Victoria Licata Independent Study Summary Throughout the semester, I have studied production and costume design by engaging with academic literature and a range of films under the supervision of my advisor, Professor Tanya Goldman. We read texts including Jane Barnwell’s Production Design for the Screen: Visual Storytelling in Film and Television, as well as academic essays related to production studies and the careers of individual costume designers including Edith Head. For my final project, I am exploring costume design in sci-fi films, with a particular emphasis on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. I argue that the costumes designed by Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan are integral to the elaborate world-building within the narrative, allowing viewers to better understand the foreign lands they see on screen. For my research, I consulted interviews with the designers, as well as the book The Art and Soul of Dune by Tanya Lapointe. West refers to the film’s aesthetic as “mod-eval” — a combination of “modern” and “medieval” — because she blended influences from medieval art with modern designs typically found in the representation of futuristic worlds. The film’s different costumes are heavily tailored to reflect the different planets and environments that are at the forefront of the story. In my video essay, I focus on the “look” of three: Caladan, Arrakis, and Giedi Prime. Caladan is home to the House Atreides, and the regal clothing they wear reflects their position of power. Much of the family’s costumes take their inspiration from film history, with West and Morgan citing Lawrence of Arabia and Fahrenheit 451 as direct influences. In order to give the clothing a more futuristic look, buttons and zippers were removed and replaced with magnets. The majority of Dune takes place on Arrakis, a desert planet entirely without water. In order for humans to live there, each inhabitant must wear a special suit that filters their bodily fluids to create drinkable
water while also keeping their body temperature cool. The designers created more than 200 suits, custom fit to each actor’s body. The third planet I discuss is Giedi Prime, home to the Harokonnens, Dune’s villains. This planet has an industrial and lifeless feel to it with a color palette composed predominantly of black and grays. The landscape is mirrored by the dark outfits worn by villains Baron and Glossu Raban who appear pale and ghostly. Since the inhabitants of this planet are predators, West stated that she and Morgan drew inspiration from insects when creating the ant-like helmets worn by the Harkonnen soldiers. Developing the nearly 200 unique costumes for Dune was a huge undertaking. It’s never easy to create a sci-fi world from the ground-up but Jacqueline West and Bob Morgan were up to the challenge. In my video essay, I explore and analyze how their creative vision helped create an immersive experience for Dune’s viewers.