Build hair, makeup and costume looks for a character

A look is one appearance of one character in one department. Elizabeth's hair in the first act is a look; the costume she changes into at the party is another. Getting the granularity right is most of the work — too few looks and continuity has nothing to point at, too many and nobody can find the right one.

Looks live on the character, inside a department: hair, makeup and costume each keep their own list. New ones are named for you — HAIR#1, MAKEUP#1, CHANGE#1 for costume — and you can rename them to whatever the department actually calls them.

Names must be unique within a character's department. Two hair looks called HAIR#1 on the same character are rejected, on creation and on rename. Different characters, or the same character's makeup list, are free to reuse the name.

There are two kinds of look, and the difference matters: a general look, which is the character's baseline for a department, and ordinary looks, which are specific appearances covering specific scenes. Everything below the next section is about the second kind.

The general look, and the rest

Each department also has one general look per character — General Hair, General Makeup, General Costume. It is the character's baseline: what they look like normally, before any particular scene is considered.

It is not an ordinary look, and it deliberately cannot do what ordinary looks do:

• It has no continuity scenes. It is not "in" any scene, so there is nothing to attach.
• It cannot be attached to a scene character. It does not appear in the attach menu at all.
• It cannot be cloned or merged. Those actions are hidden on it — there is only ever one per department, so there is nothing to clone it into or merge it with.
• It is not named by you. The name is fixed; a general look is identified by its department, not by a label.

What it does hold is photographs, a description, and a choice of which photograph is its main image — the one that represents the character for that department.

Use it for the standing truth that a photograph carries better than words: this is her hair, this is his usual coat. Then use ordinary looks for the changes. If you find yourself creating a look called something like "normal" and attaching it to most of the script, the general look is what you actually wanted.

It is edited from the General Look button on the department's card on the character page, and created the first time you open it — so there is nothing to set up. Its description is what that card shows, which is why filling it in makes the character page read as a summary rather than a list of empty shelves.

What an ordinary look holds

• Photos. The reference the department works from. They travel with the look wherever it is attached.
• Details. Typed notes — Colour, Mascara, Blush, Wig and so on. You are not limited to the preset types: type your own and it is kept. Details can be edited and removed individually.
• Wardrobe. Attach an item from the production's warehouse, or create one and attach it in a single step. See tracking wardrobe for how sharing works across characters.
• Continuity scenes. Which scenes this look covers.

Continuity scenes, and why the list shrinks

Open the continuity manager on a look and you are offered only the scenes that character plays in — not every scene in the production.

As you attach scenes, the available pool gets smaller. Attach all three of a character's scenes and there are none left to offer. Remove one and it becomes available again.

That is not a quirk, it is the point: a character can only have one look per department in a given scene. The shrinking list is SceneMatch preventing a contradiction — Elizabeth cannot have two different hair looks in scene 4.

Attaching a look where you shoot

Looks are also reachable the other way round, from the scene. Open a scene, open the character in it, pick the department tab and attach the look. The look arrives with its photos, so the person on set sees the reference rather than a name.

Detaching leaves the look intact — it only removes it from that scene.

Clone: the same look, different scenes

Cloning is for a look that recurs with a variation. The clone copies the photos, the details and the attached wardrobe, and suggests a name — CHANGE#1 copy, then CHANGE#1 copy 2 for the next one, so you never collide with the unique-name rule.

The clone starts with no scenes selected. You choose which scenes it covers as you create it, and it does not inherit the original's. This is deliberate and it is the whole reason to clone: the appearance is the same, the scenes are what differ. If you pick none, the clone is created attached to nothing and waits for you.

Merge: two looks that turn out to be one

Merging is the fix for a look that got created twice — usually because two departments, or two drafts, described the same appearance differently.

Merge one look into another and the target keeps its name and absorbs everything from the source: its photos, its details and its continuity scenes are added to what the target already had. Merge a look with two photos into one with three and you have five. The source look is removed.

Because continuity scenes combine, a merge is also how you consolidate coverage — the surviving look ends up attached to every scene either look covered.

Getting it out on paper

Looks export several ways, and which one you want depends on who is asking:

• A single look as a breakdown PDF, from the look itself.
• All of a character's looks in one department — the hair list for Elizabeth, say — from the character page.
• A costume change tag, from the open look or straight off its card. This is the one that goes on the rail.
• A scene character breakdown, from the scene, covering everything that character needs in it.

The thing that is not obvious

Deleting a look does not touch its wardrobe or its photos' originals. Wardrobe items belong to the production, not to the look that references them, so removing a look leaves the coat in the warehouse for the next one. What you lose is the association — which scenes it covered and which details described it.

If you are unsure whether to delete or merge, merge. It keeps the continuity scenes, which are the part that is tedious to rebuild.