Interview with Ms. Martina Zammit Maempel: Costume Designer & Supervisor

Actresses and actors can't fulfil their roles if they're still wearing their everyday clothes on-screen. Even if a film is set in contemporary times, it's important to remember that the actor is not their character, and would necessarily be wearing different clothing. Who gets to design and decide this? Who manages and coordinates the teams that aid in creating a character's identity in what they wear? Well, of course that's the costume designers and costume coordinators respectively.

We spoke to Martina Zammit Maempel, a costume designer and costume supervisor from our own isles, for some more insight into the role. 

Maempel has been working in film & TV for about 7 years. She first got into the industry after she returned from London where she had been working in the fashion industry. Upon moving back, since locally there was not much of a fashion industry, she decided to apply for a role in the costume department. "I seemed to be at the right place/right time and it worked out!"

Maempel has worked both as a costume designer and as a costume supervisor, which are two separate roles. She outlined them as follows: 

"[The designer] heads the costume department's creative side, the [supervisor] heads the department on a management level.  The designer creates the looks and sets the aesthetics whereas the supervisor hires the team, organizes the space, manages the budget and makes sure the designer has what he or she needs to make the creations come to life".

We asked Maempel what she thought the differences between working in Malta and abroad might be. Compared to film shoots abroad, she said that shoots in Malta offer a better quality of life for the crew, who after a day's filming can all return home. Abroad, a shoot location might be so far off from each of the crew members' homes that they'd be living on or around the set, away from their families and out-of-work lives. She also mentioned Malta's lack of sound stages as a significant difference, and while this is being remedied as this article is being written, up till now, all shoots have been location shoots, which differs from the mix of stage and location shoots common abroad.

When asked what makes a film or TV shoot memorable or particularly enjoyable, Maempel told us that it's the shoots which have her learning a lot about a period in time, or creating a whole new fashion style for an imagined world. As an example for the latter she mentioned  Foundation, an Apple TV series she's just finished working on, depicting an imagined world 20,000 years into the future. She also told us that:

"Other times a job is memorable because the cast and crew gelled together so well and made work such a pleasure"

So, you might be asking, what's the process typically like for someone working in such a role on a film or TV production? There's a primary period of 'prep' work, where the costume department would have fittings with actors, conversations with the director and other heads of department and loads of discussion from both the design and logistical perspective. Shooting begins, and the department spends most of its days on-set for this period, tending to whatever may come up. Following this, there's the 'wrap', where costumes are boxed up, sold, or sent back to their renters'.

Depending on the budget of a production, the costume department can invest their time into making costumes as realistic and detailed as possible. Maempel has worked as a costume supervisor for the upcoming mega-budget Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) and as a costume designer for the small-budget Luzzu (2021), so she knows the differences a budget can make. She told us that the budget also affects the comfort of the crew, allowing for larger departments which can spread out a workload more evenly.

It all comes down to the immense work the department has to do. Not least of which is collaborating and bouncing ideas off of the director who, depending on their personality might allow the department more control or less, "just like different people have different personalities, each experience with any director is different". Besides this, the supervisor of the department will flag any foreseen issues with costuming, plan repeat costumes for scenes which might get them dirty or damaged and cares for actors' safety and comfort, making sure they're provided with what's needed on-set.

Maempel ultimately told us that she'd love to see more of her local colleagues working in larger roles in bigger projects.

"Our current situation dictates that we only head departments on smaller, lower budget projects and take a step back during big budget movies.  We are well trained and hard working across all departments so it would be nice to see locals offered more responsibility."

Besides this, she also said she'd love to see new blood in the costume departments, from "people who join with passion and drive, who are hard working and have a love for what we do."