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00:00 (cash register dings)
00:03 - Hello everyone, and welcome back to "The Process."
00:06 On today's episode, we have a duo
00:07 from Warner Brothers' new take on "The Color Purple,"
00:10 director Blitz Bazawule
00:11 and costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuk.
00:14 (gentle music)
00:16 - First, I want us to go back to
00:21 where it all begins for you, you know?
00:26 At what point in your life, in your career,
00:29 in your, you know, as you're coming up,
00:32 do you go, "I have something special,
00:35 and I can see costume, and I can create it,
00:39 and I can tell a story with it."
00:41 At what point does it begin for you?
00:43 - I think it began for me when I was a child,
00:47 pretty much really so far back.
00:51 I always loved the structure of how things were made,
00:56 how clothing was made.
00:57 And I started really sewing at seven years old.
01:01 My mother was wonderful.
01:04 She was really into stitch and crafts and all that,
01:08 and she saw that I had an interest,
01:12 and she was showing me all different things about it.
01:15 And I loved movies.
01:17 It was amazing how just the blending of my love
01:22 for the structure of clothing, movies, and history.
01:27 So it was just really kind of wonderful
01:31 that I work on so many period films
01:34 because of the historical value of them.
01:36 And of course, just being creative with the clothing
01:41 is just how things go together, how they're made together,
01:45 and the fabrics we can use, and all the things,
01:49 just to make that particular garment
01:55 just has always fascinated me.
01:57 - I love that.
01:58 Is there a movie, Francine, that you go,
02:02 I remember seeing this film,
02:04 and this is how it made me feel,
02:06 and it's continued to be a compass for me.
02:09 Is there a movie like that for you?
02:10 - Yes, there are two, actually.
02:13 Carmen Jones and Sayonara.
02:17 - Wow. (laughs)
02:19 Tell me about 'em.
02:24 - Of course, I wasn't able to see Sayonara in the theaters
02:28 when it was on television for me.
02:30 I just thought the costumes were just, I was stunned.
02:35 I was just so mesmerized by the culture, the costumes,
02:40 and just how they really made me feel, and the culture.
02:45 So it was, and the story was just so,
02:49 just heartwarming and heartening.
02:53 So to really feel how the costumes just influenced that,
02:58 and it was really just, I was just so,
03:05 you're remembering it even to this day,
03:07 and I was a child, really, when I saw that movie.
03:11 And Carmen Jones was another,
03:13 looking at Dorothy Dandridge and how beautiful she looked.
03:19 And just the, and that was a musical.
03:23 So it was really kind of interesting
03:26 how I went from Sayonara in a way,
03:29 and Carmen Jones with that.
03:31 And these are two films
03:33 that really just influenced my scope.
03:37 And I just have never forgotten 'em,
03:40 even all these many, many years ago.
03:43 - Wow, that's incredible.
03:45 I kinda wanna go back,
03:49 you've told us a little bit about
03:51 kind of this beginning of where the passion begins,
03:56 cinema as a vehicle,
03:58 the movies that have really influenced you.
04:01 But my big curiosity,
04:03 and we didn't get to talk about this much
04:04 'cause we jumped right into work.
04:06 When we, when we, when we,
04:08 - When we started. - When we started.
04:09 - Exactly, the deep end, by the way.
04:12 But my curiosity is your big break.
04:19 What would you say in this business?
04:20 Like, you know, spurned,
04:23 you know, without which you wouldn't be here.
04:25 I'm curious about that.
04:27 - I think really my big break was glory
04:33 as a costume designer,
04:35 really catapulted me into the costume designers guild.
04:40 And interestingly,
04:44 there was a discussion about,
04:47 well, a woman doing a civil war film
04:51 and a young woman doing a civil war film.
04:53 It was kind of interesting.
04:55 And so Ed Zwick really came to,
05:00 really to just speak on how,
05:07 wait a minute, a woman,
05:09 there were the women were at home sewing the uniforms
05:12 and they were, had a big,
05:15 really a,
05:17 wondering what was going to happen with their husbands,
05:24 taking care of the farms,
05:26 taking care of everything at home.
05:28 So why not a woman, which Ed Zwick says?
05:31 I think that would be an interesting thing to have,
05:34 a woman doing a civil war film.
05:36 Why not?
05:37 - Wow, and that question, you know,
05:40 of just why not becomes, you know,
05:43 how incremental progress is made, you know?
05:47 And so shout out to the brave people
05:50 who always are willing to take a chance
05:52 because that's how we end up here.
05:55 I wouldn't know you without that.
05:57 And what a travesty, the world robbed of your talent
06:01 without these big breaks that you're talking about.
06:03 Mike, other, you know, so fun fact,
06:07 this is kind of where it gets fun for the audience.
06:09 I mean, "The Color Purple, 1985"
06:13 is such a seminal, impactful piece of art.
06:18 I mean, of course it begins with Alice Walker's
06:21 brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning book
06:24 and then kind of morphs into Steven Spielberg's film.
06:27 And very few people know that you worked
06:31 in the costume capacity on that film.
06:33 It'd be lovely for you to tell the audience
06:35 just how that came about.
06:39 - Well, I have known Aggie Rogers,
06:42 who was the costume designer in 1985 on "The Color Purple."
06:46 And in fact, Aggie was nominated
06:48 for that particular film in that year.
06:51 And she knew that I had a love for period pieces.
06:56 And she also is very instrumental as a mentor of mine
07:03 to encourage young designers to just go for it,
07:07 to really, you know, jump in and just be creative with it.
07:12 And she allowed me to do that with her.
07:17 And I just, I was not only doing the job
07:22 or whatever the job was in that particular era
07:28 as a supervisor, I was also pretty much doing the duties
07:33 of an assistant costume designer as well.
07:37 And just the scope of that film.
07:42 And Aggie really wanted to be on the set a lot of the times,
07:50 most of the times, because of things that were changing.
07:54 And she wanted to be there, of course,
07:56 you know, as a designer on set,
07:58 on, you know, really there and on hand.
08:01 So she wanted to have someone that she can trust
08:05 back in the department that could say,
08:09 oh, you would, of course, Aggie's, I was a final say,
08:14 but she would also say, you know, Franny,
08:18 I don't have time really, just, you go for it.
08:21 Do what you do and let's just get it done.
08:24 And I was just really excited about that.
08:30 It was such a remarkable piece of work
08:35 and with Alice Walker's just inspirational novel,
08:40 it just touches my heartstrings even today.
08:46 So it was really good for this particular project
08:51 to come up.
08:52 And I just, when I was offered the project,
08:56 I thought, wow, it's just a almost a full circle
09:02 in a way.
09:03 - What a full circle moment.
09:05 I mean, again, not many people.
09:08 - To go back around and to be the costume designer
09:13 on such an, a just incredible movie.
09:17 So it was, I just thought it was kismet.
09:22 (laughing)
09:24 ♪ I'm not so attention ♪
09:27 ♪ Here's what you may need to hear ♪
09:31 (upbeat music)
09:34 ♪ You want your lady racing with you ♪
09:37 ♪ You got to get her indeed ♪
09:42 ♪ Is the cheetah ever gonna find the specialist ♪
09:47 ♪ If you don't know where it is ♪
09:49 ♪ Give her the stick ♪
09:51 ♪ She'll do the rest ♪
09:55 ♪ Push the button, push the button, push the button ♪
09:59 ♪ Push the button, you gotta push it if you wanna come in ♪
10:04 ♪ Push the button, push the button, give me something ♪
10:08 ♪ To let your baby know it ain't no thing ♪
10:13 ♪ If you wanna build a train, a car, a car ♪
10:18 ♪ Baby, push the button and pull the windows down ♪
10:23 ♪ Come on and ♪
10:27 - I mean, you've beautifully segued into our work together.
10:32 And so I wanna go back to your first impressions
10:37 when we first spoke about this bold new vision.
10:41 Did you go home and go, this guy's crazy?
10:46 - No, I went home and thought,
10:48 I would love to work with this person
10:51 because he is so, he just seems so talented and creative.
10:55 And I just felt that your vision
10:59 of the Color Purple 2023,
11:04 to me just had, it was challenging, but I love challenges.
11:09 I love breaking out of a box.
11:12 And I thought, wow, this guy is so talented.
11:17 I'm just really excited about working with you.
11:23 - Wow, well, thank you.
11:25 'Cause I felt exactly the same.
11:27 And so now we can kind of talk more about our specific work
11:32 and just kind of the intentionality that went into things.
11:38 And I remember part of our early conversations
11:41 had to do with, and just for full disclosure,
11:45 this was my first major studio film, right?
11:48 So it came with a lot of things I didn't know,
11:51 and certainly also my first musical.
11:53 I didn't know about the medium necessarily.
11:56 I've been a musician for many years,
11:58 but didn't know the medium of musicals exactly.
12:00 But I feel like one of our early conversations
12:02 was you explaining to me,
12:05 because the costumes weren't gonna be used
12:09 in the normal narrative way,
12:12 the things that the augmentations that had to happen
12:16 with the actual costuming to make them functional.
12:20 So I'd love for you to kind of just take our audience
12:25 through some of the changes,
12:27 some of the kind of the things that you had to do
12:31 to make this.
12:32 I mean, we had, first of all,
12:34 just massive dance numbers.
12:37 - Absolutely massive.
12:39 - Yeah, please take us through that.
12:40 - And I think a lot of too,
12:42 what the challenges for me,
12:47 for our costume department, but especially for me,
12:50 was the musical itself, the dancers,
12:55 because they were changing out so often.
13:00 And that was no one's fault at all.
13:04 I mean, it was Fatima Robinson,
13:07 who is an excellent, incredible choreographer.
13:11 Let's give a shout out to her.
13:13 She did her best to keep the same dancers
13:19 for certain particular numbers,
13:22 but it was just difficult.
13:24 And so what I had to do was,
13:27 and then a lot of the dancers were not set.
13:30 Some of the actors weren't quite set,
13:33 but we knew, you and I knew,
13:36 what those garments were going to look like.
13:39 So I just proceeded to go ahead and make garments
13:44 and say, well, we can always cut back.
13:47 We can always expand,
13:50 but cutting back is a lot more easier
13:53 than trying to expand.
13:55 And we just, well, I just moved forward,
13:59 because also the timeframe.
14:02 And I think on a project like this,
14:06 it probably, I would say many years ago,
14:09 when I first started in the industry,
14:12 you would have had a year for costumes to prep,
14:15 because everything had to be totally built
14:19 to those specifications,
14:21 and it was no turning back.
14:25 I mean, look at even,
14:27 just to bring up a movie, "Gone with the Wind," for example.
14:30 The costumes were built,
14:32 and they cast the actress to go into the costumes,
14:35 I mean, to fit those.
14:37 You don't really have that too much today,
14:39 but it was, we just needed, I think,
14:44 those kinds of parameters in order to move forward
14:49 and just continue to make sure that we were ready,
14:54 because everything was going to camera
14:58 in what, three months, three and a half months.
15:00 - Yep, and for the record, I mean, you came in late.
15:04 You were like the last hire.
15:06 And again, I'm so grateful,
15:08 the pace at which you worked,
15:10 the quickness in which you were able to assemble.
15:14 I know you were on another film.
15:15 I remember us prepping while you were on another film.
15:18 So, and again, as you talk about the scale
15:22 and the numbers of bodies, the background bodies,
15:27 the principal cast,
15:29 and the fact that our movie itself traverses 40 years alone
15:34 meant that we were constantly talking about
15:36 what year this piece made sense,
15:40 what year this piece had phased out, and such.
15:43 So, I mean, again, this is all just to give you your flowers
15:46 and say what an amazing feat to come in that late
15:51 and be able to turn that machine around.
15:54 And on that note, and this is speaking to your eye
15:58 and your, how do I put it, your specificity.
16:03 Something came up, and I've codenamed it Lapelgate
16:07 for the audiences. (laughs)
16:10 So, we're gonna talk about Lapelgate,
16:11 because this is where I went.
16:14 Francine is a master of craft
16:19 and specific to time,
16:24 and would not take the low-hanging fruit,
16:28 or the easy way out.
16:29 So, let me, for the audience,
16:30 let me break down Lapelgate.
16:32 So, this is the scene that had to do with "What About Love?"
16:36 It's our big sequence.
16:37 It's like 30 or 40-piece orchestra on the stage.
16:42 And we had originally,
16:45 you know, when our fabulous production designer-
16:49 - Oh, Paul. - Paul Astaire.
16:50 - Wonderful set.
16:51 - Created that set, we quickly realized
16:54 that if we went into black garments,
16:58 we would very quickly, you know, our-
17:03 - They would disappear.
17:06 - They'll disappear, exactly.
17:08 Our gorgeous show would disappear.
17:10 And so, very quickly,
17:11 we had to come up with an alternative,
17:13 which was, "Okay, Miss Francine,
17:16 what are we gonna do now?
17:17 We gotta go white."
17:18 Okay, well, this created a big issue,
17:20 because you can't easily find white suits-
17:25 - In 1923.
17:27 - 1923. - Oh, my goodness, yes.
17:29 - Okay, you can easily find them.
17:31 And certainly, if you were gonna find anything close,
17:34 you wouldn't even get the lapels.
17:35 So, here in Brooklyn, created the problem.
17:37 The problem was, how are we going to achieve this?
17:42 And the realization came very late in the process.
17:45 So, we were, you know, going to camera in, you know,
17:49 a couple of days, you know.
17:50 It was a very, very short window
17:52 for any adjustments to be made.
17:53 And I remember you saying to me, Blitz,
17:57 "We have to change every lapel on these white costumes."
18:03 - Because you really see pretty much from the waist up.
18:07 - Yes.
18:08 - And the tails, you know, the fullness of the trouser
18:12 really didn't change as much,
18:13 but that lapel would have held us.
18:17 - And this is, again, to shout you out, is to say,
18:22 you know, 'cause my thing was,
18:23 "Well, Francine, we might, you know,
18:26 can we shoot around some people?
18:27 Some of our people will be in the back.
18:29 You might not see them."
18:30 And you said, "Nope.
18:32 As long as they're gonna be on camera,
18:34 the lapels have to be right,
18:36 no matter how far and distant they are,
18:38 no matter how close they are."
18:40 And you kept your team working overnight for several days.
18:45 - Oh, they were remarkable.
18:50 They were absolutely remarkable.
18:52 The tailor shop, the costume supervisor, I.C. Parks.
18:57 And we all thought when we saw it on the screen,
19:02 when we saw it the day of, it was breathtaking.
19:07 - What happened to you?
19:09 - Nothing, I was just kicked by a mule.
19:13 - Was this mule wearing a dress?
19:16 (laughing)
19:20 - You gonna be all right.
19:25 Some women you just can't tame.
19:28 What you need to do with that home you built
19:30 is turn it into a smokehouse.
19:33 You and me can grow some tobacco.
19:34 - Yeah, well, maybe I was,
19:36 I was thinking maybe I'd turn it into a juke joint.
19:41 - Juke joint?
19:42 - Yeah.
19:43 - Don't nobody wanna dance by no smelly swamp.
19:45 - Right.
19:48 - Not unless Sugar Avery's signing.
19:54 - That's good, C.
19:56 That's a good idea.
19:57 - And so, and this kind of segues
20:01 into a question around historical research,
20:04 which seems to be a lost art.
20:07 For a lot of movies we watch them and we go,
20:12 that doesn't feel period correct.
20:14 And I say that, I kind of gave that big background story
20:19 to kind of ask you around like the importance
20:22 of historical research for you as a creator.
20:26 - Oh my, Blitz, I think for everyone,
20:29 especially my fellow costume designers,
20:33 we, I think most of us, 99% of us
20:37 probably have our own in-house libraries
20:41 because we really have to.
20:43 Books that I have gathered pretty much
20:45 from all over the world.
20:47 And because the history, the historicity of the world
20:52 and the historicity of it means so much to me
20:56 that we're just doing a service
21:01 and to people of those styles
21:06 that have been around for so many, many years,
21:10 and they're so beautiful and gorgeous.
21:13 We just have to make sure that they go on screen.
21:17 So the research of it is wonderful.
21:20 I have a lot of houses that are the major ones,
21:25 especially here in Los Angeles and in London, Italy,
21:30 they all have in-house research libraries.
21:34 And I don't think you can get around it
21:37 and just online companies like Pinterest,
21:40 which is wonderful, just to recreate
21:44 and give photographs and pictures of what those styles were
21:50 with real people in that day.
21:52 And when we started with Color Purple,
21:56 starting in 1910 all the way to 1946,
22:00 all of those periods have their own different silhouette.
22:06 And you just can't get around that.
22:08 I've just found there are some things
22:13 that you can a little bit, you can go outside the box.
22:17 Like I love how you do at Blitz with color
22:20 and certain things you just don't want
22:24 to be rigid inside of something.
22:26 So you will be able to have that vision
22:31 and the vision telling the story.
22:34 And I love that aspect of it.
22:37 But in the most part, when people view a film
22:43 and you're saying, oh, that it's supposed to be of that era.
22:48 So the audience is very sophisticated this day and age.
22:53 They really know what is right and what isn't.
22:57 So it's, and doing this respectfully for my own union
23:02 and people who have come before me
23:07 that have trained me and taught me.
23:09 And I just want it to be a shining light
23:14 to other people that are coming after me
23:19 and those that have come before me.
23:22 So it was just so, I was, sometimes I think,
23:27 I hope I'm not driving Blitz crazy.
23:30 (laughs)
23:31 - No, no, but you know, and I still--
23:33 - Trying to be so adamant about making it right.
23:36 - No, and listen, I, you know, I,
23:39 the beauty of filmmaking is you are surrounded,
23:44 first of all, I really believe in picking right.
23:46 You know, when you pick right,
23:48 it's amazing what your team can inspire you to do
23:53 because, you know, you come in with a vision, right?
23:56 And you remember, Francine,
23:58 I had sketched all this stuff out.
24:01 - I just thought I've never seen a director
24:03 sketch out his own storyboard.
24:05 - You know, and we watched through them.
24:08 And the beauty of that is what I love to do
24:11 is I love to give a world
24:15 in which all my brilliant department heads
24:18 can then shine within that world, you know?
24:21 And so I should remember,
24:22 we never brought, you know, storyboards on set.
24:25 It was all just to give us a world
24:27 in which we could play in.
24:29 And then the trust was always left
24:31 with the department heads.
24:33 And on that note, I kind of want to segue
24:35 into our team of, our small inner circle of creators
24:40 that, you know, we had an amazing big family,
24:45 but it came down to a small group of,
24:49 I'll say the ones most in charge
24:52 of the visual representation of the film,
24:54 which was Dan Lawston, our DP,
24:57 Paul Astaberry, our production designer,
25:01 you, Francine, as our costumer,
25:04 and our hair and makeup team, Lauren,
25:06 the brilliant Lauren, and Miss Carol Sheet.
25:10 And that team of, and of course, Fatima Robinson
25:14 as our kind of the glue that helped,
25:17 helped kind of all of us work together.
25:19 And what I want to ask you about is,
25:22 first of all, just how did their,
25:26 how did this team influence your work?
25:30 How did Dan's photography influence the fabrics you chose?
25:35 How did Paul's beautiful design work
25:38 influence the choices of color and such?
25:41 How did, you know, Carol and Lauren's hair,
25:45 makeup work add hair wise?
25:48 What kind of hats would you choose based on hair and makeup?
25:52 And then also, of course, Fatima Robinson
25:55 as kind of her movement,
25:58 how did that influence some of the pieces that you chose?
26:01 So I want to throw it to you on that note.
26:04 - Well, when we started in 1910,
26:07 the dresses of the women, you know,
26:12 the men were always in trousers
26:15 and the trousers were always pretty much
26:18 kind of a full leg, or sometimes they, you know,
26:21 they were slimmed down a little bit
26:23 in the turn of the century.
26:25 But in, but primarily the women
26:28 were really setting a lot of the period
26:31 and usually women do.
26:33 And the dresses of the 1910,
26:37 of the early 19th century, 1900s,
26:42 were full enough for the women to be able to kick up.
26:45 And I remember having meetings with Fatima
26:49 and we were talking about how the,
26:53 and looking at a lot of the choreography
26:56 and the rehearsals,
26:59 what was going to go on as far as the dance.
27:03 And I think that was really so important
27:06 and how I proceeded to design each aspect
27:11 or each era of the clothing for the dancers to move in.
27:16 And then sometimes even, you know, in the twenties,
27:20 I had to come out of the box slightly
27:23 from the period on what it was
27:26 to make it a little bit more versatile
27:30 and keeping it stylized for the dancers
27:35 because they were moving so quickly and moving around.
27:39 So sometimes you, you know, they weren't standing still.
27:41 So you're not looking at a poster or something,
27:44 but you know, their movement was so important.
27:48 And that was really the influence on a lot of the design.
27:53 And Paul Astaberry and I just were constantly in cahoots
28:00 and dance photography constantly,
28:03 because there are things that he would see
28:05 through the camera that we don't see with the naked eye.
28:08 And so it was wonderful.
28:10 Just, he would pull my coat to, well, you know, Francine,
28:13 maybe that's not gonna really,
28:16 the color is not gonna work
28:17 or that hat may not work.
28:19 And I go, okay, then let's do something different
28:22 because it was all about, I think,
28:24 the cohesiveness of all of us coming together,
28:28 Blitz, to have this beautiful vision.
28:31 You know, you're like the conductor of a symphony
28:36 and it's about really doing that.
28:39 I mean, I remember working with Reginald Hudlin
28:43 who put it so eloquently and he's-
28:46 - Amazing, Reginald Hudlin.
28:47 - Is the conductor.
28:49 And we are the individual artists
28:54 that really come together and make that vision work.
28:59 And this is what it really is about for me.
29:04 I look at the directors, his or her vision,
29:09 and we come together as a team.
29:14 And it's just almost like a family in a way,
29:18 you know, at the time.
29:20 And just really just, we are inclusive of one another
29:25 on what we do and make sure that everything
29:30 is known and upfront.
29:32 And sometimes we may not have the time
29:35 or something comes up and we're racing
29:37 to try and get it done.
29:38 But ultimately it's about all of us
29:43 just coming together and being a group of artists
29:48 and making something so wonderful and just timeless.
29:57 - Amazing.
30:00 - And that's what "The Color Purple" is.
30:02 I think Alice Walker's beautiful novel,
30:07 beautiful story says it all in that one particular
30:12 saying that Shug says, "God gets pissed off
30:17 if you go by 'The Color Purple'
30:19 and not really pay attention."
30:23 And I think this is what it really is about.
30:26 You know, it's a force that had guided all of us, I think,
30:31 and look at what it came to.
30:35 - I laid you out something.
30:38 (soft music)
30:41 (chuckles)
30:43 - Oh, that's fancy.
30:50 This ain't me.
30:53 - Alice.
30:55 - Put it on.
30:57 You gonna be my guest tonight.
31:00 We need to look like we belong.
31:05 (soft music)
31:08 - Well, it's been amazing and incredible talking to you,
31:16 Francine.
31:18 Our work together is, as you said,
31:21 hopefully going to inspire new groups coming up.
31:24 - I'm sure it is, Blitz.
31:26 - A new generation.
31:27 - You are such an inspiration.
31:28 - Thank you.
31:30 - You're just so young, you're so talented.
31:33 I mean, I'm just eager to see all other things
31:38 that's coming up for you.
31:41 - Amazing, thank you.
31:41 - Because this movie is absolutely,
31:44 you did a brilliant, brilliant job.
31:47 - Thank you, thank you so much.
31:49 My name is Blitz Basile,
31:50 the director of 'The Color Purple',
31:53 and I just had the incredible privilege
31:55 of talking to my esteemed costume designer,
31:59 the great Francine Jamieson-Tunchuk.
32:02 (both laughing)
32:04 Thank you so much, Blitz.
32:06 - Such a pleasure, thank you.
32:07 (soft music)
32:09 (soft music)
32:12 (soft music)
32:14 (soft music)
32:17 (gentle music)
32:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]