Archives for April 2016

Disclosure- I was invited by Disney to attend this all expense paid press trip but all opinions are 100% my own.

THE CATCH – ABC’s “The Catch” stars Elvy Yost as Sophie, Jay Hayden as Danny, Rose Rollins as Valerie, Peter Krause as Benjamin, Mireille Enos as Alice, Jackie Ido as Jules, Alimi Ballard as Reggie and Sonya Walger as Margot. (ABC/Craig Sjodin)

The Catch is one of my favorite shows this season so I was beyond excited when I was invited to Los Angeles with 24 other bloggers to tour the set and meet Costume Designer Peggy Schnitzer(@anitaoctober). If you haven’t seen The Catch you’re missing out. But don’t worry, you can CATCH it on ABC.com. It is deliciously addictive with its exciting game of cat and mouse and a perfect addition to ABC’s Thursday night TGIT lineup at 10 PM EST.

Photo Credit- Coralie Seright from Lovebugs and Postcards

Wondering what the show is about? Check it out:

Alice Vaughan (Mireille Enos) is LA’s top private investigator — and the one woman you don’t want to mess with.  But when her fiancé, Benjamin Jones (Peter Krause), cons her out of millions and disappears, Alice goes on a private mission for payback.  No matter where it leads or the secrets she must keep along the way, Alice will stop at nothing to catch her man.

Anderson/Vaughan Investigations is one of the leading private investigation and security firms in the country and was built from the ground up by Alice and her best friend and business partner, Valerie Anderson (Rose Rollins). Their elite team of private investigators includes associates Danny Yoon (Jay Hayden), whose mischievous and irreverent nature allows them to break the law when necessary to solve a case, and their newest member, Sophie Novak (Elvy Yost), who serves as their in-house counsel and brilliant hacker. While their firm continues to investigate some of the most elaborate crimes around the world, Alice is on a personal mission to beat her former fiancé at his own game. However, she is not the only one chasing Ben. FBI Agent Jules Dao (Jacky Ido) has been following his criminal activity across Europe and now is closer than ever to capturing him. Agent Dao hopes to elicit Alice’s help in taking Ben and his team down. Meanwhile, the elusive Ben has slipped back into the dangerous and sexy world of international crime. Alongside his long-time partners, mastermind Margot Bishop (Sonya Walker) and Reggie Lennox (Alimi Ballard), they stealthily move from con to con, targeting only high-end jobs with multi-million dollar payouts. With stakes this high, you can’t make one misstep; but Ben does exactly that when this world-class conman gets too close to his mark, Alice. Undeniably drawn to one another, both Alice and Ben are playing with fire, and as Alice continues to hunt him down, it quickly becomes an intoxicating game of cat and mouse.

Mireille Enos (as Alice Vaughan) and Peter Krause (as Benjamin Jones) have such great chemistry together. I know they shouldn’t be together and yet I secretly hope they end up with each other. And I just have to mention how much I LOVE Mireille’s voice. It is so velvety and seductive. I love how there are several stories going on at one time in each episode. Of course you have the ongoing story of the cat and mouse chase between Alice and Benjamin but you also have the story lines of the various cases that Alice and her team are working on. I just can’t say enough good things about this show. I’m hooked!

When we arrived in the wardrobe area of The Catch the first thing I saw was LOTS and LOTS of beautiful clothes. I am fashion challenged but I loved seeing all of the gorgeous dresses, jackets, outfits, and accessories that were in the room.The racks were arranged by character and separated by male actors and female actresses. Plus the costume design department has to outfit every extra actor as well so in a crowd scene they might have to outfit a hundred different extras. That’s a lot of clothes! I watched last Thursday night’s episode and there was a large, elegant party scene and I just kept on thinking how many dresses and suits the wardrobe department had to figure out for that scene.

Costume Designer Peggy Schnitzer showed us some of the outfits that the cast had already worn on the show and it was exciting to recognize some of the pieces, especially the elegant wedding dress that Alice tried on in the pilot episode. It is a one of a kind dress that was custom made just for the show by the show’s tailor, Carlos Zepeda. You can see Carlos with the dress pictured above and he’s going to be making a cameo appearance in the season finale so keep an eye out for him.

If only this dress was in my size! It was stunning in person and I just had to get a picture to share with my readers.

Curious about what goes behind the scenes in getting all of these characters outfitted? Here are some things we learned.

“I wanted her [Mireille ] to be sleek, she has an amazing body.  Strong but feminine.  I’m very lucky because in a lot of shows they don’t let you use a lot of black clothes.  And here they do because their business AVI is all glass and white.  So it’s great to have darker shapes and people going through so you can see them.  We can’t do like a lot of lights and beiges. We do the occasional white dress but then surround it. It depends on what everyone else is wearing.  But usually I try and do it around what Mireille and Rose are wearing, everyone else around them.  Because it’s usually focusing on them in that environment. I think for each character I just sort of look at them and the written word about the character, I follow suit.

And Margot pretty much wears very sculpted body conscious. She’s a little more playful but still professional. I’ve really tried to make it so it’s feminine but professional not too power suit-y for her.

Peter pretty much wears a uniform. Dark suits mostly white shirts, which were all made for him, you can see his little initials in there (Peggy showed us the initials) or dark shirts.  We just thought that sort of was something that you could identify with him. He pretty much is the consistency in the crazy inconsistency of everything else.  [But] when they do cons, they tend to get dressed for different situations.”~Peggy Schnitzer

When you have to pick out the wardrobe before you even have the script for that episode, how do you do that?

“We do what it’s called closets. In the very beginning when you get the character and you get the pilot or the script, you start buying a lot of clothes like in anyone’s closet.  You would get a certain amount of dresses, certain amount of skirts, jeans, things that they would wear while you’re shooting so I don’t have to fit them every week. I don’t always know what’s happening and hopefully the clothes that you buy, you’re spot on and you can use them. Then sometimes things come up [and] I don’t have a dress for that.  What are we going to do?  And then there’s things that we might never use because it just isn’t going to work.

Their daily clothes, a lot of times I like to reuse clothes. I feel like if you reuse things it’s like, oh yeah, she wore that again, which is a good thing. I think it’s realistic. She is a working woman in this with a business and she can look great and fantastic, but once in a while she’s going to have to go back to her closet and wear the same thing. [Regular people don’t] have thirty thousand jackets.”  ~Peggy Schnitzer

One thing that I found really interesting is just how much attention to detail is given to make sure that the show remains consistent in each take so the final product is seamless. They take a picture of each actor in each outfit to document exactly how they wore it- which buttons were buttoned, were the sleeves rolled, what jewelry did they wear, etc. It is also all written down in a binder so they can refer back to it. They document everything so for example if Ben’s shirt is unbuttoned the top 2 buttons, he won’t accidentally have it only unbuttoned one button in the next scene. Or if Alice walks into her office and puts her jacket on her chair, they write that down so in the next scene the jacket will still be on the chair and she doesn’t accidentally have her jacket on again.

After we checked out the wardrobe department we walked over to the set to check out Alice’s house and then her office. Again great care is taken to make sure every detail is perfect. Notice how the envelope above is addressed to Alice Vaughan.

Alice’s whole house had all sorts of props to make it look real, from sunglasses on the kitchen table to makeup on the vanity. Such a beautiful  house! I love how the backdrop makes it look like a real city in the background.

Just past the pretty patio set you could see all the production lights and other hardware they use to make the show and you realize it’s a fake balcony. I would LOVE to have Alice’s closet. We noticed that there were men’s clothes in it and asked if that was a clue that Ben would be moving back in but alas we were told that they were just using that closet for storage and it wasn’t a clue. A girl can dream, right?

And then there’s the Maria Kreyn painting that was such a big part of the first episode. So pretty! I had to take a picture with it. Can you see how the wall was open where I was standing and you could walk off the set to a back area. Everything looks so real and then you see the opening and realize it’s just a set.

The Anderson Vaughan Investigations office was bright and beautiful. Again such attention to detail. The folders all said Anderson Vaughan Investigations and Alice’s notepad had her name on it. I hope she doesn’t mind that I borrowed her desk.

We also got to meet the lovely Rose Rollins who plays Alice’s partner Valerie Anderson.

Tonight’s episode is titled “The Benfactor”. Here’s the synopsis for this episode. I can’t wait to watch!

“The  Benefactor”  —  The  AVI  team  takes  on  a  new  client,  a  female  captain  in  the  army,  who  is  being   harassed  by  her  colleagues.  Meanwhile,  Alice  makes  a  play  on  Ben  that  could  put  her  in  some  very   serious  danger,  and  both  Ben  and  Margot  are  shocked  when  an  old  friend  comes  to  town,  on  “The   Catch,”  THURSDAY,  APRIL  28  (10:00-­‐‑11:00  p.m.  EDT),  on  the  ABC  Television  Network.

Make sure to check out The Catch on ABC Thursdays at 10 PM EST and let me know what you think!