From costume, wig and set designers to builders, makeup artists and stylists, it’s a proverbial village that helps take an idea from inception to completion each and every year.
To get a better idea of how it all comes together, TODAY.com talked to some of the people behind this year’s extravaganza to learn what goes on behind the scenes, starting with TODAY production designer, Ed Helbig.
A 22-year veteran of TODAY’s Halloween on the plaza, Helbig says that each year presents its own set of unique challenges.
“The video store we just did was a big challenge, especially since we had less than a week to pull it off,” Helbig explains. Beyond that, Helbig says while there are plenty of props available to rent, a video store isn’t among them.
Instead, the team had to purchase new store shelves, then convert them into the slanted displays typically found in a video rental store. With the shelves in place, Helbig says the next obstacle was filling them with old VHS movies.
“I did the math based on the width of the shelves and the width of a tape and it ended up being about 300 tapes,” which he says they sourced from prop rental house and eBay.
The team then filled the shelves, recreating the iconic video store look down to the last detail.
“The biggest thing is how many hands are involved in making it happen,” Helbig says. “I think people assume there’s a small army, but they probably don’t know how many people it really takes to make a big show like this work.”
Crafting the TODAY costumes
Much like Helbig, TODAY costume designer, Staci Greenbaum, says making Halloween costumes for the anchors and co-hosts comes with its own set of unique challenges.
For the VHS Rewind theme, Greenbaum says that it was especially important to get all the details just right.
“The biggest challenge is adequately paying homage to these costume designers who have developed such iconic looks,” Greenbaum tells TODAY.com.
“It’s trying to pay credit where credit is due, as far as recreating these costumes that people have come to know and love and have sort of become classics in their own right.”
And it’s not always easy given that she’s working off of grainy photos and old movies, which was the case with Dylan Dreyer’s Lydia Deetz costume.
“It’s really hard to see either in picture or footage what she’s actually wearing,” says Greenbaum of Lydia’s all-black look. “But we’re trying to make you feel like you’re in the ‘80s and a little goth.”
What people may not realize is that, for the most part, none of the TODAY costumes come from a Halloween store, but are, instead, custom-made or individually crafted for each of the anchors and co-hosts.
“To look like the character in the movie, we have two things to navigate: One is the weight of the fabric, the level of construction, whether or not it’s new, out of a box, or if we put through the ringer to get it to the level we visually need to see it,” she says.
The other? “You have to take into consideration people’s sizes,” says Greenbaum, who adds that many of TODAY’s anchors are, in fact, quite tall, which means most costumes need to be built from scratch, including Carson Daly’s Austin Powers’ suit. “There are lots of 1960s suits. Are they going to fit Carson, who is 6’3?” Greenbaum asks.
Of all this year’s costumes, did Greenbaum have a favorite?
“Peter (Alexander) playing Mrs. Doubtfire was a fun one,” says Greenbaum, explaining that since the Robin Williams’ character was Scottish, there were many accents and details they had to track down to get the character just right, down to Peter’s custom tartan plaid skirt.
Designing the hair
Like the set and the costumes, each of the anchors’ and co-hosts’ hair is handmade by a team of designers.
Head hair designer, Jodi Mancuso, is a 23-year veteran of Saturday Night Live, and she brings her Emmy-winning talents to TODAY’s Halloween extravaganza.
“It’s always fun because it’s for Halloween and everybody gets real excited when we get there, and we put everything on, and everybody’s just having a good time,” says Mancuso.
Far from arriving in a box ready to go, each wig is handmade and takes anywhere from 40 to 60 hours to prepare. “That’s just for us. Most people take over 80 hours to build wigs, ”Mancuso explains.
Because the team is accustomed to SNL’s tight production schedule, they can accomplish a lot in a very short amount of time, which was necessary since this year, like most others, they needed to create the wigs in less than two weeks.
“I do this every week on SNL, so it was actually fairly easy,” she says. “It was nothing too crazy.”
For this year’s VHS Rewind theme, each member of the TODAY team required a wig to get them into character. According to Mancuso, Carson Daly’s Austin Powers wig and Peter Alexander’s Mrs. Doubtfire were among the more complicated, Jenna’s wig as Rose from “Titanic” required special coloring and Al’s Beetlejuice look required moss for authenticity. All of which were time intensive.
Even so, Mancuso says she enjoys the challenge. “It takes time, but it’s a lot of fun.”
More than that, Mancuso says she loves seeing the results, whether she’s working on SNL or the TODAY Halloween show and takes pride in each of the transformations.
“I live through the wigs and they get to see themselves as these characters. So, that’s what’s really exciting about it. We always have a good time and everybody’s so wonderful.”