"You're the only Jesus some will ever see" Kathleen Harris I think you'll agree that we've saved the best for last. Or at least, after you meet her in Literal you will! This character quickly became the cast and crew's favorite and the girl who played her, (my wonderfully talented cousin) fit her character to a T! There's not much to say about Typical Christian's (or Tippy) character. She's a typical christian! As I was planning her costume I wanted to base her off of the average church-going teenager and what else does the average teenage that's on fire for G-D wear but a Christian graphic t-shirt? (Come on, you know you had one at one point. We all did, er, do :) I can take no credit here. Christopher designed the t-shirt and a local screening shop printed it for us along with several others for crew members and donors from our Literal Indiegogo campaign. I wish I could explain why we chose the phrasing we did but that would spoil it for you. Oh well, guess you'll just have to watch the entire series on YouTube (starting August 5th) to find out! :) (Here we are discovering that her jeans had gotten dirty and we were miles away from the nearest washing machine. Oh the joys of being a costumer!) Originally I had planned for the actor who played Typical Christian to just bring her own blue jeans since she was coming in from out of state. But one day as I was talking to the actress's mom on the phone (my aunt) about her costume she suggested colored jeans. What a great idea! So the actress brought all her colored jeans and we finally settled on the green pair which I think looked great with her shirt! Her shoes are converse (shh don't tell!) that she already owned. I love how the orange and the green go together! They really made her outfit pop! Once we figured out how we wanted to do her shirt Typical Christian's costume came together really well. She was definitely the easiest person to costume (even if she did live 12 hours away!)! She also was the cutest actor out of the whole lot. (Sorry guys, you all tried! :)
Custom shirt ~ $10.00 Jeans- actress' own $0 Shoes- actress' own $0 Socks- actress' own $0 Earrings- actress' own $0 TOTAL COST= $10.00 So there you have it. I hope this helped introduce you to some of the people of Literal that I know you'll just fall in love with! Christopher and Jonathan did a great job developing these characters and the actors wonderfully portrayed them. Each of their journeys is totally unique and it's amazing to watch them intertwine with each other. If you've enjoyed this sneak peak into some of the lives in Literal then be sure to go to YouTube on AUGUST 5TH to see the first episode of Literal air! Thanks so much for your support and prayers as we are taking this incredible journey! Blessings, Susan
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"I am the Law and the Law is not mocked" Inspector Javert I am the Law Les Miserables In the town of Literal, the Chief of Police also serves as the local judge. His name is Chief Law & Justice. He may be the shortest citizen of Literal but his is definitely the most feared. My youngest brother plays Chief Law & Justice and man can this kid play the part! Chief L & J is a Vietnam vet and has that former-military-turned-small-town-police-chief mentality. We wanted him to look tough, sort of like a cross between military and police. So we found a pair of blue camo pants (from Old Navy on clearance) to refer to his past war life, and a light blue polo (from a local consignment sale) that is common to a policeman's uniform. The vest was found online as a child's dart vest. I was so excited to find this! I was worried we weren't going to be able to find anything that would work that we could afford. The only down side is that it's really heavy, but Gideon wears it because he thinks it's cool (and because I make him!) As with the vest, we had some trouble finding a hat. For the longest time we couldn't decide what style we wanted and when we finally did make a decision, we couldn't find one to fit Gideon's head. Once again, my amazing Google master mommy found this hat on ebay. Sometimes I don't know where we'd be without her! A lady we know who owns her own sewing business (like me) graciously custom made us two police badges, one for Chief L & J's shirt, and one for his hat, with "Literal Police" across the top. This was the director's idea which goes to show that even someone without any sewing experience can contribute to the costume making process. To complete the look, we added a pair of sunglasses from our local dollar store and a pair of combat boots from a thrift store (They are actually women's shoes but don't tell him that! :). For one of the episodes Chief L & J has to be a judge in a local court case which means we needed a judge's robe. Considering that most judges are over 5 ft I had to end up making Gideon's robe using a pattern for a child's choir robe (Butterick #4542 view A minus trim). The fabric was purchased at Hancock's. He looks soooooo cute in it, I mean, um, so intimidating! :) Shirt- $4.00 Pants- $29.00 Police Vest- $32.95 Judges' Robe~ $13.50 (all together) Hat- $10.95 Combat Boots- $5.00 Sunglasses-$4.00 Custom Made Badges- $0 (donated by our friends at Little Clothes & Bows) TOTAL= $99.40! *EDITOR'S NOTE* Thank you again to the Bath Family for providing the costume for Master SmoothLips' character. All the money we saved there we blew here! So you guys can brag about how you "made" the character of Chief L&J :) So as you can tell, Chief Law & Justice was the most expensive person to costume (and yet he's my favorite character). But, sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do in order to make a character look right. Thankfully, we saved money on several other costumes so this one really didn't break the bank. I've got someone watching over me :). Congratulations Gideon! You take home the award for "Most Expensive Costume"! To find out more about Chief Law & Justice and all the other characters in Literal be sure to be on Youtube on August 5th when the first episode of Literal: What We Believe airs. To hold you off until then follow S.C. TreeHouse Productions on their website, this blog and my brother's google plus page for updates on the production process. Be sure to spread the word and thank you again for all your prayers and support! Romans 6:11 Love, Susan 7/17/2014 1 Comment Literal Costume Reveal: St. Church"One will have many chances to hear the truth." St. Church Literal The next character to be revealed is Literal's own man of G-D, St. Church. I had a little bit of trouble figuring out what I wanted for St. Church. I didn't want to put him in a suit because I already had two other characters in a suit and I didn't want to put a third person in one. My mom had this great idea of putting St. Church in just dress pants and a dress shirt with his sleeves rolled up. That way he looked nice but at the same time had a more "modern" pastor appeal to him. The first shirt we got was one of my Dad's and was way too small in the neck for our St. Church actor. He came out from changing practically choking! I felt so bad! It looked like we were going to have to go to the thrift store again and try to find another shirt, but at the last minute Christopher remembered our BOO! costumes. We were able to find one in that stash with a bigger neck size. This one fit much better (and to be honest, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of spending more money on costumes!). His pants came from GoodWill and cost about $4 (they were the half price color of the week.) The only thing I had to do was hem them up. I decided to add a cuff hem to the pants to add something different to the whole outfit instead of a normal hem. St. Church's tie has a little bit of an sentimental value to it. It use to belong to my grandfather who died back in December. Gideon was very brave and gave it up for St. Church to borrow. We had a bit of trouble finding a pair of shoes for St. Church. Like many Americans (including myself) our actor suffers from a foot uniquely created NOT to fit a standard shoe size. Mom and I searched everywhere until at last we found this pair at our local K-Mart. Even then they are a little snug so we're just praying that our actor doesn't hit a growth spurt until AFTER filming is complete! (and yes I know the hem on his right leg is turned up I purposely did that to see if I had to re-hem them. Just ignore and look at the hem on the left leg. Thank you) St. Church came together really well! I'm glad we got to bypass sticking another character in a suit. Otherwise I'm pretty sure the actor would have killed me! :)
Shirt- from our stash $0 Pants~ $4.00 Tie- borrowed $0 Belt~ $4.00 Socks- actor's own $0 Shoes~ $23.00 TOTAL~ $31.00 Love, Susan "Lips. It's Master SmoothLIPS." Master SmoothLips Literal My second favorite character from Literal would have to be Master SmoothLips simply for the fact that my cousin did such an AMAZING job with his part! Master SmoothLips' character is actually quite sad. I mean this guy really doesn't know what he stands for. He's all talk and no action. Another thing that helped to make this one of my favorite characters is that his costume cost me absolutely NOTHING! The actor provided his entire costume with the exception of his tie (yeah, he was the costume team's favorite :). The tie came from one of my aunts as a leftover from my cousin's wedding. I wanted Master SmoothLips to look like a lawyer because of one of the roles he plays in Literal. This meant he needed a suit. The actor was in need of one anyway so the family just decided to get one in time for filming (I love you guys!). I wasn't really wanting black so they got him a navy one. They also provided his shirt, dress socks, and shoes. Thank you Bath Bunch! The big thing about Master Smoothlips' look is not his costume at all, but rather his mustache. While I was in charge of makeup for Literal, I didn't do his mustache. That was a combination of Christopher and Daddy's artistic skills. In order to get our actor to look right he had to spend about 45 minutes to an hour in a chair holding perfectly still as someone glued little tiny hairs to his face. I would have gone INSANE! After the first two times of doing the mustache Christopher passed on his knowledge to Taylor. Taylor then became the new mustache master. One less responsibility for the director! All that time certainly paid off because it really did help make Master SmoothLips' character. The actor also did an INCREDIBLE job portraying the part. We were all blown away with how he could portray someone so opposite from himself! The best way I can think to describe it is the way Christopher said it: "I looked into his eyes and thought 'What happened to my cousin?'" Suit- actor's own $0
Shirt- actor's own $0 Shoes- actor's own $0 Socks- actor's own $0 Tie- borrowed $0 TOTAL= $0.00 Master SmoothLips brings home the award for cheapest person to costume! Love, Susan "Heeeeeey Hoop!" Mr. News Literal If you have been following my brother's google + account you'll have noticed that he has started revealing characters from Literal. For the next 5 weeks, until the first episode premieres, Christopher is going to be revealing a new character at random and I will be doing a blog post on how I costumed that character. For the first "reveal" Christopher shared the character of "Mr. News" (to read his description click here). I'm so excited to share how I costumed this character so let's get started! Mr. News is the main character's best friend so I kinda wanted their costumes to go together as well. As you will learn, Doug's wardrobe is very.... how should I say this?... eccentric, and I wanted Mr. News' costume to mirror that without taking the focus away from Doug. So I decided to go with the "dorky" look for Mr. News. The first thing you'll notice about Mr. News' outfit is his sweater vest. Originally I had wanted an argyle sweater vest but my mom found this one online at Macy's on clearance for $ 21.94 (much cheaper than some of the argyle ones we had seen). The vest buttons up the front and is made of 100% cotton. The color is a grey that almost looks tan in some lighting which I think is pretty cool! The actor for Mr. News likes the fact that the vest has two pockets on the front. The first time he tried it on he stuck his hands in the pockets and went "ooh pockets!" and began flapping around like some retarded bird; thus earning him the nickname "Mr. Flappy". The second thing you'll notice is his smashing-looking bow tie. As you will soon learn I didn't do as much "sewing" for this film as I have in our previous projects due to a lower budget and a modern day setting (which required no period pieces.) So, because I really do like to sew I simply put my foot down on some issues and stated that "I WILL make that!". One of which was Mr. News' bow tie. Mom and I both agreed that he needed a bow tie and an ugly one at that! (then it turned out super cute so we just went with it!) We found some cotton fabric at Hobby Lobby for about $5.59 a yard. I used interfacing I already had on hand and a hook that was $1.99 for two. I'm so pleased with how it turned out and how easy it was! The shirt and pants are actually the actor's own clothes. This helped cut costs because he already had them. I simply asked him if he had a short-sleeve button-up dress shirt and a pair of dress khakis. Isn't it great how G-D makes things work out? (Notice the belt with pink duct tape. That is NOT a part of the costume that I put together. Rather it was the only belt he had to hold his pants up with. Thankfully the flappy vest covers it!) To top off the look, we added a hat that my brother Christopher already owned. All we did was add a card that said "NEWS" to the side and Mr. News was completed! So all in all, here's how much Mr. News' costume cost: Shirt- actor's own $0 Vest-$22.00 Pants-actor's own $0 Hat- ours $0 Bow Tie- $4.50 Shoes-actor's own $0 Socks- $4.00 for three pair TOTAL = $30.50 When I was explaining my vision for Mr. News' costume with the Director and Assistant Costume Director I said that I wanted his outfit to look like he was in his grandfather's attic one day and found all this and thought it looked stylish, (when it really wasn't). When I first showed my dad a picture of the actor in costume he laughed and said the Mr. News looked like he should be sitting on a park bench feeding pigeons. Score! Love, Susan 7/2/2014 2 Comments The First Filming Week of Literal (aka the most hectic and AWESOME week of my life!)Filming for Literal has offically begun! That's right! Last week from June 19th thru the 25th my family and I along with several others "literally" fell off the face of the earth while we filmed almost three whole episodes and parts of scenes for several others. Now y'all get to see what exactly went on during our EPIC week of absence! (Late night shootings at "The Mill") (Yes doing hair on set was this intense!) On Thursday we drove to the Chattanooga airport to pick up our cousins from North Carolina. They were going to be the actors for two of our characters, Typical Christian and Master SmoothLips. Because we are who we are, we made signs with their stage names on them and held them up like you see people do at airports. The looks on peoples faces as they passed by were priceless! (Can't touch this!) (Retards) On Sunday we went over to another actor's house to film. We filmed from 8:30 am until 9:30 pm (one hour later than we intended.). As we were getting the last few shots we received a call from two guys who were driving up from Texas to help us film one of the episodes. They were lost in Cleveland so Dad and Nic had to go find them. So they "literally" got to walk on set and right into the middle of things! But they handled it well and even helped with the clean up afterwards. (People kept playing with my costumes namely Taylor and Bud) From Monday thru Wednesday we filmed at the local county courthouse everyday from 8:30 am (when they opened) to 4:30 pm (when they closed.) We ran into a lot of trouble on Monday and Tuesday. First we had to spend most of Monday morning working on lighting and then only got a few shots in before we had to pack up and head to Cleveland for that night's shoot. On Tuesday all of our actors kept messing up their lines and we spent all morning trying to get only ONE on the shots needed for that day. Later that night in Cleveland the crew ran into MORE lighting issues and only got about half of the scenes they needed. To top it all off, several of us had gotten sick (including our director who lost his voice Sunday) and by Tuesday we had to add to that list my cousin, Sarah, whose character plays a critical role in the series' plot line. (We had a wig that one of the actors wore and everyone kept running away with it!) So as you can guess, no one was particularly excited when Wednesday rolled around. Everyone was tired and stressed out. We knew we had to finish because our cousins as well as Cameron and Taylor were leaving the next morning. Have you ever had one of those days when you felt like you have given your all to G-D and there is nothing else left that you can give? That's exactly how I felt Wednesday morning as we started to set up for the day's shoot. I was tired, my body felt like a train wreck and I really just wanted everything to work out so we could all have a break! I knew that day was going to be bad and we were all going to end up snapping at each other. But then something happened. I don't know what or how but somehow we got caught up from the previous days, got all the scenes scheduled for that day, got some extra close up shots, AND FINISHED EARLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no clue what happened but somehow it just worked out! (yeah, we were on cloud 9 throughout the whole day!) All I can tell you is that right before we filmed I just got on my knees and said "Lord, I can't do this anymore. Somehow you've got to work through me because I can't do this anymore. I'm spent and I can't control it. You've got to work a miracle here." and the next thing I knew we were ahead of schedule! (I later learned that several other people had done the same thing that morning.) I think G-D just wanted us to get to the point where we were so weak that WE couldn't make this series happen anymore and HE got control of everything so HIS GLORY was revealed though the project! I'm so thankful that we have a God whose weakness is "...stronger than men." (1 Cor 1:25). I can honestly tell you that if it wasn't for HIM this project would have fallen through. There were SO MANY ways where HE intervened or something happened that we didn't plan that made this project happen. Like providing money for our cousins to not only come down for the week but FLY none the less! Or providing a camera man and assistant boom operator from Texas whom we had never even met before! HE sustained us each day with the food and the strength we needed to worship HIM in a way we NEVER could have done without HIM! My heart overflows with joy when I think about all the blessings HE has given us this past week as well as the weeks and months leading up to it. I know there are many more days like this past Wednesday to come because when you worship THE LORD ALMIGHTY exciting things happen! Some people worship through dancing, some people worship through song, and still others worship through prayer but I worship though film making. Because it is there in film making, when I am at my weakest, that I see HIS GLORY revealed! May all I do go to HIM and HIM ALONE! ("Um, ok, now what do we do now?" "Everyone point at the director!") SOLO DE GLORIA!
Susan 6/4/2014 0 Comments Literal Update #2Hello friends!
Since my last update on our company's newest filming project Literal many exciting things have been happening! If you have been following us on Indiegogo you probably already know a few of them. But since I'm the costume director, and this is a sewing blog, I thought you guys would like to know what's been going on in my little section on the Literal world: The majority of costumes for this project have come from either a) a thrift store or b) the actor's personal closets. Since this is taking place in modern times that means I don't have to sew as much because we can basically find whatever we need from one of the two places mentioned above. Which means the time I would have spent sewing I can spend learning lines. But, on the flip side of the coin, that also means I don't have much to sew, which is depressing because I feel like I really haven't been "in charge" of the costumes because I didn't physically "make" any of them. But there are a few things I will have to make such as a judge's robe, a bow tie, a pair of red pants, a prison uniform, and a dress for my character Ann (because I wanted to make me a new dress so thus I'm making me one. Do you have a problem with that?) Even though I haven't done much sewing for Literal I have gotten quite a few things done around here: 1. I've gotten the character of Ann's complete wardrobe together (minus 2 outfits). 2. I've gotten several things from the thrift store for Doug Hoop's wardobe and soon I'll lay everything out and assign outfits to episodes. 3. We just had a meeting with a police officer (my new cousin-in-law) discussing and asking different questions about their uniforms and equipment. 4. I bought several costumes for other minor characters and (hopefully) soon I'll have a "try on" date with the actors. I still have a LOT to get done so I better get started! As I mentioned before, I'll try to keep this blog updated as best I can, but with all that's going on, I may not be able to post about everything. But you can still get updates from my brother HERE on Indiegogo and HERE on his Google+ page. Thank you so so so so so SO much for all your prayers and support! We really couldn't do this without y'all's help! After all, what good would a web series be without people to watch it? Romans 1:16 Love, Susan P.S. Just as a teaser, if all goes well, my next update will be a costume "reveal" for one of the characters. I'll give you a hint as to who: you don't want to mess with this guy or you might end up in trouble with the law! Comment below on who you think it is! 4/30/2014 0 Comments Sneak Peek at Costumes for LiteralFor those of you who don't know my family owns its own movie making company called S.C. TreeHouse Productions. We're not very big but our goal is to make GOD honoring films and so far HE has always provided us a way to do just that. This year is our company's 5 year anniversary and to celebrate we are going to produce a web series (working) titled Literal: What We Believe . The goal for this series is once a month we will air an episode explaining one of the core beliefs of S.C. TreeHouse Productions. Pre-production is already underway and filming will hopefully begin this summer! Since I'm the one who does the sewing in the family I got the job of costume director. A very fun and rewarding job if I do say so myself! :) (and yes, it does have its stressful moments as well :P!) So to hold you off until filming is complete I wanted to share with you some of the costume ideas I have for Literal. I'll start with our two main characters: DOUG HOOP: Doug is our main character, he's kind of goofy, silly, and a little on the crazy side. Christopher wants Doug's style to be based on his own personal style which means nothing matches, pants from the 1970's and plaids and stripes, together! He also wants the usual *necessary* accessories such as bow ties (in crazy colors), hats (unusual ones), and maybe suspenders. Here are some examples of Christopher's *ahem* unique fashion sense: (Anybody remember the guy above from their childhood?) ANN: Ann is more quite and reserved than Doug, so I wanted her clothes to express that as well. We're aiming for simple, practical, but at the same time cute. Christopher wants Ann to look like a little girl so I'm trying to find "girlish" clothes that don't look too silly for a 15 year old to wear. (I am planning on making the dress below for sure only knee length with a higher neck.) MR. MEDIA SR: As his name states Mr. M runs the media and TV station Doug Hoop works at. So he will be dressed like a typical business man. Nothing special. Black suit, tie, you get the picture. MR. MEDIA JR.: As the son of Mr. Media Sr., Mr. Media Jr. is the definition of hip and trendy. I want Mr. Media Jr. to look like "the modern teenage boy" and this picture is EXACTLY what I want! The moment I saw it I was like "THAT'S my Media Jr.!" I can't wait to work on this costume! MASTER SMOOTHLIPS: Master Smoothlips is the town lawyer. He "goes through life believing everything with no beliefs". I want him to look professional yet trendy at the same time like a cross between Mr. Media Sr. and Mr. Media Jr. I'll probably end up putting Master Smoothlips in gray or brown just to break things up a bit. That way I won't have two characters (Mr. Media and Master Smoothlips) both in a black suit. TYPICAL CHRISTIAN: She's the one who always wears a christian graphic t-shirt (you know, the one that screams something like I heart Jesus!? or let's go get everyone saved!?) We will be making a one of a kind t-shirt design specifically for Typical Christian's character. Sorry, I can't give anything else away. It's a secret! But basically, she's going to look like the average teenage girl, a typical Christian. I'm so excited to get to work on costumes again! This is something I love doing and is one of my personal ministries. We have just launched our campaign video to raise money for Literal. Film making is not cheap so we'll need all the help we can get! Please head over to Indigogo to check it out and pass the word along! Your support and prayers will be greatly appreciated! I'll try to keep this blog updated on how production is going so you can know how GOD is moving through our ministry. Please pray that HIS will, not ours, will be done through EVERY aspect of this project.
CLICK HERE for our campaign page "For I am not ashamed of the Good News, since it is God's powerful means of bringing salvation to everyone who keeps on trusting, to the Jew especially, but equally to the Gentile." Romans 1:16 Complete Jewish Bible Love, Susan 3/10/2014 0 Comments I'm Goin' To The Dogs!Every once in a while I get a odd sewing request. These mostly come from my brothers: "Can you make me a shirt with detachable sleeves?" "Can you make me a double shofar case with a pocket for a notebook on the outside?" "CAN YOU MAKE ME CHAINMALE?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!" Yep, I've heard some pretty strange requests in my day, but I've never been asked this before: "Can you sew something for a dog?" Now this one didn't come from my brothers, no this came from a lady whom I use to go to church with. She works at a cancer center a couple of towns from where I live and her boss owns a therapy dog. A few times a week he brings his dog, Bingo, to work and visits the patients. He (the owner, not the dog) expressed his desire to this lady I know that he wanted a doctor's coat for his dog to wear whenever he came to work. She told him that she knew a girl who could help him out: ME! I'd never been asked to sew for anything but a human before so I said I'd give it a shot! After some research I found a pattern that could work for a doctor's coat and some nice white scrub like material (McCall's 5776 for anyone interested). Here's what I cooked up: (Isn't he just adorable?!?!) I sewed view F omitting the pockets and hem band at the bottom. Instead I just sewed a 1/2 inch hem after I shaped the back to account for his hind legs. (Here you can see where I pinned up the hem. Sorry I don't have a finished photo but you get the idea of what shape I created.) I had to adjust the size for his chubby body and little legs. (Me and my "client") I'm so very pleased with how it turned out! The owner was tickled to death and Bingo was... well... I don't think he really cared or not about the coat but he seemed to like me!
So I guess now I can put on my résumé "dog clothes" as a skill. :) I'm so thankful for this learning opportunity! If your ever in Athens, TN stop by The Athens' Regional Cancer Center and go see little Bingo and his sharp looking new coat! Love, Susan I've got to be honest, this was the part of making this veil that I was dreading the most. Mostly, because I had no idea how I was going to pull it off! The comb on the top of the veil (see my post Kate Moss Wedding Veil Re-creation Part 3 here) was the part that held up the majority of the weight so now I had to find a way of holding up the veil in the back while creating a poof. But as I was making it and talking with Shelby through a turn of events, she wanted to changed the design, which was fine by me! (actually ended up making my job easier!) First off I measured 9 1/2 inches from the top comb' center straight down. Then I just angled it into where the end of the combs were. You really will need to take some time with this step to try and find the right "shape" of the "cap" part. Be sure you use a FABRIC SAFE DISAPPEARING pen (not a washable one) or sewing pins to mark your sewing line. *NOTE* don't make a round curve or you'll mess up the shape of the poof. Just angle it like pictured below. Sew a basting stitch along this line and gather it up then tie off your ends to keep your gathers in place until you can sew over with a permanent stitch on the machine. Here is what it looks like on a person's head. And that's it! As you can see it doesn't exactly look like Kate's but this is what Shelby wanted and as her lowly seamstress, I can only do as I'm told. :) :P
We're almost done! just one more step and Shelby can get married! ('Cuz you know, the wedding can't happen without my veil :) Love, Susan |
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October 2019
Book Review
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