Look for the MirrorMask

With all this hoopla about Serenity, I didn’t realize that MirrorMask was being released today in select cities. (What actually clued me in was hearing an interview this morning with Cheryl Henson, sister to the producer.)

A “sort-of” sequel to the classic Labyrinth, MirrorMask is the latest Jim Henson Company fantasy movie. It was produced in London, with Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean collaborating on the story and McKean directing. These two are mainly known for their work in comics, plus they also worked together on the british TV series Neverwhere.

Gaiman’s stories are of a grand, mythological nature. His Sandman series deals with life, death, and the afterlife in literary and historical settings. (I actually used the Sandman adaptation of the Orpheus myth in a class presentation once.)

McKean’s artwork is dense and scary. He uses collage technique, with a mixture of CG rendered subjects and photographs. He and Gaiman have collaborated on many projects, Sandman and otherwise. His art for the Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum, is trememdously disturbing.

So all this pedigree suggests that MirrorMask will be amazing. The trailer hints at a story of a girl drawn into a strange world, ala Alice in Wonderland. It looks to be done in a variety of methods, with computer art and effects creating the environments. This has been done recently with Sky Captain and Sin City, and the results have worked for me. Maybe it doesn’t look exactly like real life, but I’m more interested in style than photorealism anyway.

Over in McKean’s design pages at Apple.com, he talks about the production of the film:

“We couldn’t even use the Jim Henson Company to do the computer work,” he says, “because of our tight budget.”

“So, very quickly, we decided that the only way we were going to do this was to buy our own gear. So we used the effects budget of the film to buy a year’s worth of rent on a small studio space, a whole lot of computers and salaries for 16 animators.”

Up until now, I assumed the Henson Co. was doing the animation, as they’ve branched away from doing just puppetry over the years. Instead, McKean had to do it with a smaller team. Interesting.

Hopefully, the staggered release plan will pay off. Maybe this isn’t the kind of movie that should open on a gazillion screens at once anyway. An artful, intelligent fantasy film for kids and adults needs time to find its audience.

–> Visit the MirrorMask official site
–> Trailer (Windows Media & Realplayer)
–> Trailer (Quicktime)
–> Video clips and artwork