Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Cogan

Hi Sarah, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.

My journey as a Film Designer and Film Design Educator began when I was in elementary school. I started being curious about performative storytelling, taking acting and singing lessons, training in mixed martial arts and horseback riding (among other things) to be able to do my own stunts. That all changed when I was at UC Santa Barbara, where I fell in love with costume and lighting design. I loved how as a designer, I get to be a part of every character’s journey. That was it; From the age of 19, designing and telling stories through design has been my main squeeze. After achieving my master’s in costume and lighting design, I moved to New York, where I’m still based, to pursue my career.

Today, I’ve designed two Oscar-eligible films– 18 1/2 (95th Awards) and Bienvenidos a Los Angeles (Shortlisted for 96th Awards)–and a branded short awarded a Silver Lion at Cannes in 2021. I’ve also been the assistant costume designer on shows such as Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Lyle Lyle Crocodile. Along with designing, I co-founded the largest costume rental house in Brooklyn, NY, Grandma’s Closet Costume Rentals. On my website, you’ll find workshops about film design, its influence on the story, and how to budget for it, along with professional workshops such as Costume Design for Film and TV and Creating Your Design Website. Life is much more than just designing films these days.

Getting to this moment in my life started with taking one next step forward. When I first moved to NYC, I took every opportunity, paid and unpaid, to build my portfolio and make connections. I easily worked 100-hour weeks. Luckily, my “day job” was lighting concerts at a music venue in the West Village called Le Poison Rouge. Often, the artist would come in an hour before doors opened to sound check, giving me only an hour to ensure I understood what they wanted the show to look like. I never knew the set and typically only heard one or two sound-check songs. The shows were completely run on the fly. It taught me to follow my gut and know when to pivot quickly. I recommend everyone working in a situation like this because it lets you let go. Let go of being precious about your work; let go of expectations; let go of things having to be perfect before executing or delivering. I know I can think quickly and on my feet with great results now, and in the heat of set and high-pressure deadlines, that’s peace of mind that allows me to focus on my craft instead of my worries.

From here, I reached out to everyone I could for opportunities. One cold email led to this job, which led to meeting this person, the aforementioned projects, and more. My years of working in the industry opened my eyes to the education holes in filmmakers’ training programs around design, how to utilize it as a storytelling tool, and how to budget accurately for the costs. This led to the workshops I offer and the book on budgeting for design I’m writing. This is also how Grandma’s Closet Costume Rentals came to be. My business partner and I heard our local industry’s outcry for resources and we turned our private collection into an ever growing industry resource.

It’s been a really cool journey. I’m excited to see how things continue to unfurl.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

The road has been far from smooth. My design work has always been fairly consistent. I come to every job, regardless of my role, with the intention of taking care of the people I work for with excellent design or design support. My goal is to have the director, producers, and designer I’m assisting to know when they hand me something that it’s done. That has served me really well. I do have a bad habit of overworking myself to an extreme tho because of this. Such as staying up until the wee hours of the morning altering clothing or making artwork for set the next day. I get to find balance and boundaries with that now that I have Grandma’s Closet.

There’s always the constant hustle of building your name and the relationships and connections that get you to the next level. That was never the hardest part.

The part that’s actually been the challenge has been my own journey around my mental health. Bipolar tendencies run in my family, and I’m blessed with the opportunity to overcome them. It wasn’t until last summer that I finally got on the proper medication. That has changed everything. Much of my struggles in the past came from the massive anxious highs and debilitating lows caused by the disorder. I am pretty entrepreneurial in my creative and film endeavors (as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Ha.). Having bipolar has made the forward momentum challenging. Now that I have the proper support, I’ve been able to look back over the last 13 years of my professional career and see how that has affected the outcomes of my life so far. I’m doing the work now to heal my heart and course correct.

On course correction–I just finished listening to The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, where he talked about the rocket to the moon (I believe), which was off course majority of the flight, yet it still made it to its destination! How cool is that? I love this because it gives us all the freedom or permission to be off course here and there in our own lives. It’s normal. It’s even to be expected, I think. In the end, we can still make it to our destination just by taking one more step in the direction of what you desire.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?

One of my proudest career moments came during this year’s Oscars with Bienvenidos a Los Angeles. It’s a short film about a group of women who help an undocumented mother reunite with her son being detained by immigration at LAX. It’s a touching human story about seeing ourselves in others.

The project hits several touch points of what I do. The director, Lisa Cole, and I met when she was taking my workshop Text to Moving Images. It’s a workshop for filmmakers about worldbuilding, how to utilize design as a storytelling language, and how design creates context for our stories. We workshopped her pitch deck in the program. Talked about how to set up the character dynamics. She credits the workshop for helping her craft such a quality film, which is a dream come true.

After the workshop, Lisa asked me to design the film–the service part of what I do. We dove deep into the story, finding authentic research to fuel the costume design and working with Lisa and the cast to craft real characters. We used color so specifically. Green for go. Red for stop every time the women come to a barrier. We leveraged Grandma’s Closet to fill out some of the costumes to fit into the budget. The project feels like the complete spectrum of what I do and offer. It’s pretty special having a student make it that far as well as contributing to such a successful piece.

So much of the story comes from the context and dynamics we set with design since film is a visual medium. How we tell our stories are all the creative choices we make, from the use of color or texture, the character design, the composition, the juxtaposition of shots in the edit, and the soundscape created. All of that is film design. This film really nailed that.

What do you like and dislike about the city?

My heart’s rhythm is the same as New York City’s. I love how there’s always something going on. I love the people. It’s just a fun and full-of-life city. It also has a high ticket price, which is not ideal. It feels worth the price, tho. I can walk all over the place. It’s great.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sarahcogan.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahcogandesigns
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdGUy4H2CqWvdkMhwqTRIww
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@sarahcogandesigns?lang=en

Image Credits

Headshot: Lauren Sowa

All others are from me directly.