Yvette Helin Studio Blog

 Mini-Figures come to life in Pirates Cove, Legoland  Florida

Yvette  designed and with her talented crew constructed all the costumes for the Pirates Cove Water-Ski Show that opened in Legoland Florida in October of 2011. To make these costumes wearable in water, structurally three dimensional and water ski-able, providing sight, quick in and outs, washability and durability while being soft and porous,  and one size fits all, and safe….and finished for opening…I needed all hands on deck!

Making them was full of interesting new construction designs and inventive methods of making things.

We made 9 minifigures and several sets of the Pirate and Miranda outfits. The skiers are very talented and amazingly strong. Skiing in a minifigure costume is challenging even for the best of the skiers. Not one of them had ever worn a character costume before this event. Bravo Skiers!

Some of these photos are from the web,  thank you photo authors! ( See Properties for Credits) I hardly got to see the actual show start to finish, we were busy behind the scenes most of the time.

Legoland is in Winter Haven, Florida, just west of Lakeland and south of Orlando. The site is where Cypress Gardens used to be. Legoland has retained the gardens, and brought them back to life, as the park had been closed for quite a while prior to its purchase by Legoland.

I was awarded the job by SGA productions who created the water ski show.
SGA was contracted by Legoland Florida / Merlin Entertainment.
Lego in Denmark has oversight on all aspects of the parks.

A force to be reckoned with for sure! Kharma hit the stages of WWE with great reviews, and I was honored to create the costume for her new role as Kharma, a WWE Diva. She is unbelievable. Tune into WWE Raw and Smackdown to see her in the flesh!

Kharma’s costume in its final phase in the studio. This costume is mainly made of leather.

Shooting Craps. I know, sounds like something unusual, but to those who gamble on chance, it is a common game. And Empire Casino in the Bronx wants all to know that they now offer crap tables, at their casino located next to the Yonkers Racetrack. To drive the point home, an ad was created that included two die costumes and a roulette ball costume. The dice were to look as if they had been injured from all the throwing around of themselves on the crap table. The shoot also included a real horse.

Innovative Advertising called upon Yvette Helin to create a bowling pin costume for a campaign they created with Mr. Pin for Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

Above: The Barker, a character in the Wii Game Carnival,

during shooting at the Douglass House in Sparkill, New York.

This Carnival was definitely full of the most challenging games.

Oh, did I forget to mention I made this? It happened

so fast  I barely remember.

 Russell Brand in the remake of Arthur, the one with DudleyMoore and Liza Minelli. Shooting now in New York.

Ok, I did not make the costume. But I almost did! Instead, all that was needed was his special untility belt. But I did get to be in the same room with him, actually touch him, and he is fun. Oh, and Robin’s costume, I made for Luis Guzman, a wonderful man, which turned into a  much chopped down version of what I actually delivered, it needed to look really ill-fitting and wrong, we tried, but it needed more ill fittingness. So, you will see.

However, I do now know how to make a batman costume, and they ain’t cheap. Cost as much as a house. So, if you want one, better plan on living in it too.

Russell and Luis during shooting. These pics are all over the internet, where I got them. I did get to find the batman cowel, and airbrush that. Not my usual workload for a project, but I was thrilled to be a part of it. Juliet Polcsa is costume designer, and it is produced by Warner Brothers.

On Location in New Jersey Diner

Kellee Cragin, Producer at Millennium Pictures, hired me to make this hysterical money bag costume for their New Jersey Lottery commercial. It was shot New Jersey at  the Colonial Diner in Lyndhurst, NJ. Kenn Mann, the man cast as money man, was super in the part as the Mega Man. This commercial will air soon, it is super funny. Jamie Way directed, and Brushfire created the campaign.

Designer Liz Prince, whom I worked with making costumes for Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Company several years back, contacted me to make some costume pieces she designed for Pilobolus Dance Company’s new work, which premiered at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan in July, 2010.  The skeleton unitards I made for her that are pictured above in the studio were designed to resemble Day of the Dead skeletons.  Also for Liz I made some cartoon headresses resembling Little Lulu and Hap. The dance piece was a collaboration with cartoonist Art Spiegelman, Rocker Dan Zanes, and Pilobolus of course, and involved projections of original cartoon graphics created solely for this dance work by Mr. Spiegelman.

In January, I made four of these disco headdresses for Tryon Entertainment.  They provide entertainment events for corporate clients, using costumed performers in many different exiting and creative outfits to help promote their event. These heads have an led readout that is programmed as per the clients wishes.  Fabiola Hesslein, owner and CEO  of Tryon Entertainment, conceived of these wild disco balls. The performers wear them and dance to choreographed works by Fabiola, and attract much attention. Don’t, I repeat don’t, try this at home.

Get That Coffee Cup Dude Outta Here!!

 Shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge, New York, November 2009

Iris Nation, USA (New York) developed this commercial for their client Verbatim which called  for a large coffee cup costume. In the spot, the large coffee cup man keeps getting in everyone’s pictures! Above he crashes a wedding party on the Brooklyn Bridge. What a pest!

Is that a coffee break….dance? Coffee Man hams it up in Times Square.

What is that you ask? It’s a dumpling person! Jane Tsai of TMI Trading Corp/Chef One  contacted Yvette to make this  costume to be the mascot for an event they were putting together in lower Manhattan - A Dumpling Festival!

Yvette models the dumpling costume in her Studio’s  Hallway

Yvette at the festival - yes, she wore it too…hey, I stand in my work

Finally I can talk about the costume I made for Ryan Reynolds for his role as Captain Excellent in the film Paperman! I made the costume for Motion Picture  Costume Designer Juliet Polcsa. The film has its world premier at the Los Angeles Film Festival on Thursday June 18th at at the Mann Village Theater.  Check out the festival’s full lineup here.

Yvette looks really short next to Captain Excellent. On location in Montauk, New York, November 2008.

Ryan and Jeff prepare to perform a scene on Montauk point in New York. Ryan is about to fly away into the sky.

Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Daniels in Paperman

‘Paper Man’ To Open LAFF

Yvette recently made cell phone costumes for an upcoming movie “A Couple of Dicks” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan. The costume is a cell phone that Tracy wears while on a trike….. its a loooong story - see the movie when it comes out!!

Tracy rests between takes in Queens, New York. June 2009.

Also click on this link to Splash to see photos they snagged while shooting took place in Queens last week! We made 16 identical phones for filming.  Whew! That’s a lot of phones!

http://splashnewsonline.celebuzz.com/2009/06/tracy-morgan-films-a-couple-of.html

Yes that was me and my team helping the KOTU team on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice.

Above, I work with Dennis Rodman making fabric choices for  the Kotu Team’s superhero costume icon for Zappos. For those of you who saw the show, you know that the EEE was not a great title for their superhero creation. However, on the news which came on television directly after the show, it was declared the first part of a license plate number for a local murderer. Hmmmm

 Above Melissa works with Dennis Rodman and Jesse James. If you look closely, you can see a mini Yvette climbing on the back of Dennis’s hat. And on the far left, see Sarah’s hand.

You can catch the episode online on NBC.com, Celebrity Apprentice, Episode 2 of 2009 season. Our 3 minutes of fame occur midway in the episode. My line ” two way stretch fabric”

Although EEE’s costume was hot, apparently her name was not.

 Well, weee had a great time.

I know! What is going on here! We made this special Elephant Blanket for Tommy Hilfiger to be donated by Tommy to the Elephant Family www.elephantfamily.org who host an auction of the blankets to raise money to save the elephants. Here is the blanket as seen in Regent’s Park, London. Several prominent designers made blankets for the elephants. The blankets will be shown in a gallery in London in November, 2008. The elephants were shown in Hyde Park in September with all their blankets on. The elephants travel all over the globe!

Fish the size of sea turtles were seen swimming the halls of our new home in the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center. And of course, we made them. They were sent to Seaworld in San Diego where they made their debut in their park for Halloween festivities.

Hannah’s got her head! Hannah is a spokeswoman for DaVita. Her long lashes were added later.

Yvette Helin was hired by Seaworld Orlando to design and make a prototype of Virgil, a Pelican character in the Seaworld Family of Characters. Here he is, in the hallway of our new location. We are now at 1205 Manhattan Avenue. 11222. He will debut at Seaworld Orlando on August 4, 2008. But first, we will make his eyebrows less excited!

The Norfolk airport needed a fun way to advertise their services. What better than birds who realize that planes are better than flying? MRB Films hired me to design and make 7 birds for their Norfolk Airport commerical called “ORF”. Shown  here at the Love Bird and the Starling.

OK, we make Big Sandwich costumes too sometimes….

We made this one for Magic Box Films  for their D’Angelo’s commercial.

TVOTR stands for TV on the Radio, and as some of you know, they are a great band out there doing well. Daniel Garcia of Superfi contacted us to make some costumes for their TV on the Radio “Me-I” Music Video Production.

We made a pigeon costume and a tree costume for their new music video that should be out by now.  In their post editing they created some fantastic  images using the costumes. It was a great job, and the video is stunning!  The Pigeon is constructed of dyed burlap in various colors.  For a lot of pics of shoot click here!

SNL creates their shows in just a few days. Sometime on a Wednesday I received direction for the making of some meatball costumes for a skit on the upcoming Saturday show where Jake Gyllenhaal hosted. There was also a Parmesan chicken in the skit. January 2007, NBC Studios, New York.

Tony Cantale produced the commercial for Radical Media and Lyrica called “Don’t Have to Live With It”. He asked me to make the Nerve Man, who runs around in the commercial making nerve pain for the people in the commercial. Nerve Man is very small in the commercial, not bigger than your calf. Shot against green screen at Silvercup Studios,  New York, April 2007.

In the Fall of 2006, I made a Dolphin for Dolphin Quest, in Bermuda. They have a couple of  parks where you can swim with the Dolphins and they have a lot of them.

I must say, this thank you was a wonderful surprise when I opened it in my email!I have to share this one.

Yes, still have to satisfy the crazed artist in me. And keep my commitment to the Prague Quadrennial, and Martha Wilson, Director of Franklin Furnace! My Artwork The Pedestrian Project, was invited to perform in Prague in the Old Town.

The Prague Quadrennial is a large exhibition and convention for theatrical design and architecture. To spice up the event they added street performances that occured around Old Town. Franklin Furnace brought 5 artists; Pat Oleszko, Julie Laffin, William Pope, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, and yours truly.

We took pictures of the tourists with our cameras.

I felt like a rock star! But, really, we are nobodies.

And, there is graffitti even in beautiful Prague!