The document summarizes an interview with a costume supervisor, Marisa Aboitiz, about her career and advice for developing a film opening sequence. Marisa discussed her responsibilities overseeing costume departments for 25 years on films and TV shows. She also provided feedback on improving a proposed opening sequence, advising the filmmakers to streamline the story, use lighting and camera angles to build suspense, and not reveal too many details too soon to the audience. Based on Marisa's recommendations, the filmmakers refined their opening sequence to focus the story and build more intrigue through subtle clues.

1. Industry Interview
Film Opening Sequence interview between Marisa Aboitiz and
Jone Aboitiz

2. Marisa Aboitiz
Costume Supervisor

3. The job of a Costume Supervisor
• The main responsibility of a Costume Supervisor is to manage the general
operation of the costume department and to work with the Costume
Designer to facilitate production needs. Depending on the unique needs of
each project, the job can have both creative and managerial requirements. As
a Costume Supervisor working in Film and Television for 25 years I have
been fortunate to work on varied projects

4. Some Basic responsibilities of a Costume
Supervisor:
• Set up the Costume Department – everything
from having phone lines and clothing racks
installed to renting sewing machines and trailers
for the duration of the shoot
• Hire and Manage Costume Crew – determine how
many costumers, seamstress, and dressers are
needed and what their individual responsibilities
are
• Liaison with Producers, Accountants and
Assistant Directors – this can entail anything from
helping schedule shooting (based on costume
readiness and availability) to meetings on
budgetary increases
• Helping acquire and source costumes appropriate
for the project
• Overseeing costume fitting schedule for both
principle and background Actors
• Budget – create a costume budget based on genre,
costume changes in script, and shooting
conditions and needs
• Oversee and track department spending, pay
invoices

5. Different Projects That Marisa
Aboitiz has been part of
THERES A LOT

6. Films:
• Unthinkable
• The Invention of Lying
• The City of Your Final Destination
• Days of Wrath
• Freedom Writers
• Deck The Halls
• The Black Dahlia
• Meet the Fockers
• Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
• 13 Going On 30
• House of Sand and Fog
• Le Divorce
• Tuck Everlasting
• Wakin’ Up In Reno

7. Films:
• All The Pretty Horses
• Daddy And Them
• The Breakup
• American History X
• The End Of Violence
• Lost Highway
• The Trigger Effect
• Tank Girl
• Foreign Student
• Hard Target
• Dragon
• Army of Darkness
• Love Is Like That
• Pyrates

8. Television
• Popular
• Jackie
• Old Man
• The Duke of Groove
• Glee
• Scream Queens
• American Horror Story

9. What We Talked About
In the words of Marisa Aboitiz

10. After Jone presented her intro scenario we
discussed the following points and ideas:
• The storyline of the intro and the look, feel and
tone of its individual sections
• The look and emotional impact of various camera
angles and lighting she was planning on using
• Ideas for sound effects and music to help convey
storyline and emotional content
• Various ideas to help streamline the intro and help
maximize the suspense
• Film genres and how they conveyed suspense
• English vs American thrillers and their individual
styles
• Shows that have been a source of inspiration in
creating suspense and the style and elements they
used
• How not to “dumb down” your audience when
presenting your scenario – how to convey without
having to say
• Various personal objects belonging to the
protagonist that could be introduced in the intro
and then used as a plot point in the short

11. Her thoughts after the interview
• Overall I found Jone’s ideas well thought out. She seems to have given a fair
amount of thought in not only what she wanted to convey but the best way
technically in which to do it. I was impressed by her ability to discuss and
play with new ideas and decide if they would be useful to incorporated into
her existing ones. It seems like she would do well in the collaborative world
of filmmaking

12. How she has helped us
When it comes to our opening sequence

13. How talking to Marisa Aboitiz has helped us
with our opening sequence idea
• After the interview, she made us realize that we should narrow down the amount of
things happening in the opening sequence as it may confuse the audience. To do this
we have decided to only show the cops in the woods scene where they find an
object that belonged to the girl then it will fade to the girl running into the woods
where we will only see her back (we will not see her face) and then after the title is
shown there will be another scene of the girl talking to someone where we see the
object that the cops found in the woods so that the audience will know who the girl
running in the woods was. – the objects that the cops found will be seen both in the
running scene and scene after the title

14. How talking to Marisa Aboitiz has helped us
with our opening sequence idea
• She also helped us understand that we should not flash the words 2 hours
earlier when it transitions from the cop scene to the running in the woods
scene and should not flash the 18 hours earlier after the title before the
talking to someone scene, just to leave the suspense and to not “dumb
down” the audience
• When it comes to lighting she suggested that it will be low key in the
beginning scenes as it happens in the woods, and the first part would be the
light from the flash light with very mild out side light just enough to see the
face and body’s of the police

15. How talking to Marisa Aboitiz has helped us
with our opening sequence idea
• She also suggested that we have wide shots or extreme long shots to show
the setting in the woods possibly even birds eye view that tracks into a
extreme long shot or long shot. In general, is to include a shot that shows
where the scene is taking place
• When it comes to the sound she agreed with our idea to open the scene with
the sound of the cops radios and then when it comes to the next part with
the girl running into the woods we hear her breathing and her fast footsteps
or even a voice over of a conversation as background sound

16. A Possible New and Improved Version of Our
Opening Sequence
• It will start with a black screen that fades into the flash light of a cop searching for
something, then we will see the cop going towards the other cops who found an
object of the missing person, when this happens our camera will focus on the
object then fade out to the next scene of a girl running into the woods where we
will only see her back which will have the possible object that the cops will find, this
scene will end with her looking back but before we see her face it will fade to white
where the title will then be shown. The last scene of our opening sequence will be a
conversation where the girl running in the woods will be identified through her
either showing the object to someone or talking about it.