So I'm a big fan of the movie "Repo! The Genetic Opera." I remember when the DVD came out, I went to 6 stores to hunt a copy down, finally finding it in a Walmart of all places, and watched it twice back to back. This was 2009, and I was 17 at the time. I was hooked, I got into the forums, and immediately started on making the Repo Man Costume
So for my 18th birthday I actually ended up pooling all my money with a friend of mine, and getting a local theater to play it. At the event, I got to meet a bunch of other Repo fans, and a couple of them asked me if I was going to do a Shadowcast of the film. I hadn't really thought of it, but with the idea planted in my head, there was no turning back. Our cast was called "The Necromerchant's Payment" (or necro's for short) and we ran from 2009 to 2014, making us the longest running Repo Shadowcast in Canada (We were based in Ottawa). We made a huge amount of props and costumes, and I just wanted to show off some of them.
First up, the Repo Costume:
So my first Repo coat was really off, It was too short, the paneling was wrong, and it was way too thick to use on the stage. However, I got really lucky and was able to get a look at the actual Screen used coat, and remade my coat to more match it, although ours is much thinner (to balance the heat problems on stage) and with short sleeves, for exactly the same reason.
The Helmet I made from a paintball helmet, similarly to how they made the original prop. However, we used a different model, and as such our helmet came out a good deal rounder than the original prop. I trimmed the mouth opening, and A friend of mine wired it up with lights. The original costume piece is covered in wetmolded leather, but I had neither the budget nor skills for that, so I ended up using pleather that I had from my first coat, and building the wetmolded ridges with hot glue, and a fair amount of trial and error.
The Facemask on it is actually one of the production made facemasks that I was given, which is really cool. Although because of the more rounded shape of the helmet, it doesn't sit quite the same as it did on the original mask. As you can see in the second picutre, the eyes light up really bright. It looked great on stage, but it also meant you couldn't see a bloody thing in the helmet, on top of not really being able to hear in it either. Good times.
The other piece of this costume that took a lot of work was the Repo Blades. in the film, they used rubber and hard plastic blades, for safety and weight. We tried using plastic, but it was coming across as wobbly and kinda silly looking. We tried wooden blades but the prop gets dropped at one point and the blades literally shattered. So eventually we ended up contacting a local blacksmith, who forged us actual metal blades for the prop. Which in retrospect was SUPER DANGEROUS and I don't know how we got away with performing with it for 5 years without any injuries.
The whole thing came together really well, if I do say so.
Another one that we had to do a lot of special building for was Graverobber:
The coat was another one that we got really lucky on. The fabric is the same as on the original piece, as is the fur, as is the exact pattern. The only thing that doesn't match is the breakdown, but it still played really well.
The gun and Satchel were originally made by a member here actually, Zander. We modded the satchel a fair bit, Shortening the strap to fit various cast members better (by folding it and duct taping it, which felt very Graverobber-esque).
And then the Zydrate Gun was the same deal. Zander built it, and then we modified it as time went on. We found that the original props tip and vial connector were too weak for our rough castmembers, and we had to re-engineer them to be more sturdy. Also, at some point we lost the back gear...wheel...thing. And so currently there's a replacement piece that has filled it's spot.
We built all sorts of other props, from Prosthetic faces for Pavi, to the awesome costume pieces of Mag and Amber and everyone. Sadly those ones are no longer in my collection, but here are some show photos showing those off, as well as just some cool shots showcasing our ever changing cast over our 5 year run.
We switched roles every year, to keep it interesting, and did a Drag show every June to celebrate Pride, which meant that everyone got to try out all sorts of fun roles through the run.
The Graverobber costume was the one that really varied the most from performer to performer, especially when we switched to Female Graverobbers, who put their own spin on the costume.
This Mag cloak was another great example of where we were able to get the accurate Pattern, although we had to use a "close enough" fabric, because the original fabric was no longer made.
The Shilo costumes were tricky, because the colour grading of the film made a lot of the pieces that were purple in reality look black on screen. For most, we settled on going with Black, for the sake of it visually matching the screen, instead of being proper accurate. The exception being that purple coat, because it was an exact match for the screen used costume piece.
The Genterns were like that as well. We actually got one of the original screen used dresses, as well as all the remaining fabric, and a pre-reverse engineered pattern of the dress from another shadowcast, which helped us really nail down the look and feel of those costumes.
So for my 18th birthday I actually ended up pooling all my money with a friend of mine, and getting a local theater to play it. At the event, I got to meet a bunch of other Repo fans, and a couple of them asked me if I was going to do a Shadowcast of the film. I hadn't really thought of it, but with the idea planted in my head, there was no turning back. Our cast was called "The Necromerchant's Payment" (or necro's for short) and we ran from 2009 to 2014, making us the longest running Repo Shadowcast in Canada (We were based in Ottawa). We made a huge amount of props and costumes, and I just wanted to show off some of them.
First up, the Repo Costume:
So my first Repo coat was really off, It was too short, the paneling was wrong, and it was way too thick to use on the stage. However, I got really lucky and was able to get a look at the actual Screen used coat, and remade my coat to more match it, although ours is much thinner (to balance the heat problems on stage) and with short sleeves, for exactly the same reason.
The Helmet I made from a paintball helmet, similarly to how they made the original prop. However, we used a different model, and as such our helmet came out a good deal rounder than the original prop. I trimmed the mouth opening, and A friend of mine wired it up with lights. The original costume piece is covered in wetmolded leather, but I had neither the budget nor skills for that, so I ended up using pleather that I had from my first coat, and building the wetmolded ridges with hot glue, and a fair amount of trial and error.
The Facemask on it is actually one of the production made facemasks that I was given, which is really cool. Although because of the more rounded shape of the helmet, it doesn't sit quite the same as it did on the original mask. As you can see in the second picutre, the eyes light up really bright. It looked great on stage, but it also meant you couldn't see a bloody thing in the helmet, on top of not really being able to hear in it either. Good times.
The other piece of this costume that took a lot of work was the Repo Blades. in the film, they used rubber and hard plastic blades, for safety and weight. We tried using plastic, but it was coming across as wobbly and kinda silly looking. We tried wooden blades but the prop gets dropped at one point and the blades literally shattered. So eventually we ended up contacting a local blacksmith, who forged us actual metal blades for the prop. Which in retrospect was SUPER DANGEROUS and I don't know how we got away with performing with it for 5 years without any injuries.
The whole thing came together really well, if I do say so.
Another one that we had to do a lot of special building for was Graverobber:
The coat was another one that we got really lucky on. The fabric is the same as on the original piece, as is the fur, as is the exact pattern. The only thing that doesn't match is the breakdown, but it still played really well.
The gun and Satchel were originally made by a member here actually, Zander. We modded the satchel a fair bit, Shortening the strap to fit various cast members better (by folding it and duct taping it, which felt very Graverobber-esque).
And then the Zydrate Gun was the same deal. Zander built it, and then we modified it as time went on. We found that the original props tip and vial connector were too weak for our rough castmembers, and we had to re-engineer them to be more sturdy. Also, at some point we lost the back gear...wheel...thing. And so currently there's a replacement piece that has filled it's spot.
We built all sorts of other props, from Prosthetic faces for Pavi, to the awesome costume pieces of Mag and Amber and everyone. Sadly those ones are no longer in my collection, but here are some show photos showing those off, as well as just some cool shots showcasing our ever changing cast over our 5 year run.
We switched roles every year, to keep it interesting, and did a Drag show every June to celebrate Pride, which meant that everyone got to try out all sorts of fun roles through the run.
The Graverobber costume was the one that really varied the most from performer to performer, especially when we switched to Female Graverobbers, who put their own spin on the costume.
This Mag cloak was another great example of where we were able to get the accurate Pattern, although we had to use a "close enough" fabric, because the original fabric was no longer made.
The Shilo costumes were tricky, because the colour grading of the film made a lot of the pieces that were purple in reality look black on screen. For most, we settled on going with Black, for the sake of it visually matching the screen, instead of being proper accurate. The exception being that purple coat, because it was an exact match for the screen used costume piece.
The Genterns were like that as well. We actually got one of the original screen used dresses, as well as all the remaining fabric, and a pre-reverse engineered pattern of the dress from another shadowcast, which helped us really nail down the look and feel of those costumes.
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