Be really good with budgets because they keep getting smaller.

If you want someone to feel warm, you dress them in a warm color and put a warm light on them and you get the picture. Sometimes, all that needs pushing a little bit to help tell the story.

On Planet of the Apes, I had a very knowledgeable team who knew good materials, but I had one main source person who worked online and on the street continually looking for the proper materials.

Be able to take any job that gives you experience on a film. Don't just think that you have to be in one department or the other, because through working on one and seeing what other people do in the movie makes you realize what your role is if you become a costume designer.

The whole switch from film to digital has changed some of the ways I use color and the juxtaposition of light and dark. It's getting better with digital, the separation's gotten better, but I still feel like it's really flatter than film, so I do a lot of screening and subtle textural printing and painting on clothes for film to get it not to look flat.

Every project starts with a story.

Inspiration comes from everywhere: books, art, people on the street. It is an interior process for me.