Mirror Mask by Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean (Henson Pictures)

[Psychocandy]

Was surprised to discover that no-one had started a thread about this forthcoming fantasy movie. The following story is courtesy of Comic Book Resources and is a report from the San Diego Comic Con. Being a huge fan of both The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and having loved everything Neil Gaiman has ever produced i'm very excited about this movie.




Last Friday at Comic-Con International, Henson Pictures presented fans with an early look at the new fantasy film "MirrorMask." Comic greats Dave McKean, who is directing the movie and Neil Gaiman who co-wrote the script were on hand. Producer and Henson chief Lisa Henson, executive producer Michael Polis and story editor Kevin Kelly also participated.
CBR Exclusive Image: MirrorMask Poster Art


Polis and McKean told fans that they had their first conversation about the movie at Comic-Con 2001.

"That was a great first meeting," Polis said. "It started things off putting together this project which wrapped on Friday."

After getting the ball rolling, Henson consulted with Gaiman, who she was acquainted with from other projects.

"For me the whole thing started with a phone call from Lisa. She said that TriStar had noticed that, 'The Dark Crystal' and 'Labyrinth,' far from being the financial failures that they were commonly perceived to be, actually had become these rock-solid perennial sellers that people bought on video and bought on DVD," Gaiman recalled.

"She said it was sort of good news and bad news. They've noticed this, which is really good, and they like the idea of making something else like that with Henson. The bad news was they were offering $4 million to make it with."

"I think ['Labyrinth' and 'Dark Crystal'] both cost more than $4 million, twenty years ago," Henson said, putting it in perspective. "That would maybe be a $80 million dollar movie today, so now could we do it for one twentieth of the budget?"

"So...it's five minutes long," Gaiman offered.
CBR Exclusive Image: Stephanie Leonidas as "Princess" Helena


Henson had seen McKean's short movie "N[eon]" and talked to Gaiman about it. "It's a very wonderful short film that Dave made, for nothing, in his mom's barn and on her pond," Gaiman told fans. "It looks absolutely amazing and she said, 'Do you think we could get Dave McKean to direct the film, for no money, if we promise him that, basically, it's being made on so little money that you can actually do something really cool and creative.'

"Then Lisa said, 'Obviously we couldn't afford you to write it, but maybe you could come up with a story and we'd go and find a writer.'

"And I said that if Dave was going to direct it then I was going to be writing it and we weren't going to talk about that bit any more."

Gaiman said he was perfectly happy with the arrangement of "complete creative freedom" paired with "complete lack of budget."

"I can say that smiling, because I haven't just had to make a $100 million movie for $4 million, but Dave was about three foot taller than he is now, and had hair," Gaiman added.

From there Gaiman and McKean were off to begin writing the script.

"In February, eighteen months ago, when it was really, really nasty and wet and cold in England, I went to England to write the film with Dave," Gaiman said.

Henson put the men up at the Henson family home. "It was in the spirit of saving money right from the beginning," she joked. "No hotel rooms!"

In spite of having collaborated on various projects since 1986, the two found that they were not prepared to be holed up together, working closely on writing.
Dave McKean fidgets with his Mac


"We glowered a lot," Gaiman revealed. Where McKean preferred laying things out visually with paper and charts, Gaiman was eager to get into the writing.

After four days of tug-of-war the pair had one piece of paper with notes and charts written on it. At that point filmmaker Terry Gilliam stopped in for a visit.

"He took one look at our piece of paper and said, 'Oh, that looks like a movie,'" Gaiman told the crowd. "That gave us more confidence, that Terry Gilliam thought our piece of paper looked like a movie."

In spite of the playful bickering by the pair, Gaiman said that working directly with McKean was invaluable, especially in keeping the story on budget. When Gaiman would write scenes that seemed inexpensive, like one in a classroom full of school children, McKean would point out the expense prepping a location or building a set and hiring all the children to act in the scene.
Neil Gaiman


Conversely, Gaiman might describe a scene which seemed ridiculously huge, like crumpling an entire city like a piece of paper, and McKean would deem it inexpensive as it would be completely done as a CGI effect.

A first draft soon followed. Some notes (which Gaiman called "sensible") led to a second draft. Gaiman told the crowed that the development went as smoothly as promised.

Behind-the-scenes footage of the film was shown to the crowd. Unlike many movies, which are filmed on fully decorated sets and locations, "MirrorMask" was, for the most part, shot on a blue-screen set. The director would add sets and supporting effects digitally later. The only exception was two weeks worth of location shooting.

McKean also projected costume, set and creature designs from his laptop computer onto the big screen in the convention room.

"There's a girl called Helena. Helena is played by a wonderful actress named Stephanie Leonidas," Gaiman said, beginning his description of the movie. "She's fifteen going on sixteen. She's part of a circus family, the Campbell family circus. She sells popcorn and she really does not want to be in the circus. She doesn't really want to be part of the family circus. She would more like to run away and join real life.

Helena's mother (one of three parts played by Gina McKee of "Notting Hill") takes ill and the circus is shut down. Helena's guilt over the situation and stress begin to mount.

"That night, Helena has a dream," Gaiman continued, "or something that may quite be a dream, in which she gets to try and sort everything out for herself in her own way."
Lisa Henson


She ends up in a strange land, divide into the light kingdom and the dark kingdom. The light queen has fallen asleep and can't be woken and her kingdom is falling into disrepair. Helena embarks on a mission, aided by the unreliable jester named Valentine (played by Jason Barry). They venture to the dark kingdom and find the Mirror Mask, which will awaken the white queen.

Along the way they encounter a number of Dave McKean creations, like a griffin, monkey-birds (which look like tiny silverback gorillas with sandpiper heads), a pair of magnetic giants, and a pride of small, man-eating sphinxes, which live with a strange lady named Mrs. Bagwell.

"She seems to be a cat lady," Gaiman said. "She took in a couple, except in her case they're little sphinxes, with incredibly sharp teeth and humans faces...and they destroy things. As Mrs. Bagwell explains, 'Mr. Bagwell didn't like them very much, but they loved him and after he disappeared mysteriously they wouldn't eat anything for a week.'"
Gina McKee as the Dark Queen


In addition to Helena's mother, McKee plays both the white queen and the dark queen. Similarly Leonidas plays a dual role as Helena and the Anti-Helena, who may be the key to the mystery of the film. Rob Brydon ("Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels") appears as both Helena's father and the prime minister of the white city.

If McKean can craft a motion picture that looks as cool as the designs shown to the Comic-Con crowed, "MirrorMask" will be a revolution in filmmaking: turning in a gorgeous, imaginative fantasy film for a ridiculously modest budget.

"MirrorMask" is due out next summer. Initial plans call for it to be direct to video, but post Comic-Con buzz indicates there's a strong chance for a theatrical release.

[Nachokoolaid]

Sounds fun and sort of dark and twisted like Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. I'd watch it, if the word of mouth is good, etc.

[XCoRyX]

hmm wasnt already a thread about this,i could have sworn i replied by saying this sounds awesome.

[spacemonkey]

Hey Im wondering why there hasnt been a lot of buzz around this project it sounds positively fanstastic!

I love the fact that they did it, simply on the strength that both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal had in sales! The only thing that doesnt really make me happy is the super low budget that they have, I mean 4 million? Thats nothing! But supposedly they are doing some great stuff with computer animated sets and backgrounds so I hope they dont mess this up with bad CGI.

Anything remotely in the same ballpark as those two great films gets my attention, and specially with the talent involved! Gaiman is a genious writer! I love his work and his style is perfect for this sort of project.

Heres some more inside info that was given after the comic con:

MirrorMask came about, said Gaiman, due to the realisation on the part of Hensons that both Labyrinth and Dark Crystal sold well year after year. Gaiman and McKean were approached with a proposition they couldn't turn down - total artistic freedom to make a film together under the auspices of Hensons. The caveat? Only $4 million to make it, nowhere near the tens of millions it cost to make the prior two films.

Gaiman and McKean insist that this is not a problem. The freedom is worth it, they say, and from listening to them speak it sounded like they really enjoyed the creative aspect of finding new and cheaper ways to do things. Gaiman said that at one point during the scriptwriting process, he wanted to set a scene in a school but McKean told him that it was far too expensive. A city crumpling up like a piece of paper, he could do just fine - but a schoolroom wouldn't work at all! The expenses of location shooting led to only two weeks spent outside the studio's blue screen.

As filming just wrapped last week, we didn't get much in the way of footage - and nothing with any effects added in - but we were treated to five minutes of behind-the-scenes video from some of the blue screen shoots, which featured quite a bit of midair wirework. In addition to this, we were also shown still images of most of the characters and a few locations, looking (obviously) very similar to Dave McKean's other work in print and film. From the designs we were shown, I can safely predict that MirrorMask will be absolutely mindblowing.

The effects will all be done by McKean and a small company that he will be forming expressly for that purpose, which will both allow for direct control on his part and low expenditures. (In fact, they're currently looking to hire animators, computer artists, and 3D modellers - send resume details to mirrormask@henson.com if interested) They're planning on being finished with it all around the April timeframe, but there's no real word yet as to when in 2004 the film will be released to the general public. Supposedly it's slated to be direct-to-video, but rumor has it that a theatrical release is still a possibility.

[Dead Halloween]

Anyone seen this movie? I think it came out in september.

[chinton]

Ill support anything Gaiman does

[Lazy Boy]

It played for a week or two at the Nuart in L.A., but was gone in a heartbeat before I had the chance to see it.

[adamjohnson]

Labyrinth is quite possibly my favorite movie.

[KcMsterpce]

I thought it was alright. I give it a 7/10, but I'm a Gaiman and McKean fan.

If you aren't familiar with McKean's work, then it might me harder to enjoy than I did.

Here's my review:

Summary:
Helena is a young girl in a travelling circus show who wants to run away and join the real world. Her mother becomes badly ill, and Helena finds herself in a dreamlike fantasyland that may or may NOT be real, searching for an important item to bring light back into the darkness that is engulfing this world.

Review:
I liked Mirrormask even though it is very flawed, and there isn't much originality to the story itself. Neil Gaiman is a fantastic writer, and if you don't believe me, read the first three books of the Sandman series and see if you're not hooked. Not only is he a great writer, the guy knows his religion and mythology, and is able to incorporate this knowledge into his series in ways that are smart, original and amazingly rich in detail. He managed to put enough twists and clever dialogue to keep Mirrormask interesting.
The director - and total vision of nearly every frame - of this movie is Dave McKean. If you've read the formerly mentioned Sandman series, you'll recognize his artistic style right away from the covers. He's got a unique vision. It's all very collage-like, with faces usually being cut into strange rectangular shapes, a sheen of grit or visual obscurity covering the page and unusual objects that seem to be randomly placed in strange positions. Well, this movie has that all over the place. I guarantee you there will be some visual displays that you have never seen before, nor will you ever see again. Helena's dreamworld is hard to focus due to the digital backlot and overall gritty artistic eye of McKean, but if you're a fan of his stuff, there's no way you would NOT be delighted by the look of the movie. This is your world, folks!

Like I said before, the story doesn't have much to offer. It may or may NOT be a dream (Wizard of Oz, Total Recall), the premise of questing for an artifact to draw away The Nothing (as in Neverending Story), a young girl thrust into a world with unusual characters and an evil King/Queen (Labrynth) all echoe influences of better movies of the past (except for Oz being better, that one... notsomuch), but you can't argue this concept of unoriginality too much since there are still some spins on the same concept, and McKean's LOOK is all his own. H.R. Giger brought us the alien and his macabre sexual perversions mixed with oil, grease and bones. McKean isn't as crude as Giger, but his unique style hasn't been more evident than with MirrorMask.
I also thought that some of the dialogue was pretty good, especially the riddle with the human faced dog-like gryphon ("That was just to throw you off!"), and some snippets here and there all throughout. Moreover, Stephanie Leonidas was a good choice to play the lead Helena. She's not gorgeous, but she has a beauty hidden beneath the surface. To top it off, she's a pretty good actress. I hope she has more juicy movie offers ahead of her, I think she'd be someone to look out for in the near future. She looked pretty hot in her Gothed Out state, though, with the black eyes and wild hair. Yum. Hehe.

I say that if you're already a fan of Dave McKean, there's no question that you should see MirrorMask. If you like fantasy stories much like Labrynth, The Neverending Story, and other movies of its' ilk, there's a good chance you'll dig this one as well. Otherwise, to a lot of other people this movie might be a little too different and not quite imaginative enough in the story department to hold your attention.


GRADE: B

[Nachokoolaid]

Any word on a DVD or anything?