Psssssst......wanna see a conversation with a costume designer?

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FANGS

Commanding Officer
Community Staff
Division Staff
Several weeks ago, a few of us had the distinct pleasure to have a chat with the costume designer from the Halo TV series, Giovanni Lipari. I cannot even begin to put in to words how amazing it was and what a wonderful human he is.

Guess what? Now you all get the chance!!

Giovanni is in Italy so timing this sort of thing is difficult. And sometimes it does get bumped due to his on set times etc. However, we are currently scheduled for 2:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. CEST on Tuesday, June 21st. That works out to be Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern. This isn't going to be doable for a lot of people because of that time BUT we will be recording it and we're asking everyone to submit their questions to us so we can get the most information possible jammed in to that time.

This isn't going to be an open chat. It just wouldn't be very manageable that way. So we will gather all of the questions and put them together in an organized fashion and ask Giovanni as many of them as we can. And we welcome everyone to watch it live if you can!

Our wonderful, hardworking PR Officer, TurboCharizard and the rest of the amazing Stream Team will be setting this all up for us and will post in this thread what the details are.

So, what can you do?

First - if you happen to be posting about building a costume from the show, or even if you just want to share the experience of listening to the talk, please use the following tags:

#405thLovesGiovanniLipari #405thGiovanniLipariCollab #GiovanniLipari

Second - make sure you start following Giovanni on his Instagram account - giovanni_lipari_design and give him lots of 405th love!

Third - post your questions here for him about the costumes from the Halo TV series!

We'll also be putting together a lot of information about what we learned from the first chat with Giovanni so keep your eyes peeled for that!
 
A question:
What was the thought process of making the armor specialized for the other Spartans instead of making them more like the basic Master Chief suit with smaller changes or add-ons compared to the really specialized designs in the show.

Was there a specific game that inspired your designs for the more personalized armor of the other 3 spartans?
 
Question:
When it comes to movement and mobility when in costume how were you able to navigate around the "blockier" appearances of Halo armor? We've managed to pick up on a few aspects from the behind the scenes footage so far however I know I'd love to hear any additional tips on how you were able to achieve that amazing level of mobility in full armor.
 
Question:
When it comes to movement and mobility when in costume how were you able to navigate around the "blockier" appearances of Halo armor? We've managed to pick up on a few aspects from the behind the scenes footage so far however I know I'd love to hear any additional tips on how you were able to achieve that amazing level of mobility in full armor.
I can tell you that we discussed this with him before and it's actually fascinating. I won't spoil it because it's always better coming right from the person who did it, but it was a lot of effort put in. All of the Spartans are live action and never CGI'd so it definitely presented problems!

Great questions so far!
 
Question: what are ways to repair damages or breakages to the costumes onset so they are difficult to detect? What are the most common problems you see with these kinds of costumes? (Referring to Spartans)
This was another really great question I was able to ask Giovanni about in our discussion! All the armor including the multiple suits each actor has for their character's parts are interchangeable as they are all identical in paint style and finish aside from material use between the stunt and hero suit. But I would love to know how many repairs they ended up having to do. Especially if they broke a helmet.
 
The Spartans are shown putting weapons on and off of their back. I would love to know how they're attached, and assuming it's magnets what kind of magnets and design were used. I'm also curious how many takes are needed to get a shot of them moving the weapon to and from their back, it looks natural in the show, but I know from my own experience that it does not feel natural to do and can be difficult to line the weapon up properly. How much does it take to get the weapon to fall off, can they safely run with it on?
 
Question: I recently saw a behind the scenes video of Kai tripping and falling pretty hard in her armor. What were the repairs that were needed to the armor after that?
 
Question: It seems that the faceplates on some of the helmets were removable for the actor’s comfort between takes! So smart! Were there any other modifications made to the armor for ease of use and comfort?
 
Question: Each visor seemed to be made with different methods and had different designs. While all looked great, what methods did you use to create each mirrored piece? (If I asked too many questions let me know FANGS I’ll delete two.)
 
Get those questions in!!! Feel free to ask as many as you want!

We are meeting with Mr. Lipari tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 6:00 a.m. Mountain Time/2:00 p.m. Central European Summer Time.

You'll be able to watch the chat with him on the 405th Twitch Channel (https://twitch.tv/405thhalo) and it will be upload at some time after that to the YouTube channel for anyone who couldn't catch it live! You'll be able to ask questions via the Twitch chat, which we will monitor and do our best to ask.
 
Just as a general question:
What were some of your biggest challenges for designing and working on these costumes that you had to overcome and what was one of the challenges that stood out to you the most?

And, What is the costume that you specifically are most proud of, that you think stands out among the rest?

What was the inspiration for the design for the undersuit, and why the choice for that style of armor and not more reach/infinite/CE designs?

What were some of the challenges of designing armor for the filming process to ensure that the pieces survived the filming process? (trips/falls/action scenes/ and other unforeseen issues)
 
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Thanks for the questions everyone! I hope we were able to capture all of them for you!

If you have more questions, please let us know. You can, of course, ask him directly via his Instagram @giovanni_lipari_designs . He and his social media manager, Alessio are very responsive. Or if there are enough questions as you start to get deeper in to builds etc., we can potentially arrange for another conversation.

Please remember to use the hash tags #405thLovesGiovanniLipari #405thGiovanniLipariCollab #GiovanniLipari and to like his Instagram profile!
 
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