Meet the Costume Designer Behind the Bold Animated Film ‘GOAT’

Audiences ought to anticipate the movie show to be a jungle because of GOAT which opened on the field workplace Feb.13. Mixing world sports activities tradition, next-generation animation and fearless creativity, the Sony Footage Animation movie arrives with severe pedigree, backed by the artists behind Okay-Pop Demon Hunters and Spider-Man: Throughout the Spider-Verse, and a manufacturing workforce that features four-time NBA champion Stephen Curry (who additionally lends his voice to Lenny the giraffe). 

Whereas audiences are positive to be enamored by a solid of athletic animals, the movie’s immersive world is stitched collectively by Emmy-nominated costume designer Dominique Dawson—a multidisciplinary artistic whose daring, story-driven work has helped form tasks like Ava DuVernay’s Origin, Donald Glover’s Swarm, and Jordan Peele’s HIM.

With GOAT, the San Francisco native steps into new territory: animation. The unique action-comedy facilities on Will, a small goat who has an opportunity to attain his wildest dream—enjoying skilled roarball, a high-intensity, co-ed, full-contact sport, dominated by the quickest, fiercest animals on the planet. 

Dawson says she approached the GOAT undertaking intent on constructing a world that felt culturally grounded and visually genuine. 

“I actually wished to step into the world of Vineland,” Dawson tells BLACK ENTERPRISE. “The local weather and the precise landscaping of the city may be very jungle vibes. It’s sizzling. There’s loads of hills—quite a bit to navigate. So we knew that we couldn’t do loads of layering with huge coats as a result of it simply wouldn’t make sense.” 

To assemble that realism in GOAT, Dawson immersed herself in analysis.

“I constructed out decks and jumped into animal actions and anatomy and understanding the totally different species,” she defined. “Then we jumped into what do these animals do for a dwelling? Having the ability to have that hierarchy—careers, attorneys, docs, building employees—that dictated loads of their seems to be.” 

For Dawson, animation unlocked a degree of artistic freedom hardly ever attainable in dwell motion. 

“Sometimes, I should work out how I can get my palms on this couture piece—is it going to reach on time? Is it going to be two occasions smaller than what they stated initially? None of these worries had been a part of my pondering, which is so liberating,” she says. “I actually simply bought to have at it. 

That freedom proved particularly essential when designing Jett Fillmore, the league’s celebrated MVP, voiced by Gabrielle Union. 

“I wished Jett to really feel highly effective,” Dawson says. “I performed with energy fits at first. What I realized is by displaying extra of her body, you truly get a greater understanding of her swag and femininity.”

She provides, “It nonetheless appears like she’s on that line of masculine, female vibes.”

The size of labor was large. 

“Even only for one rendering of Jett’s seems to be, we’d do like 60 variations that had all totally different colorways, changes and detailing—and that’s only for one outfit. The primary situation was the catwalk seems to be. That was actually the place we wished to make an announcement.”

The eye to character prolonged throughout the roster, significantly to Will, the undersized rookie decided to show that “smalls can ball.”

“I studied loads of avenue ball—courts just like the Rucker and West 4th,” Dawson says. “He’s the one small who, when he involves the courtroom, needs to look not less than as huge as he can. So getting into a slimmed-down silhouette will not be going to service him. He needs to bulk it out.”

Dawson’s answer was to place Will in a baggier hoodie, layered over longer tees to magnify his presence. 

“Displaying his development and development as he will get drafted, he stays in follow gear out the gate, you then get to see him step out in a deconstructed bomber jacket and a wide range of seems to be that present he’s bought some paper now, and he can specific himself in that manner.”

Whereas roarball exists in an all-animal universe, it’s aesthetic is deeply rooted in recognizable cultural touchpoints. Dawson’s personal experiences helped anchor that authenticity.

“I grew up enjoying basketball, so I’ve a very robust information of the game,” she says. “I checked out gladiator-type vibes and attending loads of video games myself. I’m a sports activities fan. I simply bought off doing two soccer motion pictures back-to-back, so I’ve a really clear understanding of fandom and all of that. The gladiator factor added a bigger part as a result of it is a world league…The stakes are excessive and it’s do or die, so we actually wished to showcase that.”

The result’s a movie that feels each imaginative and acquainted. Animation additionally allowed Dawson to discover design potentialities that will have been impractical or unsafe in dwell motion. 

“Modo is one in all my favourite characters,” Dawson says, referencing the Komodo dragon voiced by Nick Kroll who is without doubt one of the movie’s most kinetic characters. “If an actor was sporting tight denim pants with all these belts and piercings, there can be concern about security…Him doing flips and all of the motion and quirkiness he does. We had been freed from that, and that’s when expertise actually got here into play.”

GOAT’s filmmakers leaned into superior instruments throughout productions. Latest technical positive aspects have made it attainable to render “complicated characters, with fur, hair, layered clothes and equipment,” a problem that required groups to fastidiously steadiness visible element inside every body. 

For Dawson, these instruments, enhanced the emotional influence. 

“There was a holographic impact placed on the jerseys…it type of entered this surreal house,” she explains. “These moments actually hit and had an influence.”

Whereas her work occurs largely behind the scenes, Dawson sees costume design as foundational to narrative. 

“The union that I’m a part of has an entire working marketing campaign referred to as ‘Bare With out Us,’ and that basically says all of it. If there have been no costume designers, it actually can be a bunch of actors simply strolling round bare. We’re an enormous story part.”

As a graduate of the director’s program at NYU’s Tisch Faculty of the Arts, Dawson approaches every undertaking via a storytelling lens. 

“Each alternative that we make for the display screen must assist and elevate the story and push it ahead,” she says. “I all the time look to the textual content—the script—however I additionally take a look at it like portray. If there’s an excessive amount of purple over right here…there’s a steadiness in wanting on the energies of characters.”

After designing greater than 160 episodes of tv and collaborating with visionary filmmakers, Dawson stays motivated by artistic threat.

“I like the bizarre. I like unusual,” she says. “I’m very a lot into displaying issues that we don’t usually see. I’m not similar to, ‘Oh, I need to do the usual business vibe.’ That’s not me in any respect.”

That spirit made GOAT a pure match—a undertaking she describes as grounded in empowerment.

“The primary goal is absolutely physique positivity and embracing all sizes and empowerment of everybody,” Dawson says. “We actually wished the costumes to mirror that.”

Dawson sees extra animation tasks in her future. 

“Most positively,” she says when requested about returning to the medium. “You’re on Zoom with illustrators in South Africa or Paris or Canada, and also you’re attending to make magic over the pc from house. I like it.”

As animation continues to push the boundaries of expertise, tradition, and storytelling, designers like Dawson are shaping how audiences join earlier than a single line is spoken. And if GOAT is any indication, she’s solely simply getting began. 

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