Costuming for Film is a massive (610 pages), illustrated guide that covers everything one needs to know to get started and work successfully in film costuming.
It covers such important artistic matters as telling a story through costumes, visual harmony and contrast, creating focus through color, expressing emotion through line and shape and texture.
It also covers such essential practical matters as looking for work, the roles played by various members of the costume/wardrobe department, union membership and regulations, delegation of duties on and off the set, working in collaboration with others, costume craftwork, script breakdown, writing and following budgets, organizing and running a production’s wardrobe department, designing for specific actors, fittings, dealing with deadlines, and much more.
"Costuming for Film is a really invaluable tool for anyone entering or maintaining their position in the world of costume design. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the art of costume design.”
—Ruth Meyers, Emmy Award-winning Costume Designer, of Carnivàle, The Four Feathers, L.A. Confidential
“I only wish the book had been available 18 years ago when I was flailing about, always learning the hard way. Incredibly informative and involved, which is exactly what is required in the film industry. Save yourself some tears and read it.”
—Lizzy Gardiner, Academy Award-winning Costume Designer, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Mission Impossible II
“With a wealth of experience and single-minded dedication, Burke and Cole have assembled the first-ever complete text on the process of costume design for the movies—from script to screen. Costuming for Film fills a void … Costumes don’t spring from the public’s ‘collective unconscious’ or design themselves. Behind every costume there is a costume designer. This wonderful volume shows exactly how we do it.”
—Dr. Deborah Landis, Costume Designer, Coming to America, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and President of The Costume Designers Guild, Local 892
“…a very readable and complete primer. … from the fundamentals of design through all the steps and realities of working in the film industry. It does so with great clarity and organization. Peppered throughout the text are conversation sections with professionals which add a wonderful layer of flesh to the bare bones.”
—Albert Wolsky, Costume Designer, Road to Perdition, Bugsy, All That Jazz
