The Etsy jewellery designer who
created The Hunger Games' famous mockingjay pin, and its stunt double,
has become as well-known as the film's characters.
Dana Schneider interpreted the pin, worn by
the film's heroine Katniss Everdeen, from the book's cover and has been
inundated with requests from fans around the world to re-create it.
Fakes of the mockingjay pin are rife
throughout the internet, but those wanting the real deal from the Etsy
designer are out of luck, because she doesn't own the rights.
Tinsel town's jewellery designer: Dana Schneider
of Canton is a small-town girl with a big-time resume; she created the
mockingjay pin for The Hunger Games
The pin isn’t Ms Schneider’s first
feature-film credit, however.
Her jewelry has appeared in
over 50 movies, including The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Tron
Legacy, The Matrix and X-Men, as well as television programmes such as
Californication.
The designer is on first name basis
with Hollywood's biggest costume designers, and lists Cher, Marilyn
Manson and Rooney Mara as clients of her personal
collections.
Splitting her
time
between Canton, Ohio, and Los Angeles, she now designs jewelry for
tinsel town, as well as for her own collections sold on Etsy, where she
calls
herself 'just a small craftsperson.'
The original: The designer created the
mockingjay pin for The Hunger Games, which has spawned hundreds of
knock-offs online
Famous pendants: These Dawn and Sun Bird
necklaces are used in the television show Californication
Ms Schneider may be a small-town
girl, but her large resume also includes Tiffany & Co, where she
started her jewellery career after attending Rhode Island School of Design.
But in 1999 she decided to leave for
Hollywood with no
connections, and just a year later she landed her first film From Hell with Johnny Depp.
The designer told The New
York Times, her success comes from the in-depth and
precise functionality of her designs - not just from making pretty
pieces.
She explained:
'There’s a lot of tinkering with scale to see how a piece will
function.
'For a movie
Jane Fonda was in, I literally had to design a
charm bracelet that would purposefully snag on a piece of clothing, but
it had to work to her character, who was a world traveler,' she said.
Pretty but tough: This bracelet was made for
actress Megan Fox in the movie Transformers 2
Powerful: Dana Scheider helped to develop the
Green Lantern ring from the blockbuster Tron
Hand carved: These skull beads Ms Scheider made
out of vintage Bakelite for the movie Tron Legacy; the bracelets are
supposed to resemble Tibetan prayer beads
She continued: 'I tried to come up
with charms like the Eiffel Tower. I had to think what would snag on a
charm bracelet.'
The
designer emphasises the fact that
when working on a movie, she has many different things to constantly
take into account.
On
making the famous mockingjay pin for The Hunger Games, Ms Schneider told
Lark
Crafts:
'Jennifer Lawrence’s main costume was canvas, so the pin had to look
delicate but be able go through several thick layers of canvas.
She continued: 'I
knew immediately that I’d also be making the pin for the stunt double.
You don’t want the stunt double to be hurt when wearing a piece of
jewelry - that’s number one. You always have to think about things like
that when making jewelry for movies.'
Center stage: Femke Janssen wore Dana
Schneider's costume jewellery designs in X Men 2 while in character as
Jean Grey
She made four
mockingjay pins, three of which were used in The Hunger Games, one she
kept for herself, something she does on all her movies.
She said: 'I always make one to keep and have
as a backup. You never know when you may need that backup.'
Although no authentic mockingjay pins will
come from Ms Schneider herself, you can still own a little bit of the
big screen through her designs she sells on Etsy.