Tuesday, February 25, 2020
How Alex Holmes and Emily Seresin Created the Look of “Invisible Man”
Variety: While Universal’s “The Invisible Man” is based on the studio’s popular 1933 horror feature of the same name, director Leigh Whannell didn’t envision his remake as a fright fest. That provided the marching orders for his artistic team: Production designer Alex Holmes and costume designer Emily Seresin sought to avoid horror tropes, turning the Elisabeth Moss-starring reboot, which bows Feb. 28, into a thriller with horror elements.
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Reading articles like this is what makes me so excited about taking costume design classes in the near future. As a designer, I feel like one of the best ways to create a wardrobe for a character, either in the present or in some other period, is to get into the character's head as an actor would. You need to understand their likes, dislikes, mannerisms, what they think of when they wake up each day and decide to put their clothes on. Thinking about why a character owns each item of clothing they wear is important because it tells us something about how the character thinks about themselves, how their environment affects them, and how they perceive the world to perceive them. There is so much other impressive design work going into this movie, and I am glad to read that it is trying to provide a thriller film that isn't overly grounded in stereotypes of the genre, but I am most excited to read about the character choices being made in the design. A lot of times in horror movies, the clothes seem like they are chosen out of the actor's wardrobe or like they are designed to fit only within the constraints of the story, so it is nice to get to read about how those decisions are actually made.
I am really impressed, as a consumer - by the amount of work that Whannell, Holmes and Seresin put into really trying to redefine a movie that is already deemed as a “classic.” As audiences - we have already seen a lot. If you want to scare us or make us move to the edge of our seats, you have to put in more work. Just this morning I was thinking about the movie Us, and that one of the reasons why this movie keeps me up at night is how much of the elements are grounded in realism. I feel like these stories could happen in “my” world - that under these circumstances I could be experiencing these same events. Sometimes you can separate yourself from the stories you’re watching because it’s over-the-top. When the stories are grounded in truth and real places - you begin to feel that you’re not safe anymore. Their technique will help bring more fear into this piece.
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