CAREERS
Costume designer Deborah L Scott is best known for her collaborations with James Cameron on the Avatar movies and Titanic, for which she won an Academy Award. She tells Nicola Foley how she achieved success in her field, and what she’s learnt along the way DEBORAH L SCOTT
Definition: How did your career begin, and what drew you to costume design? Deborah L Scott: I always loved the cinema. My father was a huge cinema buff, and we watched a lot of movies. By the time I was in high school, I was into theatre and acting in a big way. Every time something would come up, I’d offer to do the costumes; I saw it as an extension of building a character. At college, I got more experience with the whole world, including set building and makeup, increasing my knowledge. I was studying in LA, so I was surrounded by the movie business. My first real gig was a film called Never Cry Wolf by Carroll Ballard – I happened to go to college with one of the actors in it, a real lucky break. It was an incredible experience, and it really instilled in me a love of collaborative filmmaking. Def: Which projects do you feel have been particularly influential in shaping your career? DLS: Getting hired to do ET was major. I knew I was jumping into the big time: the Hollywood system. Stephen had already made incredible films by that point, so
being able to work with him – and have it become this beloved film – was amazing. It was definitely a marker in my career. After that, Back to the Future gave me my first chance to show off and flex my muscles in a period world. I was lucky with the people I met and the projects I got to do so early in my career. I did a lot of movies, explored a lot of genres – I was looking at diversifying and understanding different kinds of movies. Titanic was the next big marker. It was an extremely difficult film to make, and so was Heat with Michael Mann. I was working with high-calibre actors and incredible, visionary filmmakers. I got used to directors who were extremely demanding in their vision, which set the bar for working hard and achieving my best work. Def: What has been your proudest career moment so far? DLS: Titanic was all-encompassing, massive and so incredibly gratifying. But I always return to my roots with ET because it was a very special project to me. It was the moment where I felt I
could do this. I felt everything I brought to it was truly appreciated.
Def: What about your biggest career hurdles – and how did you overcome them? DLS: Balancing a home life, children and work. I remember looking around me early on in my career and realising: there are a lot of single people in this line of work! It’s because the work is so demanding, and that’s a massive hurdle. I feel really good about the fact that I managed it. Def: How do you like to collaborate with directors, DOPs and other members of the production team? DLS: The most important dynamic to me is the relationship with the director. There’s no vision other than theirs. That
42
DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
Powered by FlippingBook