What Is "Trauma-Informed" Filmmaking? The Costume Designer of 'Sing Sing' Shows Us

In the middle of a packed SXSW schedule this year, I managed to snag an industry seat to a sold-out showing of A24's new film, Sing Sing.

I was so glad I did. Sing Sing is a stunner, a film that showcases the power of art to connect and liberate even in the darkest of settings. An exceptionlly human script and sensitive direction allow the cast to shine—and, as it so happens, a lot of these actors are playing versions of themselves, many of them people who were formerly incarcerated.

The film follows Divine G (played by a breathtaking Colman Domingo). Divine G is imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and has been fighting for his freedom for years. Between clemency hearings, he helps lead an acting troupe alongside other incarcerated men, including new member Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin (playing himself).

This is a true story, popularized a few years ago through coverage of the New York "Rehabilitation Through the Arts" program that put on a slightly wacky historical revue called "Breakin' the Mummy's Code" in 2005. But Sing Sing is a much more thoughtful take on the events, focusing on the men at the center of the production.

Desira Pesta crafted the film's costumes on a budget, not only for practical reasons, but also as a sort of "method" design that reflected the conditions of the characters, who had to DIY props and costumes for their productions.

We chatted with Pesta via Zoom about this important work. Enjoy.

Sing Sing was released nationwide on Aug. 2.

Sing Sing | Official Trailer HD | A24www.youtube.com

Editor's note: The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

No Film School: I looked at your website and I love that you put your lookbooks on there. Can you talk a little bit more about how your process as a costume designer starts?

Pesta: I think the script is the Holy Bible, obviously. I think there's a lot of stuff to mine in there. There are a lot of details dependent on the writers, but I think often the filmmakers and the writers infuse the script with a lot of details that come through in the visuals.

I love to break down the script and understand both story days, how much time is elapsing in this story, as well as glimpsing who these people are. If there are characters and good dialogue, you understand them from there.

I love doing what I call an emotional response. So it's just culling images that don't necessarily talk about clothing as much as they talk about what a character might be attracted to in life. Maybe it's a stop sign, maybe it's a desolate road, maybe it's a closeup of a sweater that's ripped. I think sometimes it's great to hone in on what feels right in the world as opposed to just clothes.

NFS: How did you get involved with Sing Sing?

Pesta: I was super lucky. Oddly, your mention of SXSW. I had a short that I had designed called Summer Animals that had played [there], I don't remember the year. Monique Walton, who is the producer on Sing Sing, had been on the jury, and that film won the jury award at SXSW that year.

So she had my name there, and then she had also seen another film I had designed called Stay Awake, and she just reached out to me directly. And then I met with Greg Kwedar, the director.

I'm a huge proponent for criminal justice, and I'm a longtime supporter of the Innocence Project. And so coupling that with the script and the subject matter. And then lastly, my sister is a psychotherapist who is a badass and who does amazing work for the world in New Orleans. She deals with a lot of folks who were formally incarcerated. And so it's just something that's in my personal life. Talking about the script and the story and the amazing characters, and coupling that with my personal interests was great.

NFS: Each character is reflected in their costume, their inner world is reflected in how they look. I would love to hear little tidbits on some of the main characters and what you did to show their character through their dress.

Pesta: Well, first and foremost, I had the wonderful opportunity to take a peek at some personal photos. Coleman Domingo plays John “Divine G” Whitfield. [Divine G] sent me pictures from throughout his years at Sing Sing. You don't have cameras in the prison. So anytime he had his family come or friends come, they would get a photograph, and they were great. They were Polaroids, and you could see his time, his unfortunate couple of decades there.

This is based on a true story, based on true characters. We as filmmakers or as people involved in this, wanted to be true to those who we were depicting. Starting with the research was awesome. And then obviously firsthand information, interviewing them, talking to them.

It's tough to get any kind of information about criminal justice inside. It is a very insular world. I did my best to research the Department of Corrections and looked at a lot of their interdepartmental newsletters. And they would have pictures. It's not a period film per se, but 2005, it was a little while ago.

So we've got Divine G, and we've got [Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin], and those are our two main characters. Divine Eye is very opinionated, as he should be. And he had a very different experience in prison than Divine G. He strutted around and had a personal tailor inside and cared a lot about how he looked until he entered the RTA [Rehabilitation Through the Arts] and until he started changing, growing up. He'd been there for a long time, as well.

And then Divine G didn't care about looks. He wanted to get out of prison. He was in there wrongfully, so that came into play.

Clarence Maclin, Colman Domingo in Sing SingA24/Dominic Leon

NFS: You mentioned this being a true story. Another thing that is unique to your experience here is the fact that there are so many actors playing versions of themselves as people who were formerly incarcerated. What did you do in terms of sensitivity to dress those characters, as they were going back into this environment that could be very traumatic?

Pesta: That's something that I hope the audience will come to realize. This is a very special movie for a variety of reasons. One of them is that we're depicting real people who lived real, shared, sometimes solo traumatic times that we can only understand if we've been inside. And I have not. So I will give huge credit to my sister, Eva, for preparing me. I really wanted to be trauma-informed.

This isn't a bunch of actors who are throwing on greens and saying, "Let's go to prison." This isn't make-believe. These are real lives. And especially for Jon Adrian "JJ" Velazquez, who is one of our characters, who is also innocent. This was the hardest part for him. As a costume designer, we had to be extremely sensitive, extremely. It's just a very different situation.

And so introducing the costumes, they hadn't been in them for as few as 10 months for JJ, and then as many as a decade or more for others. And so just understanding that this isn't, again, something as flippant as putting on a chef costume and saying, "I'm a chef." This is a very different situation.

Katharina Windemuth, who is my assistant costume designer, she and I were the only two on this film. And so we tried to be as sensitive as possible and let folks take their time and were as supportive as we could be.

NFS: Did I read that you were actually able to go and look at the old props or costumes from the real plays? Were you able to pull anything in?

Pesta:Sing Sing? No. Prisons, no. We had to purchase everything new. We could not get real prison uniforms for a variety of reasons, but as true as we can get. So no, those are all brand-new.

Then, in terms of the plays, we have two real settings: Sing Sing prison, and then we have this fantastical, wonderful world of Breakin' the Mummy's Code and Midsummer Night's Dream, and then the variety of shows that we see at the end of the film. We had the amazing fortune of going to the SUNY Purchase costume shop, which is in SUNY, upstate New York.

And Brent Buell, who is the original writer and director of Breakin' the Mummy's Code, who was a volunteer at RTA forever, he went with myself and Katharina, and we went into this 10,000-square-foot costume shop. They have this amazing arsenal. It had been 20 years since this production. And people were like, "Oh, yeah, did they have the costumes from RTA sectioned off?" I'm like, "Oh, no, these were donated or loaned." And we had to go through these spaces, and we found a few things that we saw in the original recording. That was treasure hunting. So that was incredible.

And we were able to borrow them. Thankfully, the school was very generous. We didn't get too many things, but we got enough to remind ourselves of a few of the characters that were original. And then from those original ingenious designs that they put together, we made our own that were based on that. So it was such a great time. It was an emotional journey for Brent to go back in there and be like, "This is the 'Alotincommon' hat!" So it was really cool.

NFS: Is that something that you got to use?

Pesta: Yeah, Sean "Dino" Johnson gets to wear that hat, the original hat, or headpiece, I don't know what to call it. It's not really a hat, it's like 36 inches tall. But yeah, he wore that in the movie, and that was originally worn by a different person in the original. And then that hat just snowballed into a whole bunch of other new hats that we made that were really fun.

Paul Raci, Sean San José, Colman Domingo, Sean “Dino” Johnson, Mosi Eagle in Sing SingCourtesy of A24

NFS: How do you use those original pieces as starting points and then make them bigger and more grandiose for cinema?

Pesta: Well, that was something that myself and Greg and Clint and Monique, and the production designer, Ruta [Kiskyte], and Pat Scola, the DP—we all wanted to honor the ingenuity of the originals. I'll talk about my department at least, and Ruta, the production designer.

We wanted to do a method design, because we wanted to be true to the original, obviously, but we wanted to make it cinematic. We had a limited budget, and so it kind of all melded into, how do we make this work? If we were looking at this as though we were at RTA and we had limited resources, and we were basing our designs on what was loaned, what was given, what was donated, or what we can make, that's how we approached it.

There were so many elements that were awesome. Then [we] just sort of play on them. So for instance, there is a character who's been locked in a tower for centuries, and the original had this amazing tower that was on wheels that the actor Dario Peña spun around in.

And I was like, "Well, if this guy's locked in there for centuries, he might have really, really, really long hair." I did a sketch of this insanely long gray hair, and then I was like, "All right, we can't afford a wig." I can't afford a Crystal Gale wig, but we can make it out of mops. So we made this tattered, gross [wig]—from new mops that we aged. Finding ways to make it more fun and enhancing their ideas that were the starting point of it all.

NFS: What do you think would be a viable path for a costume designer right now?

Pesta: I love that question. I think there's no one path. I think I had a unique experience. Katharina, who was my ACD on this, has a very unique experience. No Film School is awesome. I hear that.

I entered grad school later in life, having done stuff prior. So I think having a love of film, having an understanding that you don't have to spend a ton of money to make stuff magical. I think there are so many examples of amazing successful creative films that aren't like 10 million, 20 million, 100 million dollar budgets. I love watching films to be inspired and to see what folks have done. Bbeing a real voracious cinema watcher is always great. Additionally, reading scripts.

And then I think it's a good exercise to read a script and then start putting together images. I would advise not using the internet always. I love going to bookstores. I love going to the Strand in New York City and just letting yourself, again, get attracted to whatever calls out to you. Costume design also is all about watching people. So I love looking at people on the street. I live in New York City, so I look at them on the subway, taking in little nuances as to how people express themselves in very subtle ways, as well as large ways. I think that's awesome. Whether you take a picture of them surreptitiously or you look at street style online.

Just be hungry for understanding how people tick and how they dress themselves. Ask your friends questions sometimes. Maybe you can ask like, "Hey, Henry, why do you wear that?" Or "Where's that coat from?" I just think there's such a story in how we dress, so why not be as curious as possible?

Colman Domingo in Sing Sing
A24/Dominic Leon

NFS: Are there any other skills that you would recommend a costume designer have? Do they need to know all the things, sewing and design?

Pesta: I love that question. I think when I meet people who don't have any experience in film, it's often, "Oh my God, costume design! That's so fun." Which it is. I think there's a misconception that it's just purchasing clothes and dressing people.

I think one thing that is really important is having a really keen business sense. And that isn't necessarily because you're purchasing things, but for instance, I'm on a movie right now. We started shooting yesterday. I have a very limited budget, and there are very many costumes and there are bloody costumes and other stuff. So you have to be really strategic. I think that's a misunderstanding about what costume design is.

I love the strategy, and I think that's true of filmmaking in general, is what do we have? What are our parameters? Where's our location? Who are our actors? How do we make this work? So yeah, being good with money and understanding there's a lot of spreadsheets. There are so many spreadsheets in costume design.

I think sewing is awesome because it's only going to help your design, even if you're having someone else make something. It's good to be able to actually talk through and understand how things drape on a body. Not everybody is a size zero. We need to work with all different kinds of people. So understanding body types and stores and what works for different people

And being a good person. One last thing I'll say that people don't necessarily realize is that costume design is a lot like therapy and a lot like psychology.

We deal with vulnerabilities, we deal with bodies, we deal with trauma and stories that bring a lot of stuff out. In some actors, that is, again, tapping into the deepest vulnerabilities we have as humans. And so it's not about throwing clothes on someone, it's about being extremely intimate with an actor and asking them to jump on board with you maybe when they don't understand why you're going a certain way.

I think just going with the flow. There's just a lot of, not people pleasing, but making sure that you are working with the directors, the producers, and the actors, and the production designers and the DPs, everybody. It's not just your vision, it's everyone's vision, everyone's world. And so being malleable.

NFS: Is there anything else you wanted to add about Sing Sing?

Pesta: I'm just so proud of it, and every time I see it or hear interviews with some of our RTA alum, it just brings up emotion again. So I'm just so proud and grateful that I got to have this experience, and I hope that everyone understands that this isn't a movie. This is a movement.