BEHIND THE COSTUME: DESIGNING LIFE GOES ON
There are some projects that remind you exactly why you love doing what you do, and Life Goes On was absolutely one of those for me.
Written and directed by Daniel Audritt and Kat Butterfield, Life Goes On is a darkly funny and incredibly tender short film centred around Bill, an 83-year-old man living out his final days in a care home. Except there’s a problem: every time Bill dies, his final day starts all over again.
Starring the wonderful David Bradley as Bill, alongside Matt Berry, Maggie Steed, Amanda Root, Laura Checkley and Jayne Aguire, the film manages to explore mortality, family, regret and second chances while still being funny, warm and ultimately full of life.
And from a costume perspective, that gave me a lot to play with.
COSTUME DESIGN IS A COLLABORATION
Something I always feel strongly about is that costume design should never exist in isolation.
The best work happens when everyone is moving in the same direction. On Life Goes On, it was really important to me to liaise with Dan and Kat, the actors and the art department throughout the process.
You’re building one world together.
The colour of a wall can completely change how a costume reads. An actor may have an instinct about their character that suddenly unlocks an entire look. The directors know what they need us to feel at a particular moment.
My job is to take all of those ingredients and help tell the story through clothes.
Because before a character has even opened their mouth, their costume has already told us something about them.
BILL — WORN, TEXTURED AND LIVED IN
With Bill, I wanted his wardrobe to feel completely real.
His clothes sit predominantly within a world of greys and muted tones, but texture became incredibly important. Rather than everything feeling flat or simply “old”, we worked on making his wardrobe feel worn, soft and lived in.
We broke his looks down so that the clothes felt like they belonged to him — pieces that had been worn, washed and lived in countless times before we ever met him.
Nothing should feel as though it has just come off a rail.
That process of breaking down costume is one of those details the audience may never consciously notice, but they absolutely feel it. Bill needed to look like a real person rather than an actor who had been dressed to play one.
Bill played by David Bradley - Wearing his broken down costume, worn in Pyjamas and textured robe.
BRINGING IN THE LIGHT
Against Bill’s muted wardrobe, his daughter Vicki needed to bring something different into the room.
For her, I deliberately introduced more colour.
She brings love and light into Bill’s world, even when their relationship and circumstances are difficult, so I wanted there to be a subtle visual shift whenever she appeared.
It’s not about dressing somebody in head-to-toe brights and shouting, “THIS CHARACTER REPRESENTS JOY!”
Costume can be much quieter than that.
A change in palette, softness or texture can gently alter the emotional temperature of a scene without the audience necessarily knowing why.
Bills Daughter, Vicki bringing colour in to scene in her warm peach tones and pastel palette.
LIZZIE — FULL OF LIFE
Then we have Lizzie, played by the fabulous Maggie Steed.
Although Lizzie is living in an end-of-life care home, I absolutely did not want her wardrobe to be defined by that.
Lizzie needed to be jolly. Colourful. Characterful. A woman who still has a sense of herself and is very much full of the joys of life.
That distinction was really important to me.
Age, illness and circumstance don’t suddenly erase somebody’s personality — and costume is such a brilliant way of reminding an audience of that.
It’s not really something you clock in the film, but we put Lizzie in little gold bumble bee earrings. A subtle hint to show Lizzie’s playful side, and that even in her situation she still chooses to show up and dress up!
Lizzie and Bill - In their contrasting tones. Bill in her bleak greys and Lizzie bringing in the joy in soft pinks and butterfly prints
REALITY… WITH A LITTLE ELEVATION
The overall world needed to feel grounded and recognisable, but I wanted there to be moments where we pushed things ever so slightly.
As different characters enter Bill’s repetitive day, they bring little flashes of another world with them.
Joel, the entertainer, arrives in his vintage jumper and dungarees, while Gregory from the fundraising team brings in a fantastic burnt-orange shirt that plays beautifully against the pastel walls of the care home.
They’re believable people, but there’s something just a little heightened about them.
That slight elevation works beautifully within the film because Life Goes On itself sits somewhere between reality and the surreal. Bill is living through the same day again and again, so allowing some of the characters entering his world to feel almost like little punctuation marks helped us subtly lean into that.
Joel in his vintage jumper and dungarees, adding a believable jolt to the scene.
Gregory in his Burnt orange shirt, which contrasted beautifully with the set design.
THE QUICK CHARACTER READ
One of the things I particularly enjoyed was creating Bill’s various visitors.
Some characters don’t have hours of screen time for us to understand who they are. Sometimes costume has seconds to do the job.
That’s where I think costume design becomes incredibly exciting.
What does the silhouette tell us?
What does their colour palette say?
Are their clothes pristine or worn? Carefully coordinated or thrown together? Fashion-conscious, practical, dated, flamboyant, conservative?
Every choice gives the audience information.
You can tell an enormous amount about somebody before the actor has even spoken.
And when you’re working on a short film, those visual shortcuts become even more valuable. There simply isn’t time for pages of exposition explaining who somebody is — sometimes a jacket, a shirt, a pair of shoes or an unexpected colour can do it for you.
adding story through costume
HELPING BRING THE CHARACTERS TO LIFE
Ultimately, that is what I loved about designing Life Goes On.
Costume design isn’t about making every character look fabulous. Sometimes the best costume is one you barely notice.
It’s about helping create believable people.
It’s taking what is on the page, listening to the directors, talking to the actors, working alongside the art department and gradually building a visual language that supports the story everybody is trying to tell.
There are countless tiny decisions within a costume that may never consciously register with an audience — but collectively, they help make a character feel real.
And seeing those characters finally step into the world we’d all created was an utter joy.
What makes it even lovelier is seeing Life Goes On now having a life of its own.
The film has been travelling internationally, screening at festivals around the world and receiving some incredible recognition — including winning the Grand Jury Prize for Best International Short Film at Dallas International Film Festival, being named among the Top 10 Films at HollyShorts and receiving a Best UK Short nomination at Raindance.
To have played a small part in bringing this beautiful, funny and moving story to life makes me incredibly proud.
Because that’s the magic of filmmaking.
Hundreds of creative decisions, made by lots of different people, all pulling in the same direction.
And occasionally, if you’ve all done your jobs properly, the audience never even notices them.
They just believe the world you’ve created.
Stay in the spot.
Px