was there anything you were particularly proud of that perhaps didn't make it on screen? That's that's that's a lot. That's a good question. That's a lot for me to think about. I'm trying to think of other things that didn't make it to screen, but I feel like almost everything did.
It was something like the Wee John Socks you know, that were there but you didn't see them. Can't think of what that might be. And then as far as like transitions goes, I really loved how how we split our crew. Well at the end of season one when the crew is automatically split up in half, go with black bed and half are stranded on an island. I love that. We cut to like three months later and they'd still been
living under a bridge. But then I got to really like Black beardify the entire revenge crew and, you know, really Mad Max them up basic, because Blackbeard's whole outfit is very much inspired by Mad Max. And so, you know, we had to make him black and and nasty and made out of all these found objects. But that's a that was a really big jump for someone like Jim and Frenchie and the ones who were in like pretty pretty simple, beautiful pirate
costumes to begin with. And then I went really far. So that jump was my favorite transition. And then it was slowly, like taking them out of Blackbeard, but keeping the rule that pirates don't have a wardrobe, they they steal their wardrobe. So they more like they lost pieces and gained pieces. So they never really transitioned all that much. It was a little bit more
believable. So someone like Jim, you know, had these fantastic boots that we made that were like buckles all the way up to the kneecaps and these brilliant pants that were like based on a a Pete Byrne pant. I don't know if you know Pete Byrne, if you don't brilliant. He loved Vivienne Westwood to talk about. He was a style icon. So I did those paper bag pants and the braces, the suspenders, but I wanted to keep that look
because it looked so cool. But then just start to incorporate a little bit more of Jim into that. At one point we were going to bring back like that beautiful vest from season one. But but by then, I think Viko had really like taken to this new evolution of what Jim was. So yeah, they were my favorite sort of character transitions. Probably love that. That's really, that's really poignant about like the time jump too, like, and how that was a very abrupt like their wardrobe.
And I like, I like the realism, like you said of like, pirates can't just don't just go to stores and buy clothes like they're thieving. That's good. They're a good pair of boots on that dead pirate. I might take those. And and I think that's what makes it more like serendipitous and, like, ironic. The fact that, like Steed finally gets a chance to have, like more of like a pirate aspect when he stumbles upon the cursed jacket and the crew doesn't let him keep it because
it's cursed. So like that just kind of added, like a little undertone of like, comedic relief for the the ironic aspect, 'cause it's like, yeah, pirates can see whatever, but if your crew thinks it's cursed, you're shit out of luck. That came with Reese as well. Like he came into my fitting room and I said, you know, you've lost everything. Like you've been stranded on an island for three months and living under a bridge and you have nothing anymore.
So, like, whatever you find now is what becomes your new persona. And Reece was like, oh, I don't even get to keep any rings. And I was like, no, he got nothing. And he goes, what about like 1 earring? I'm like, Nah, not yet. And he's like, but what about like a little bit of lace from his coats and I'm like all gone. Like, we'd burned them all and I just had to keep. He was like a little boy, like,
oh, I can't have that. I was like, no, he just was so sad that he'd lost all that opulence of season one and that he was just down to like just a shitty pair of shirt than pants. And I even went so far as, you know, that little like Maida D scarf he has that was just a bit of the couch lining from the ship just ripped off and it still had a bit of the tassel.
So it was just like really crappy bit of fabric and we just sort of tied it to make him look like he had some sort of opulence, but in actual fact it was just from a crappy old couch. See, the game plan he should have went with is making the argument of, but Taika got his leather suit back. Why can't I keep an earring? I know. And I was like, taking up with the director. I it's not my fault. But one ring Gypsy. I was like, all right, yeah. Later on, let's still use some rings.
I'll bite your ear. All right. That's adorable. Yeah, that's so cute with. This our next question also involves Mersteed. So Jason, under score, I'm going to miss Bergeron Bergeron. Thank you. They asked. I was curious how long it took to create Mr. Merstein's costume and how many people are in apartments were required to make that happen. Amazingly it was 1 incredible woman called Hayley Egan who is a dear old friend of mine in Australia and she's an incredible props maker.
I've worked on many films with her and she's all as long as I've known her. She's had an obsession with mermaids and sea creatures and octopus and she's often sculpting things like this jewelry or it's. So I just so when I read that there was a mermaid in the script and they were talking. They were having the conversation about should it be VFX, should it be practical. And I was just like I've got a girl. I have a girl who makes mermaids let me do this.
And they were like OK, let let her do this. So we. So I called up Haley and of course she was just like over the moon. She's like, this is my dream to make this happen. And then we started. So she probably had about four weeks. She did it all from Australia with a couple of assistants helping her. Mainly. They were like pouring glitter into every scale and helping her cast it and and airbrush it and have it come together. So she headed up the tail and we
had four. In the end we had a, a stunt. Oh we had a rehearsal one and then a stunt and then a two hero ones. So it was 4 tails in the end and one of my favorite things that happened was they were huge right? So she said I'm going to hand carry them on a plane from Sydney to Auckland and she got she got 2 suitcases and sliced the middles out of both of them and joined them and then like gaffed and she built like a
triple size suitcase. And then when she got to the Auckland airport and New Zealanders have the funniest sense of humor, the guy says, you know, are you importing any meat or fish into the country? And she's like, yeah, full fish. Got a whole mermaid in my suitcase. You want to chat? He's like, what is it? And she's like, had she just came for the weekend to drop it off and like, stay and make sure it was all OK.
So she probably just had hand carry with her clothes and four mermaid tails in this like giant handmade suitcase. It was brilliant. It was. Brilliant. Yeah, so the. I want to see the suitcase right. Yeah. Oh it's somewhere, it's somewhere on the yeah so then when when she got to the Auckland then we fitted brace properly we'd already done like a pre fitting with a with in Lycra and I'd posted that to her so she built on on that knowing his size.
So then we got it on him and then that was it. We had like 2 days to shoot. We had like a day to practice and for them to do all their breathing techniques and figure out how deep they could go. And then we had to work out the buoyancy of the of of the tail itself, because it was really, really heavy. So he had to make sure that he could still float with the weight. So we did lots of those sort of buoyancy tests and with the stunt department, and then we shot it and it was magic, actual
magic. I cried. Yeah, it was very good. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, yeah, between me and Haley and her her assistants, we we did that. Yeah, I I think my favorite fun fact about the whole Mercedes 'cause I I saw an article talking about it and I just think it's hilarious that it purely became a thing because Jenkins Jenkins was like, I want to see what you would look like as a mermaid. Yeah, and it was beautiful. And he. Was he?
Was. And knowing that Reese, you know, has like little gingery hair and sort of like gingery chest hair and and gingery, you know, skin tone and everything, I was like, well, he has to be a goldfish because one, it's just such a sweet little kind of pathetic fish and it just matched all of his persona and and I and then I after I decided that he should be a goldfish, I found, I found a little like Chinese cultural thing that said, you know, goldfish mean a
good luck and and love they tied up all these really beautiful positive imagery. So I was like, well, yeah, of course he has to be a goldfish. Yeah. That was just lovely. And Reece was just like, he's just said he's always wanted to become a mermaid. So it was just his dreams come true as well. We were lucky. So many dreams came true with this. I know ass making this show. I'm so glad they didn't VFX it, because yeah. Thank you all. You're so good.
You know, and it's a little bit hokey as well, which I kind of like, you know you. You might have left the on. Yeah, you just go. Well, of course I believe it. It's beautiful. We did a reaction video to it and Theora knew it was coming and Zoe and I were talking and she's like SH watch, like what? The hell Let's not stop laughing. It was. It got damn hilarious. I. Know. But then you're laughing and crying at the same time because it's such a beautiful scene.
So you're just like this is ridiculous, but I my heart hurts. Exactly. It's like, I wanna. It's like, I wanna focus on like the pain and like agony that's currently experiencing, but like, God damn that mermaid tail. Yeah, yeah. And when you see outtakes of Reese, he'd like, wink at the camera and do like, like flirty fish things. And you go, oh, what are we doing? What show are we making? Yeah, it's a behind the scenes of a of Reese making kissy like
a little tiger. And I was like, I love it. I love this man. That beautiful, beautiful friendship. Speaking of emotions, at Ramsay under Score B under Score O FM D wants to know what it was like seeing Reese in the full tail regalia for the first time and seeing this all come together and underwater. I think Samba got a really good video, very embarrassing video of me, 'cause I was like on the side of the pool, just, like clutching my heart and just being like I was just so proud.
And I felt, and I I don't have any children, but I felt like a proud mother of a merman. And I was like, I've never been more proud that he like, look, he like. He went so deep and he swam so well and he acted underwater and he looked so beautiful and I just, I just felt like a proud mother. Proud mother of a forever mermaid. That is such a wonderful quote.
Yeah, yeah, I really. Was and and and just you know when you see it all come together like that's most of my job is we spend weeks making and and refining and fitting and making sure that just that very quick moment on screen is as beautiful as it can be. And so just when that alchemy happens and you know you're there and then the hair and make up team have done a beautiful job and they've covered him in glitter. And you know, then the props
team have given him a sceptre. And you know, the stunt team have worked so hard at making sure that they can breathe and relax deep underwater. And then the lighting guys come in and put these shafts of light that hit the glitter on the fins. And you know it's this like a magical alchemy of when it all comes together and then they just go action and you go, we all did that.
We all came together and made that moment in film, so it's very rare when things like that come together so beautifully. I saw the behind the scenes video you posted on Instagram about it and it just blows my mind how they're able to film underwater and just having the huge tanks. Like, I'm impressed. That's has to be. True. And you know that a few of those tanks around the world. So New Zealand has one. Gold Coast has one, Atlanta has one, Mexico had one for a little
while there. And so there's like all those films, they like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Meg, you name it. Like they all go to the same tanks and film in there and it's amazing. You know what? What can be? What magic can be made? You said. Was it Haley? Who? Haley Did she make tales for other shows and stuff, or is this her first time making it for the? I think this was the first time
she'd made one for a movie. I know she'd done personal ones for her and her daughter for swimming and and what not but she's just she's sculpted to sort of see creaturey things most of her career. So I she's does this like incredible octopus chandelier that she's sculpted that all lights up and yeah like she's just very, very clever. I've worked with her many times, and every time I'm just blown away by what she's able to create. We worked on a McDonald's commercial recently, which was
weird and funny. And I wanted to make like, a pair of Balenciaga Crocs that were a MC Crispy chicken burger. And so I was like, you know, I was like, you know, like we'll just slice the croc in half and then we'll have like, a chicken Patty and some lettuce and some Mayo and some mustard seeds. And she's like, yeah, yeah, got it. Goes away, comes back with all these photos.
I'm like you're a genius. Well, well, I probably won't be able to afford it if she does have an Etsy shop I would love to peruse. Yeah, I think it's also jewelry online. Hayley Egan, design.com from memory. I was just curious because there was a kid show that filmed in Australia called H2O that used a lot of mermaid tails. So. Yeah, yeah, That was one of the They were one of the first teams I thought of. I was like, oh, who made those, 'cause they were really beautiful, I thought.
I thought they put on camera was I was working on Narnia up in the Gold Coast when they were shooting H2O. And I remember just kind of going to lunch one day and walking in the back lot and some guy was just pulling a trolley with like 4 tails from H2O just stacked on each other. And he's just like, you know, doing his job. And I was just like, what am I? I'm I'm amazed at how realistic these two. I mean, not that I know what it would look like in real life, but like, they look so good.
Yeah, yeah. They look so heavy. Yeah, so heavy because silicon is really the only thing that holds up underwater and in chlorine, because those pools have to be like heavily chlorinated and chlorine kills everything, kills all fabric and it's like bleach. So silicon has to. So you have to find a way to like, make it light enough, but sort of all out of silicon, latex and wet suit materials and they're all really dense and really heavy. So yeah, we knew we didn't have
long. Yeah, we had like a, we had these baths on the side as well that were like just big old tubs from, you know, the hardware store. And they all had their different type of cleaning product in it that would clean the latex and the silicon and the lycra between shots so that we could, like, keep the longevity of it. So we'd like dunk them like, you know, like like old photographs and they all have their like solution of their training. I was like that but with a fish tail.
And we when we get to the end and like, hang it up and we'd be ready for the next tape. That is hilarious. Oh my God. And. We had to build a brand pool as well because to roll him in, yeah, to roll him in. So I I basically, I was like oh, how am I going to get him around once he's like in it? And I thought it back to this like Bette Midler performance where she played a mermaid in a wheelchair. And I was like, oh, we just wanna go rent a wheelchair.
And so we found we were able to rent a wheelchair from like, the local chemist or hospital. I don't know. And we. And then I said, OK, well, he still has to get up into the pool, which is like 2 meters. So we talked about like a little sling or do we carry him? And I spoke to the construction department and they just built him a wheelchair mermaid ramp so we could just wheel him up and then kind of push him in. It is so great. There you go. There you go.
Off you go. Yeah, I was wondering how he was going to walk and that I was like, there's no way. Yeah, he can stand because the the the mono fin they call it, you can stand up straight in it, but then once you're swimming it like flows with you, but you can stand. So he stood up. Well, we did all the final glitter and make up and everything, and then he just sat back down and we wheeled him. Yeah, I think Samba has footage of that as well. Oh lovely.
Right, our next question pivots. Sadly, we're pivoting away from Mercede into Spanish Jackie territory, so S S in the Wind 43220 wants to know about the origin of Spanish Jackie's wooden hand. Oh, you know what? I don't know That question somebody. Oh yeah, I would imagine that she'd lost it in a fight because she's a very violent woman who loves chopping off noses and you
know, owns a pirate bar. So there's probably had been some encounter but back in those days like any sort of amputees or anybody missing any limbs would have been sculpted out of a wood because it was sort of like pre metal, you know pre industrial revolution. So if you were missing a limb they usually had it sculpted out of wood. So I would imagine that's probably the storyline.
And I like that she's sort of like decorated it with rings and it had nails and it perfectly hold like a cigar. Yeah, I thought it was a very nice like little detail because it's like it's definitely like a blink and you'll miss it type of detail because like she wears it so well. Like it just looks like a regular hand, not a wooden hand. So it's such a nice like attention to detail type of thing. Yeah, it's funny because as again, it's that Looney Tunes thing.
Like I never asked. I didn't ask any questions. I was like, oh, she got a wooden hand and then I would just decorate it. I put like little lace frills and and just decorate this beautiful hand. But I never asked where it came from. I'm sorry, I don't have the answer. Oh, no, it's OK. I just. I also just love that it's not just a normal wooded hand. It has all those attention to. It has personality, like you're saying, which is. A life of its own.
And Leslie would like, act with it, you know, Like everything became like this and he'd like to do things. Yeah. I loved it. It was very, very funny. It's. So funny. All right. So our next question kind of ties into Reese's. I don't wanna call it a temper tantrum, but like a plea for for extra add-ons. So this question comes from Gina Dora and she she or they want to know more about the teal robe and the reason why I brought up you and Reese's conversation.
I it it's so it's kind of like, is this like a compromise? Like, 'cause it, it looks so comfortable? So, like, I I want to know, 'cause I know, like, Reese would have loved it, and I know Ed wore it, 'cause he looked very comfortable in it. So was like that, like a compromise to, like, give like the crew, like a little bit extra since, like, Ed had lost, like his leather, like attire prior. Like what's the context behind it? Not that deep, but it.
We would imagine that like he burnt the Blackbeard once he'd taken over the Revenge head sort of set all of Steve's clothes on fire in a in a heartbroken, you know, throwing him overboard, like get rid of anything that belongs to him.
He doesn't want to see it. But the thinking behind it was that maybe he just kept one little thing that like just a little memory of Steve and so you know and the and the robe in season one was so beloved and I knew that we had this this scene with them in bed having breakfast. And so I said oh you know what if the. What if the piece is kept is just another robe that we'd never seen of steeds. And you know something like those robes fit anybody so kind of anyone can put it on and it
looks beautiful. So then we started building what would be the next robe and that's actually that's one of the ones that didn't get seen as much. And I have had a lot of questions about it, like what's the lining like and and all of that business. But we made it so quickly and it was on the screen so quickly that I don't really have any imagery sadly. But it was this beautiful velvet, silk velvet and it was in that teely colour that we love that reminds us of state
from season one. And then we dip dyed. We ombre dyed the whole bottom in this sort of dark, dark colour way and all the inside was lined in in a Chinese silk, as like a little nod to Jiang, but not really. It was just pretty. So it was this like pale purple Chinese silk. And then I had all these, you know, because we were always scouring markets and thrift stores and Etsy for just kind of strange metally things that they
would have found at sea. And I'd found these, like curtain tassels that were bullion, which is like a metal. And they were just these balls with tassels. And I, we never had any costumes to put them on. And I always had them hanging in my office because I loved them And I was like, oh, let's hang them on the robe. So we had the off the sleeve. They had these Pretty Little metal tassels. And yeah. And then he got, he was just, you know, then Tiger wore it.
And I think Tiger kept that robe. I think you love it. Like you could take this one home. And I was like, yes, yes you can. That's cute. You actually ended up answering the follow up question for from Gina Dora, which was the the lining? Was the lining dip dyed? What color is it? Because they wanted to know for cosplay. I know, I know. I wish I had some good photos of it. Sometimes we're just rushing so much to get things done and on screen that I like.
I remember the fitting photo I have is just the plain teal velvet. And so there was no detail, no lining, no nothing. It was just like, here's the shape. Does that fit you? Yep. Good. Go out, dye it, da, da, Put it on screen, put it, shoot it, put it in a box. Gone like it was very fast.
And so yeah, I don't have many reference pictures sadly, but yeah, the lining, it's like that Chinese silk that has little flowers and it starts off as this kind of lilac and then it dip dyed into the ends like ombre into a sort of a darker purple which was black beard's colour. So I want like a touch of steed and a touch of black beard in there. So it was really the teals and the purples joined together with these kind of rusted metal bullion tassels. That is adorable.
Thank. You. So we kind of talked about this a bit, but I'm gonna ask again just in case your answer might be different at Dean Bird on AO3. What cost? Which costumes are you proudest of? Any fun stories from putting them together? I mean, I'm proud of them all. I just told you I was a proud mother of a merman. Like anything that anything that came out of the workshop and then was on screen, I was just like oh, it's so beautiful. So that's a really hard one to
add. So that is really like choosing your favorite child. I I don't know if I can. They're just. They're all fabulous. So they all had their own story and they all had their own persona. And then the actors brought them to life and everything. It was everything. OK, all right. There's one favorite I had, which was, which was this background. I had this vision. Oh, I Well, that's right. I was listening to this podcast on the way to work every day called the Pirate History Podcast.
It's fantastic. And he was talking about how so many rats were at the bottom of a ship and the rats would eat all the food that the pirates had. So then they had to steal more food. And you know, rats were always just like a problem at sea because they could live in the water and all that sort of thing. So I one day, just for one of the pirates that comes into the bar, I was like, you know what we need to make? We need to make a jacket of
rats. And so instead, like, and we obviously, we use all fake fur in the show to be good to the world and good to animals. And so we built little fake fur rats. This wonderful girl on my team, Melissa, she made tiny little tails and tiny little arms and legs and little ears. And then we sewed like hundreds of them together into a vest. And then we took it to the breakdown department, who made it just look all crusty and like just dead rats. And there's just this beautiful
rat vest in the show. And that's that piece I. Love it. I love it. I. Love everything about that. And I was. I couldn't think of what like person to put it on. But when it all came together, I was very proud of the little rat vest. I would be too. Yeah, as you should be. I will. I gotta go find the red. Festival. I would walk around the office wearing it and everyone would be like, Oh my God, she's worried. Just being historically accurate for our show.
Crazy designer. But I think your first answer is very fair, 'cause you should be proud of every single costume that was created, because they all have a personality. They're all amazing. Yeah, I wanted to wear all of them. Seriously. Same. OK, I love it. I'm going to push her this next person's name, so I apologize, I'm trying. So you want me to do it for you, Freeburg? Nadia, was I close? I I OK, so my take was Freiburg. Nadia. OK, so they have two different takes.
Go ahead. Hopefully one's right. OK. Yeah. What's your question? They say all my love to the makeup and costume designers. What a look. Loved every single detail. It's like. So first Love now question Zhang's costume. How historically accurate was it? Oh, she was like one of the very close to close to period costumes that we did. I didn't really like put a punk
take on her at all. We I looked at a lot of museum pieces of clothing, so there's a whole lot of like amazing museum websites like the VNA and and Natural History Museum and they'll quite often photograph pieces of clothing flat and they just kind of get the back and the front. And I had a lot of photographic reference as well, which was a little bit later because obviously cameras were not
involved. And I looked at a lot of art from that period as well and just followed the lines because I wanted to get it accurate for, you know, the purposes of just being culturally representing it properly. And I am not Chinese, as you may have noticed. So I wanted to make sure that I did it right and good. So I really looked into what was worn in that period through the form of art and museums. And so we then just cut pieces and and and made our own version of what we thought that might be
from the picture reference. So she was very much you know pattern wise and and detail wise accurate to that period. And then the fabrics obviously had to be modern because I was buying them from a modern fabric store. But we tried to make sure that we got a lot of like Chinese silks and made sure that it was the correct Chinese print. And and we made all the, they call them little frogs, you know, the knots. So we made sure all we handmade all of those that they looked correct.
Actually back to those Zheng uniforms as well, Melissa who made all the little rat tails. She also made thousands of those tiny little frog knots, you see like 3 on every Zheng uniform. So 3 * 200. She handmade all of those. That's impressive. Impressive. Yeah. So Zheng was very much speed. The actually the one little punk thing that I did give her though was her leather cuffs. And again they were sort of like based on Chinese armor a little bit.
But then I added these kind of the silhouette of a little skull and then two little gold crossbars. So they 3 hidden little skull and crossbars as her little pirate nod. But yeah, otherwise she was very historically accurate. That character is one of my favorites in general. OK. She's so. Good. We we were absolutely just praising the character when we were doing our reaction episode for it.
Like just very well written and like the historical accuracy, like it's just overall it's such a good character. Oh yeah, she's so badass. And I yeah, just love that character. And I loved Auntie as well. Who was her son? Oh my God, yes. Yeah. Auntie was just like everything. I loved her so much. And with Auntie, we had originally cast or it had been scripted that she was a Chinese grandma. But then once we met Anna Pella and in the reading, we were just like, Oh my God, she's so
fabulous. Then I sort of had to incorporate less Chinese and more sort of Maori culture and almost again, like that pirate thinking of like, oh, she stole that jacket and that vest and she stole those pants and this necklace is all the things she's collected along the Silk Road.
And so, yeah, so we weren't being we were just making our own version of other pieces she'd collected from from her journey on Jen's ships through the Silk Road, but still being, you know, kind and aware to her Maori culture. Very, very lovely. Not too much. So this kind of plays off of Dean's question a little bit, but it's it's its own question in and of itself.
It's just a similar theme. This is from Ghost in the Stacks. What costume were you most excited to see put into action and or what was the most difficult one to create? Oh, actually the English army was really difficult. Yes, because we had to. They were all period correct. And we had some of the, we had some of the uniforms from season one, but they were not enough because David Jenkins had this vision of like the whole English army taking over the Republic of Pirates.
And so again, that was like 3 or 400 costumes, much like we were. But we like I tried, you know, and their colours were Navy and cream and gold and we couldn't find enough fabric around the world. And like the all the wool we had to import from England because New Zealand didn't have enough
Navy wool to cover our army. And we didn't we had to like source gold braid from everywhere around the world to like just make sure we had enough meteorage to cover like the tricorns and all done thing And who had like to sort of piece that together was huge and a mammoth effort of my team. And they were all like period correct pants and vests and shirts and coats as well and so and that yeah that was just a
mammoth effort. But then when we saw it all come together on screen and you see them will like arrive and take over the Republic of pirates you you it was like epic and iconic. And then to have our casting, you know our cast of pirates steal their uniforms and wear them, that then became like its own storyline. And I gave them all their own little characters of like who what they stole and how they styled it on themselves which was really, really fun.
So that was probably like had it was the hardest work and had such a huge reward saying it all comes together. With knowing the Baxter right behind it, that kind of raises the question, if you don't know the answer to this, that is totally fine. What was Y'all's costume budget for like keeping like every like all of this in mind?
Like, I would assume like it would have to be like at least like a pretty penny to be able to like reach out and source these products and like make sure it's still ethical. And it just seems like a lot going into the costume designing aspect of it. If you're allowed. To answer that. Yeah, if you're allowed. Figure off the top of my head, but I do know that that budgets on film are never as much as you need.
And you know, I've worked on really small horror films up to like huge James Cameron Avatari type budgets and there's always you. You just find where you lie in that, in that scale and you make it work. And a lot of the time it's not really about like the materials per SE, it's all of our budget goes into labour and the
craftsmanship. So that is where all my budget goes is into the leather makers and the dyers and the seamstresses and the runners and the coordinators and and that team is the thing that that makes it work. So when you when I talk about things like, oh, we had to go to
England to get wool. In the scheme of things, that wasn't that expensive, but it was more expensive for the seamstresses to sit there and sew 400 coats because their time is more is more laborious and expensive because of how long it takes to make it so beautiful. So yeah, Did that answer yes? It definitely did. Thank you for that. But I don't know the number. I'm also like quite dyslexic. I'm not very good with numbers, so that's totally fine.
That's that is fair. So our last question comes from at here briefly. One, what is the process for determining or and creating the aesthetic for background actors from season one to season 2? The styles of people in the Republic of Pirates seem to modernize and be more leather forward. So what went into that? You were look. Liverpool is such a good term. I want to use that all the time. They also say thank you for everything. You are welcome again.
It came back to that brief from David Jenkins with the with the with the cast where he just said it's the streets of New York. So of course I just went straight to punk because 80s New York, that's was a it was a huge part of it. And also it was that punk saying that like informed hip hop and and that became like that melded into that in the later 80s. So it just was hard, just punk and I had a whole team who would
just work on the extras. So I think it was a team of five or six team members who would find pieces and like it might be from the thrift store, it might be from we'd made sauced, it made you know just like an amalgamation of a million pieces. And we had them all lined up in like vests, pants, coats, jewellery, gloves, petticoats, crinolines, corsets. They just went on and on and on. So we built like a library per southeast of all of these
costumes. And then almost every single one of those pieces went through the art finishing department. He'd break it all down and rip it and burn it and add vomit and and then we we just had this pirate library, basically.
And one of the things that David also was really adamant about was that, you know, it had an iconic look and didn't look like Pirates of the Caribbean or we didn't want it to look like piratey, per SE. So we sort of invented a lot of characters that looked like they could have been in a band or they could have been, you know, an artist of that period and and still incorporate 18th century silhouettes, but just really leaned in on, yeah, the the New York streets of the 80s.
And that's what gave it that beautiful look. Leather. Leather forward. It's leather forward. Never going to forget that. Well, that's all the questions we and the audience have for you today. We could probably talk to you forever. You're so amazing and so is your worst. Like, I believe you worked on Wheel of Time, which we're going to cover at some point. I did. Yeah, I would say it's. One of Theora's favorite. Oh yeah, Really. It's a great show. Oh.
My God and this. And again, the outfits just asked for another time. If you're game to talk about it, 'cause. Yeah. Wow, those outfits. Yeah, they were good fun. I was. I was actually reminiscing the other day about the Tinkers. They were one of our favorite things. My God, yes, all the. Colours. Was beautiful. I had this all like 3 and Hot Pinks and it was delightful. Yeah, yeah, That was just really. Fun from a costume perspective. Yeah, that was a really special
job. And also like on the pages, like the Robert Jordan books, like he just explains it all and you go, Oh my God, that's beautiful. Like how do we make that happen and how do we come up those eyes to eye colours and you know all. That the ambulance dress and like all that stuff and. Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you're a fan and they were great questions. So thank you to everybody who who wrote in and and asked questions. That means so much and I love seeing all the cosplay costumes.
It just warms my heart. Also, I need to just confirm this for myself, but didn't you also work on the Chronicles of Narnia? I did, yeah. The first one and the good one. So Lion Witch and the Wardrobe and then the Dawn Treaddock years later. Yeah, yeah. I started out as a Costco. Yeah, there's more than one, and I think it's like a trilogy. Three. Yeah, there was gonna be like four or five. And I heard a rumor that I think Greta Gerwig is is like. Yeah, it's gonna take.
Over Prince County and I. Think Yeah, yeah, yeah. That first one was like one of my first jobs and I was a costume illustrator. Wow. So I worked under the costume designer and just drew and painted all day long. And it was just. Well, it paid off. Those costumes were gorgeous. Yeah, really good. Yeah, I'd be very lucky to work on lots of fantasy projects, which is one of my favourites. That's awesome. Again, we obviously we can talk to you all day but. We are.
Yeah. So happy that you joined us today. Thank you again for taking the time to talk with us. We're really appreciating. Love getting to know you and your work better. And to you, everybody, everybody at the Big Gay Energy Podcast. Thank you for inviting me. It was very special. To everyone at home listening, make sure to check out our Flag Means death streaming on Max. And until next time, hydrate for Lesbian Jesus. And gay it up all over the place. Bye.
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