Beyond the Mask!

3 Years ago I traveled to Ohio and Michigan as a costumer for this amazing movie project. I spent 4 months sewing 18th century clothing and even had a chance to be an extra! 

Beyond the Mask sewing!!!

It was my first time ever to leave home for more than one night without my family! I must say, it was a little scary at first, walking alone down a flight of stairs to work all day in a basement with 8 other folks I had just met. But turns out, they were all awesome people, and I enjoyed myself immensely! :)

Costuming team photos, taken at various times throughout the project.

This project was such an adventure! We started sewing production in June of 2012. I spent 2 months in Ohio with 8 other seamstresses and tailors working on extras costumes. We worked all day and then after dinner we would play sports, swim, dance, watch movies. It was fun! We got a lot accomplished and had great conversation and fellowship while we worked! :)
 

                          Playing Foursquare                                        Epic game of Ultimate Frisbee

 

Dancin'!

There was this super cool climbing tree there... I couldn't resist it. :)

During the last 2 weeks of extras costuming, the well pump blew out in an electrical storm. The entire house went without running water for 3 days! Crazy! We took some time off sewing to diagnose and replace the pump.

Fixin' the pump.

        Piles of extras costumes ready to be packed up.                        Oh! So much cleaner!!!!

 Loading costumes and supplies into the van for transportation.

In August we all shifted to Michigan to aid the Main Characters costuming team. Filming was to start soon and we had to amp up the speed of production. There were 20 of us sewing in 1 small house, and since there wasn't room for everyone to sleep inside, some of us slept in a giant tent outdoors. :) What adventure!

Had to keep track of the coat sleeves SOMEHOW! ;) :P

Music Break! It was fun that many of the other team members were music lovers too!

I learned to load, shoot, and clean an 18th century rifle! One of the perks of knowing the armorer! ;)

Although we had many fun times, we had our obstacles to surmount too... there really wasn´t enough time to sew everything that was needed, and many of us pulled multiple over-nighters to finish a project needed the next day. We finally ended up working round the clock in shifts. That was truly exhausting. (yawn) We employed all sorts of methods to keep ourselves awake, those who didn't guzzle coffee gobbled ice cream and chocolate chips! :D (In hindsight, perhaps less sugar would have been wise ;) Sure tasted good though. :))

 4 or more people working on one project was quite common.

Organizing the costume truck. (All the costumes hung in a truck so that we could easily transport them to and from set)

One of the many adventures was sewing as we drove to set. *whew* We had several close shaves! Once I had to finish stitching a decorative stitch on a shirt collar with it ON the actor! Our actors were so nice about it too! Ever patient and friendly. It was much appreciated.

On set finishing up a few last minute projects.

A fun thing we found to do that didn't take much time away from sewing was dressing up for "Wacky Wednesday" and "Formal Friday". We had fun dressing up and being as silly as possible. :)

 Wacky Wednesday! :)

Hobbit Day!

My adventure ended after the 3 nights of filming the ball scene. It was so much fun to be one of the extras. It was a little crazy, because we were filming that scene in October, In MICHIGAN, but it was supposed to be July for the movie, so we all had to pretend to be warm once the cameras rolled, and then we would run for our coats as soon as they called "CUT". I rigged up a sweater thing to wear under my dress for warmth... I'm not sure how much it helped... I was still super cold! Once it even snowed! At least there were torches and fires all over to warm up at. :)

 With a friend and fellow costumer waiting for the ball scene so start filming. All bundled up!!! :)

I got to keep the dress that I wore for the ball scene as payment for working on the extras costumes.  I was pretty excited about that. :)

I made a burgundy petticoat (skirt) to go with it for a Masquerade ball I recently attended with my family.

3 years later... After a very successful run in on-demand theater screenings, a company has picked it up and it is getting a week long limited release run in theaters starting June 5th! Check out this website to see if it's coming to a theater near you! I'm super excited! It's been awesome to see the final product that I worked so hard on!

When I saw the official posters for Beyond the Mask I was pretty excited to see one of the dresses I had done quite a bit of work on (and even got to model) was featured in the poster! :D