Eiko Ishioka

After having spoken to director Terry Hall over Skype I decided to research a Japanese costume designer and director that he suggested named Eiko Ishioka, known for Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Fall (2006), Immortals (2011) and Mirror Mirror (2012). I decided to look at Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and The Fall (2006).

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Firstly I looked at her work in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Her costume designs in this seem slightly abstract and I can assume having not seen the film that the different costumes of the three women are either from different time periods that they may have become vampires or different countries. However I do like this idea as it presents an abnormality in the characters and that is definitely something that is key to my film with the Woodland Queen and the nymphs being classed as "other" in the filmic universe I have created.


The Fall (2006)
I also looked at the film The Fall which Eiko Ishioka worked on the costume design. The film is a fantasy about a bedridden stuntman in the 1920s named Roy (played by Lee Pace) who tells a little girl, Alexandria a fantasy story about exotic heroes and far off places which reflects his state of mind. As the story continues the stuntman's health deteriorates and so does his story. This film sounds very interesting and I immediately started looking at the aesthetic of film as well as Eiko Ishioka's costume designs. The film seems very abstract and this is presented through the characters and their whole design. For instance, Lee Pace's character (see image) as the Masked Bandit is dressed in a what reminds me of some sort of Spanish style alike to that of a matador. I considered that this could be a metaphor for the bull being his sanity whilst he fights against it and his drug addiction. I definitely considered my short film's characters' natures when I came up with the concept ideas of their costumes and now having looked at Eiko Ishioka's work on this film has made me perhaps explore a more fantastical or unworldly element to the nymphs.