From reel to real: Wendy M Benitez on recreating film costumes for performers at Dubai’s Motiongate

Come October, film characters will be greeting visitors to Motiongate at Dubai Parks and Resorts, but recreating screen costumes for regular performers goes beyond imitation. We talk to the designer who is creating about 190 looks that measure up.

For Smurf characters, costume designer Wendy M Benitez, left, says because of the UAE climate, she had to ditch furry costumes in favour of ones made of fleece. Reem Mohammed / The National

When Motiongate opens in October as part of the wider Dubai Parks and Resorts complex, the majority of the 190-odd performers and characters greeting visitors will have been inspired by movies never before featured in a theme park. This makes senior wardrobe and costume designer Wendy M Benitez's job much more interesting. She gets to design outfits from scratch to transform on-screen heroes into in-the-flesh characters – from animated ghouls such as Hotel Transylvania's Frankenstein, to Selene, the vampire from Underworld.

Considering the movie studios that are collaborating on Motiongate – Lionsgate, Sony Pictures and DreamWorks – you might think Benitez could simply produce replicas of the costumes worn in the films. But it’s not that simple, says Motiongate’s director of entertainment, Elaine Hinds. “Whereas in a film, a costume would be worn for a few hours and then someone delicately removes it, our staff will be wearing them for eight to 10 hours a day, 365 days of the year, and sometimes dancing in them, too. The designs have to be much more durable and ergonomic.”

To make this happen, Benitez gets to visit the studios to see the costumes worn by the stars, such as the coat and boots Kate Beckinsale wore as Selene in Sony's Underworld. "Surprisingly, her boots are made of two pieces, the same as they need to be for our performers", says Benitez. "In a theme-park environment, when your performers are revolving, we need to have a base boot and then a spat that goes on top, so we don't have to change the entire boot for performers with different shoe sizes."

Benitez also has to account for the weight of the clothes and props. Motiongate's Ghostbusters proton packs, for instance, are much lighter than the clunky weapons worn by Dan Aykroyd and pals in the movies. "Ours are made out of a lighter-­weight material. We may also add some lighting in them," says Benitez.

She is currently in discussions with Lionsgate about designs for The Hunger Games costumes, and she also got to see the Katniss's outfit worn by Jennifer Lawrence.

For the animations, Benitez needs to freeze-frame movies on close-up shots to get a feel for how characters should be brought to life.

“I’m a huge animation fan any­way, so a lot of these films I’d seen about three times before I came to Dubai – and I don’t have any children” says Benitez, 48, who is from Los Angeles. “I remember my idea of playing dress-up was to take yards of fabric and find ways of draping them over my patient friends. I’ve had the pleasure of being able to continue to play into my adult life.”

The studios have also opened up their art libraries, so Benitez can base her designs as closely as possible to the original characters.

"For Hotel Transylvania, we needed to take into account that Mavis is short, Dracula is tall and lanky, and Frankenstein is enormous," she says. Each costume takes six to eight months to design and get approved by the studio, then up to three months for three copies to be handmade and shipped to Dubai.

As for the Smurfs Village characters, Benitez found the existing costumes too furry for Dubai’s heat. “We had a version designed in fleece, which is custom-dyed, and there’s hidden ventilation out of the top of the head.”

Her crew of 50 for Motiongate and the adjoining Bollywood Parks will be responsible for checking the costumes and doing all the speciality cleaning. "Character costumes have an unusual cleaning process, especially animals like Gloria from Madagascar," she says. "From her head to her knees is all one piece and it's foam underneath – I can't shove that in a washing machine. We give our animals a little bath and shampoo, rinsing them off and brushing them out – just like our own little zoo."

Animated costumes are made from closed-cell foam, which lasts for about 18 months. “Then we’ll have to strip the old paint and repaint the faces,” says Benitez. “And we can’t have the performers putting on or losing too much weight.”

In addition to coming up with more than 60 costume designs, Benitez has also created 70 uniforms for general staff, such as operators of DreamWorks’ Shrek ride, which has swamp-inspired creations – “rustic fabric pants, a heavily textured green vest with giant wooden buttons, a textured shirt and a little stalking cap”.

A third of Motiongate’s 1,200 staff will be Emirati, so Benitez took local dress customs into account. “We have long-sleeved versions for the female staff, which include a themed hijab, and they can wear an abaya if they prefer.”