Industry InterviewFilm Opening Sequence interview between

Marisa Aboitiz and Jone Aboitiz

Marisa Aboitiz Costume Supervisor

The job of a Costume Supervisor

• The main responsibility of a Costume Supervisor is to manage the general operation of the costume department and to work with the Costume Designer to facilitate production needs. Depending on the unique needs of each project, the job can have both creative and managerial requirements. As a Costume Supervisor working in Film and Television for 25 years I have been fortunate to work on varied projects

Some Basic responsibilities of a Costume Supervisor:

• Set up the Costume Department – everything from having phone lines and clothing racks installed to renting sewing machines and trailers for the duration of the shoot

• Hire and Manage Costume Crew – determine how many costumers, seamstress, and dressers are needed and what their individual responsibilities are

• Liaison with Producers, Accountants and Assistant Directors – this can entail anything from helping schedule shooting (based on costume readiness and availability) to meetings on budgetary increases

• Helping acquire and source costumes appropriate for the project

• Overseeing costume fitting schedule for both principle and background Actors

• Budget – create a costume budget based on genre, costume changes in script, and shooting conditions and needs

• Oversee and track department spending, pay invoices

Different Projects That Marisa Aboitiz has been

part of THERES A LOT

Films:• Unthinkable• The Invention of Lying• The City of Your Final

Destination• Days of Wrath• Freedom Writers• Deck The Halls• The Black Dahlia

• Meet the Fockers• Dodgeball: A True Underdog

Story• 13 Going On 30• House of Sand and Fog • Le Divorce• Tuck Everlasting• Wakin’ Up In Reno

Films:

• All The Pretty Horses• Daddy And Them• The Breakup • American History X • The End Of Violence• Lost Highway• The Trigger Effect

• Tank Girl• Foreign Student• Hard Target• Dragon• Army of Darkness• Love Is Like That• Pyrates

Television

• Popular • Jackie • Old Man • The Duke of Groove

• Glee • Scream Queens • American Horror Story

What We Talked About

In the words of Marisa Aboitiz

After Jone presented her intro scenario we discussed the following points and ideas:

• The storyline of the intro and the look, feel and tone of its individual sections

• The look and emotional impact of various camera angles and lighting she was planning on using

• Ideas for sound effects and music to help convey storyline and emotional content

• Various ideas to help streamline the intro and help maximize the suspense

• Film genres and how they conveyed suspense

• English vs American thrillers and their individual styles

• Shows that have been a source of inspiration in creating suspense and the style and elements they used

• How not to “dumb down” your audience when presenting your scenario – how to convey without having to say

• Various personal objects belonging to the protagonist that could be introduced in the intro and then used as a plot point in the short

Her thoughts after the interview

• Overall I found Jone’s ideas well thought out. She seems to have given a fair amount of thought in not only what she wanted to convey but the best way technically in which to do it. I was impressed by her ability to discuss and play with new ideas and decide if they would be useful to incorporated into her existing ones. It seems like she would do well in the collaborative world of filmmaking

How she has helped us

When it comes to our opening sequence

How talking to Marisa Aboitiz has helped us with our opening sequence idea

• After the interview, she made us realize that we should narrow down the amount of things happening in the opening sequence as it may confuse the audience. To do this we have decided to only show the cops in the woods scene where they find an object that belonged to the girl then it will fade to the girl running into the woods where we will only see her back (we will not see her face) and then after the title is shown there will be another scene of the girl talking to someone where we see the object that the cops found in the woods so that the audience will know who the girl running in the woods was. – the objects that the cops found will be seen both in the running scene and scene after the title

How talking to Marisa Aboitiz has helped us with our opening sequence idea

• She also helped us understand that we should not flash the words 2 hours earlier when it transitions from the cop scene to the running in the woods scene and should not flash the 18 hours earlier after the title before the talking to someone scene, just to leave the suspense and to not “dumb down” the audience

• When it comes to lighting she suggested that it will be low key in the beginning scenes as it happens in the woods, and the first part would be the light from the flash light with very mild out side light just enough to see the face and body’s of the police

How talking to Marisa Aboitiz has helped us with our opening sequence idea

• She also suggested that we have wide shots or extreme long shots to show the setting in the woods possibly even birds eye view that tracks into a extreme long shot or long shot. In general, is to include a shot that shows where the scene is taking place

• When it comes to the sound she agreed with our idea to open the scene with the sound of the cops radios and then when it comes to the next part with the girl running into the woods we hear her breathing and her fast footsteps or even a voice over of a conversation as background sound

A Possible New and Improved Version of Our Opening Sequence

• It will start with a black screen that fades into the flash light of a cop searching for something, then we will see the cop going towards the other cops who found an object of the missing person, when this happens our camera will focus on the object then fade out to the next scene of a girl running into the woods where we will only see her back which will have the possible object that the cops will find, this scene will end with her looking back but before we see her face it will fade to white where the title will then be shown. The last scene of our opening sequence will be a conversation where the girl running in the woods will be identified through her either showing the object to someone or talking about it.