Winners’ Press Conference interview with Tim Angel OBE, Angels Cotumes for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema
Q. Congratulations, how does it feel to hold this very special BAFTA in your hand?
TIM ANGEL: It's great. It's heavier than I thought, it's great because I think as back room people in the industry, as I say it, we never get recognised and we've got recognised and I think 175 years of the family business, doing the same thing that we did more or less 175 years ago is really remarkable because most family businesses only last three generations. So -- and we've changed, you know, from theatre, to film and after the First World War -- sorry, theatre -- yes, to film, all the theatres closed down, all the cinemas took over, people weren't sure that cinema was going to be successful but we adapted to that, it was successful, then TV came along, HD, 3D, and where we go I don't know but we've been lucky. You know, I suppose passionate about what we do.
Q. So you provide bespoke costumes to the film industry?
TIM ANGEL: We make and we hire. We've got eight and a half miles, in old money, if you hung everything from end to end it's eight and a half miles. We've got over a million costumes, we send clothes all over the world. Sometimes we don't do the principals, sometimes we
only do the crowd, sometimes we do both.
Q. That's extraordinary. Yes, please, Michael.
Q. Do you find with hits like Downton Abbey that suddenly you get this huge rental interest on Victorian and Edwardian?
TIM ANGEL: Yes, it tends to be on movies. It seems like this Lemming-like following. Not with Downton, I'm not sure there has been much 1900 or 1910 or 1920 stuff but you look at the -- you can see if it's Victorian films that are successful, it's all Victorian films and you've never got enough costumes. But it's the scripts I suppose, it's what they do.
The one thing that was no good for us is CGI actually. I hate CGI. We used to do 2,000 costumes, now they can take 300 and make it look like 2,000. But anyway.
Q. Is the tide beginning to turn with that though with people like JJ Abrams --
TIM ANGEL: No, not really. Most films now will computer generate and even though we put in our contracts that they can't, what can we do?
You can't do anything about it.
Q. When did you first know about this award?
TIM ANGEL: I think about November, December.
Q. Okay. So you've had a long time to work on your speech I imagine?
TIM ANGEL: I didn't do anything about my speech until last week and when I got here tonight they told me it was too long so I sat down and had to cut out a couple of minutes and then I got held up in traffic going back -- but it was terrible. But it was great.
Q. But the experience of coming to an award ceremony and knowing you've won --
TIM ANGEL: I think, I've been talking to a couple of the costume designers today that were nominated and they've won Oscars in costume design and one of them said to me it is great because you know you are getting it so you don't have to worry, but you've won so many and she said, I always get this feeling in the pit of my stomach so, yes, it was great knowing we've got it, it's for everybody and everything.
Q. Can I just ask, what's the next big craze? You said we all go like Lemmings, what's the next big craze, what are people --
TIM ANGEL: Unfortunately, a lot of the films we're doing now, we have to, for some crazy reason, we have to sign nondisclosure agreements which has only just started happening on the film, so I can't -- I don't think I can say.
Q. If you could work on a film --
TIM ANGEL: I think period, 20s and 30s seems to be fairly big. We're doing some big movies at the moment.
Q. If you don't work on a film, do you still stock costumes, I'm thinking Suicide Squad?
TIM ANGEL: Sorry.
Q. If you don't work on the film, do you still get the costumes in so people can hire them?
TIM ANGEL: If we don't work on it?
Q. If you don't work on it but people go into your shop to dress up then --
TIM ANGEL: That's a different side of the business. Fancy dress, we've got a fancy dress shop but that's a different part of the business. But yes and no, some of the clothes they can hire from the film stock for fancy dress.
Q. I was just wondering, what was your favourite outfit? What do you grab for family meetings and stuff?
TIM ANGEL: I don't dress up. Do you write for pleasure? At weekends do you sit there writing?
Q. (inaudible)?
TIM ANGEL: What we've done is we've bought up Bermans and Nathan's and what I said in my speech is we've bought up all these costume houses, I said where angels feared to tread was our phrase. We've kept that. It's not just a business thing, we've got that heritage, all that heritage going back and I don't know what I'd dress up in, I probably wouldn't. My dinner suit.
Q. Indeed. Congratulations once again. Please give it up. Thank you so much.
