Wednesday 31 August 2016

Star Trek Beyond's costume design

Star Trek Beyond introduced several new Starfleet uniforms, plus a whole load of clothing for all those aliens roaming around on Yorktown and Altamid.  So the costume designers certainly had plenty to get their teeth into! Continue below for a look through some of their work from the film.

Sanya Hays was the costume designer on the film, and worked with several other concept artists to develop the look of what we saw on-screen. These first couple of images looking at Jaylah come from Christian Cordella:



Jaylah's associates on Altamid are the subjects of the next couple of concepts by Phillip Boutte Jr., who described the brief when posted these on his Instagram:
The key for all of these guys was to make each one unique and special. Sanja had various silhouettes picked out and we tried several before getting here. 



Elsewhere on Altamid, there are some even less friendly aliens. This early and very organic take on one of the swarm soldiers comes from Alan Villanueva.


The more familiar robotic look that came later is shown here, again from Christian Cordella, who also worked on Manas.




Meanwhile in bright and optimistic Yorktown, Keenser had some cracking shirts to choose from! Again illustrated here by Cordella.


We have some familiar yet very varied options for the Vulcans from Cordella too:



And lots of exotic options for some of the other aliens:

 This striking alien was illustrated by Phillip Boutte Jr, but sadly went unused:


Moving on to Starfleet looks, here's some of the work by Christian Cordella on the survival suits, as seen on Kalara and Kirk here:




The final form of that design is also now available to order from costume replica makers Anovos. With their typically high fidelity reproductions you can get a really good look at the design in the images they have released. Speaking to StarTrek.com about the jacket, Anovos' Maegen Hensley summarised what a complex design it was:
The Survival Jacket appears fairly complex, but it's actually very highly complex. Not only were we sourcing over seven different fabrics used for this jacket ranging from a cotton duck to polyester to china silk, but we had fabric that was screen printed as well as a specialty vinyl for the pipping. The original jacket also utilized mixed media elements including rubber, plastic, and metal. We feel our attention to detail for this piece was extremely high and the fit is perfect. Even though this ornate costume stands in contrasts to the typically understated look of Starfleet's uniforms, fans will see after the movie that it fits within the context of the story.





Several other Starfleet uniforms appeared int he film. My favourite of which is the Enterprise-era USS Franklin uniform. Illustrated here by Cordella once more, as is the Yorktown uniform below.



Last but not least, the main Enterprise uniform got a make-over too. One I really like. Phillip Boutte Jr. worked on this design:


You can get a really good look at this uniform too, thanks to an excellent video from Tested. Among the details noted is the surprising way the insignia badge is attached:



As I've previously reported, Anovos are also releasing replicas of the Enterprise-style uniforms. But if that's a little out of your price range, then Rubies Costumes have the solution, with their recently released new range of Star Trek Beyond costumes. The shirt is available in Kirk, Spock, and Scotty styles, while the dress version has just an Uhura option.



Anovos have also released childrens (Keenser-sized) versions, also in Kirk, Spock, and Scotty. They have plans for a mini-Uhira too, but that doesn't seem to have made it to market yet.



More work from the artists featured on this page can be seen on the website of Christian Cordella, Instagram for Phillip Boutte Jr., and the Facebook page of Alan Villanueva.

Plus you can find the full range of Star Trek Beyond uniform replicas on Anovos' website, and Rubies costumes available via Amazon.

To keep track of all the latest information on Star Trek Beyond, including more behind the scenes coverage, visit my Star Trek Beyond guide page.



6 comments:

Fox said...

This just makes me more disappointed with the movie than I was before.

Don't get me wrong, it's a solid action movie, but it had some really great art design, but was so fast-paced I don't feel like I was really ever able to get a good look at any one thing.

8of5 said...

I'd take fast action over a The Motion Picture style lingering on everything for all of time approach!

Some design, a lot of design, isn't meant to be seen, fully, it's just part of the texture of the film. I'm sure in your life you walk past bits of amazing design all day long without noticing. And sure it's nice when you do notice things and really appreciate how they were made, but they are worthwhile existing if they do the job even if they are just seen from the corner of your eye, be that in a movie or reality.

Look at another aspect of the film, movie soundtracks aren't really there to be enjoyed as their own thing, they are part of the overall movie, helping to tell the story. Yet you can also enjoy them separately, and take in every nuance of them too. I see the production design much like that.

Fox said...

I can see where you're coming from, but personally I find the pacing of Beyond... well, wearying. It's a good action movie, don't get me wrong (if Simon Pegg can do anything, it's make a good action movie) but IMHO even action movies should never be mostly action. You need calm moments for the juxtaposition. In the totality of Beyond there are only what, two or three scenes in the entire movie (amounting to no more than two or three minutes) where the characters actually have time to talk calmly to each other. That's ridiculous.

Bringing up TMP as the only alternative is silly and hyperbolic. The Motion Picture and Star Trek Beyond are both decent movies that err with their pacing to either extremes: the one being too slow, the other too fast. The examples to look at are First Contact, The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country... all of which had fantastic action scenes that still only took up a relatively small faction of the runtime in each film.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, when a film's pacing is too fast to allow for establishing shots, there's a serious problem.

8of5 said...

You might trying watching the film with your pre-conceptions about it being an action film turned off Fox. Because there are probably more quite moments of characters talking in Beyond than either of the previous films. Most of the scenes on Altamid were characters walking about talking to each other. Plus there were the earlier scenes with Kirk being depressed on the Enterprise. And later in the film even the actiony Kirk vs Krall fight was chatty at times.

And establishing shots were one of the visual signatures of the film, there were quite a few really wide spacey establishing shots throughout.

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