Melondy Phillips
Stafff Writer
About 10 years ago, something happened that caused me to be so weak I could barely walk up the five or six steps to my porch. Feeling like I had a lack of oxygen, it would take me about 45 minutes to recuperate. As this issue got worse, I ended up in the hospital. This bit of detail is important for what was about to happen next.
After about a week in the hospital, feeling like a hu-man pin cushion on a daily basis, I was released from the hospital with less energy than I had going in and with no answers as to why. I went home and felt like a lump on a log, not being able to do much of anything.
Between this moment and years before when I had worked on Lincoln, I had had the opportunity to work on several other films and meet many more people in the industry. Consequently, I received another unexpected call.
Less than two weeks after returning home from the hospital, someone from the costume department on TURN: Washington’s Spies called me. She told me that the person who ran the principals’ costume trailer was no longer with them and that she needed someone who could do [a long list of things – basically anything that was thrown at them, plus keeping it all organized] and that some people had told her to call me.
I had never run the principals’ trailer, but I knew it was a great responsibility to manage. It is a lot to keep up with, long hours, hard work, and having an extreme attention to detail and a great memory is a must. I was having a difficult time moving about and remembering what day it was, let alone trying to run that! Also, the thought of running the principals’ trailer was pretty intimidating to this shy girl who, so far, had only worked in the sewing room and helped with some of background actors on set.
However, before responding, something inside of me stopped me from turning the job down cold. Instead, I explained what had been going on and said that I wasn’t sure I had the strength to do such a demanding job at that time. She said they desperately needed someone and negotiated with me to give it at least a week. She said if I didn’t like it after a week then I could leave with no hard feelings. I told her I would think about it and give her an answer the next day.
That evening, I sat down and discussed it with my family. As we all prayed about it, peace penetrated my soul as all of the uncertainty just faded away. It was unanimous, I would take the job. I called her back the next morning to let her know, and we discussed all the details. Because I was so weak, my family had to help me pack up the car before I left.
On my first day at production, I was shown around the office and where all the other departments were stationed. The tour ended on the principals’ truck where I was told to get familiar with everything in there, where it all was, how it was organized, the actors’ names along with their number and character name, as well as a long list of other things. What happened next had me wondering if I had made the right decision to work there.
A small item of clothing had been lost just prior to me starting. I won’t go into details about the next several hours except to say that there were a lot of colorful words, people running everywhere, and tears flowing down the cheeks of many different crew members. Oh, but then, Hallelujah! The item was found. As someone placed that very item into my hand, they said, “This is now your responsibility.”
“OK.” I responded, as I thought to myself, “Oh boy, what have I gotten into?”
Coming into the middle of a production can be more difficult than starting at the beginning. During pre-production, you have time to read the script, get use to the storyline, characters and events, and start memorizing character names as well as the organizational set up of the department. Being thrown into the middle of a production, especially in charge of something like the main actors’ costumes, without any prior knowledge, is like learning to swim by being thrown into a lake. Sink or swim! But an interesting thing happened within me.
From the first moment I took over the trailer, my full strength returned, I could breathe good, my thoughts were clear and concise, and my nerves were steady and unshaken.
A normal day for this job begins before the actors arrived and didn’t end until after they had all left and I had wrapped out all of their rooms. This was an average of 14-18+ hours a day on my feet. Some of the basic tasks were: sewing informational tags into every piece of clothing (character name, scene number, etc.); keeping costumes organized within each closet (each actor had their own “closet”); pulling all items of a costume according to the scene in the continuity book; setting costumes correctly in actors’ trailers, including warming layers and other comfort items; cleaning muddy boots, at least the ones that made it back from the mud fields; cleaning mud off a silk dress so it still looked new; making repairs as needed; receiving new items to insert into closets; labeling and shipping out items to sewing shops or other repair shops as needed; cleaning fake blood from costumes (there was a LOT on this shoot); helping actors get dressed by tying cravats, lacing up corsets, helping with layering of 1700s dresses, etc.; keeping up with inventory; being able to make something on the fly to replace damaged or lost items; tagging, tying or stitching up parts of the costume, as needed, while the actor was wearing it; plus a heap of other undertakings.
On many occasions, when it was a heavy background (BG) day with few principal actors, I helped with altering items for the BG trailer, such as making pants and vests larger, so they could fit larger size BG when they ran out of those size costumes. On these days, I also took time to do a more thorough cleaning of the whole truck, double check that the continuity book was up to date, check through every costume for any overlooked repairs or stains that needed action and then fixing them, prep more tags, and any other chore I didn’t have time to do while things were crazy busy.
I remember on one occasion, a custom-ordered silk dress was held up in customs and didn’t arrive until the morning it was to be worn on film. Unfortunately, the dress was too small for the actress. An alteration of this scale would normally go to the sewing shop for them to complete. However, even though we were based at the stage which was at the production office, and the sewing department was within walking distance through a building, the dress wasn’t taken to them. The head of the department handed the dress directly to me, while I was managing the principals’ trailer, and told me to size it up. Through a serious tone, I was made to understand that I had one hour to complete the alteration while production “waited” for me to do it.
While I was fully disassembling the bodice of this 1700s style silk ball gown, the designer had several others making different items to add to the dress (bows, etc.). To do this alteration, I was not sitting at a nice sewing table in a clean room. I was standing up at a built-in desk, slightly larger than a standard home sewing machine, in the back of a semi-trailer. The trailer was packed down both sides, floor to roof, with costumes and other items, leaving a narrow walkway up the center. People were still running in and out of it to get things that were needed for set, so besides altering the dress, I also had to keep this fluff ball of discombobulated fabric clean and in like new condition. They came to check on my progress at the 50-minute mark, just when I was finishing it up. Yea! One fire put out. Next?
I ended up staying the remainder of that production and into wrap, about four months. Post- production can feel like a whole different job, but that’s a story for another time.
After wrap, I packed up my kit from production and all of my stuff in the hotel room and headed home. The day after returning home, everything I had been given to successfully complete the job I had been on for the past several months, energy, clarity of thought, etc. just up and flew away. I returned to the way I had felt months before. In time, my doctor did figure out that a tick bite had caused my issues, and, with treatment, my health eventually returned.
As I look back on my life, there are countless times when I have felt blessed by God, to do whatever job He put before me, beyond my abilities, strength, skills and understanding.
Instead of focusing on our weaknesses and inabilities, we should turn around and focus on the One who is able to provide for all of our needs, in His perfect timing.