What's it like on the set of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? #AvengersEvent

While in Los Angeles for Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron press junket, I was whisked away to a very secret location....the set where Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is filmed! You probably want to know where it is, right? Well, I will give you one tiny hint: it's in California.

Yeah, that's all you're getting out of me! What? I told you it was a secret!

You've probably already read my post about our interview with Brett Dalton, Elizabeth Henstridge, Iain de Caestecker and Henry Simmons, but if you haven't, you can catch up on that here.

All photos in this post were taken by ABC/Adam Taylor.

Right after we met with some of the cast of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., we were treated to a tour of the set, starting with my favorite part of the visit...we got to go into the Quinjet!! Yes, I am talking about THE QUINJET, the one from the Avengers movies and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television show!

It looks like the photo with me didn't make it past the editing room, but I promise that I was really there!

We also checked out some of the sets where scenes are filmed, like Coulson's office - check back later this week when I share my interview with Clark Gregg and Ming-Na Wen - and the lounge area where we usually see the agents all hanging out in their downtime.

I even got to pose for this fun photo opp!!

While on the set of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., we were able to visit the wardrobe department and get a little peek at the inspiration behind the wardrobe of the cast, look at their actual clothing and even talk to the costume designer, Ann Foley about her inspiration for the cast's wardrobe, how much work it is to create the looks and hand-made clothing and how must she loves her job!

We asked Ann Foley the very basic to begin, Can you explain what a closet is?

Ann: The working closet is where I pull clothes for each episode.  So what we do is, I have a little closet that I use for all my fittings, for each, each and every episode.  And in my vision board over there, these are ideas that I had at the beginning of last season that I used to show the producers and even the cast of where we were going with each one of them, so that we could create six really strong identifiable characters.  

We asked: How awesome is it to have a job where you do a vision board as part of your job?

Ann: It was really fun, and a lot of this stuff was inspiration for season one.  I have a few things up there for season two, and as most of you guys know, there was a big progression in the cast from season one, towards the end and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., we went a little darker and, you know, everybody grew up.  So season two, it was a little darker.  It was a little edgier.  You know, it was kind of a nice change.

We asked: What kind of background do you have in a typical episode?

Ann: It depends.  We could be shooting somewhere, you know, in Europe.  Last year we had a really fabulous - probably one of my favorite episodes - was when we were in Russia and we did a little Russian bar.  That was amazing.  And so that's what we do.  

We asked: Do you have measurements for everyone that comes in?  Do you know the sizes?

Ann: For specific background, yeah, we get their sizes and then we pull clothes specifically to them. Any day players that come in, I get their sizes, everybody comes in for a fitting.  Every single person on the show pretty much, whether they have one line or they have a big arc, they come in and I dress them all.

Ann then led us back into her workshop, where we got to see all of the mannequins that they use to put costumes together, as well as all of the cast's clothing on racks. There were even sewing machines back here and Ming-Na's famous silver sequin dress? Ann and her team made that!! They actually made five of them, because she needed different variations for different scenes.

Fun facts about the wardrobe department on the set of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

All of the bras I saw in the costume department were none other than VS! How about that?! I love that the cast is wearing the same brands that us regular folks wear!

Ann Foley's favorite costume is Mockingbird's!

Agent Skye's hooded costume is custom made by the wardrobe department!

30% of the wardrobe on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are custom made by the wardrobe department!

* * * SPOILER ALERT!!! - ABC Press release  * * * 

WAR TEARS SKYE APART, ON “MARVEL’S AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.” ON ABC