Mirage

A battle with grief

2021 / 14:59 min

A hunter, tormented with the approaching death of his wife, is confronted with grief.

Best Short Film Nox Film Fest 2022, Salto, Uruguay | Best Short Film Punto Final Festival 2021, Quinto, Spain | Best Short Film Donosskino Short Film Festival 2021, Donostia, San Sebastian, Spain | Best Short Fiction Film Go Short Film Festival 2021, Arnhem, Netherlands | Best International Short Fiction Film Alicante International Film Festival 2021, Alicante, Spain | Best International Short Film Or Documentary Festiver 2022, Barichara, Colombia | Best Narrative Short Film Ecozine International Film Festival 2022, Zaragoza, Spain | Best Acting to Bosco Hogan, Festival De Cinema Fantastik 2021, Granollers, Spain | Best Directing, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, 2nd Award Best Short Film FICCAB 2021, Benalmadena, Spain | Best Editing Dieciminuti Film Festival 2022, Ceccano, Italy | Best Soundtrack Vitaly Zavadsky, Dieciminuti Film Festival 2022, Ceccano, Italy | Best Cinematography to Lennert Hillege Visioni Corte International Short Film Festival 2021, Minturno, Italy | Best International Debut Short Film Fecicam Festival 2021, Ciudad Real, Spain | Best Acting to Bosco Hogan, Riurau Film Festival 2021, Javea, Spain | Jury Award Best Short, Thriller, Horror or Sci-Fi Cinequest Film Festival 2022, San Jose, USA | 2nd Award Best Short Film XII Sole Tura Award Brain Film Fest 2022, Barcelona, Spain | 3rd Award Best Short Film Festival International Cinema Arganda 2021, Arganda, Spain

About The Project

With this film I wanted to explore the abstract inner landscape of emotions of a person who battles with grief.

The story frames the emotional turmoil of Mendel, a man who struggles with the approaching death of his wife. It captures a physical confrontation between him and the embodiment of his emotions - his Mirage.

Mendel's Mirage mirrors his emotions and confronts him with it. Mendel can no longer ignore them.

In the conflict that follows Mendel and his Mirage gradually transform in synchronisation.

The emotions that Mendel experiences during this process, and that give shape to his Mirage, follow the 7 stages of grief: denial, pain & guilt, protest & anger, despair & depression, reflection and the turnaround. In the end, Mendel gives in to his grief and finds acceptance. When he returns to his wife Eva, he choses to spend their last moments together close by her side.

The story of Mirage was inspired by a person I grew up with, of whom I always wondered how he would process his seemingly invisible emotions. The story was also inspired by being a close witness to a person suffering from the final stages of cancer and the tremendous weight that this puts on everything in their environment.

Poster

Photography Lennert Hillege | Visual Effects Tim Smit

Trailer

Edit Colina van Bemmel | Music Vitaliy Zavadskyy

Production

The production process of Mirage took several years and faced many challenges.

The initial concept of the film was conceived end of 2012. The film got green-lit by the Dutch Film Fund end of 2014. We had talks with several international co-producers in Slovenia and Greece, but ultimately took the full production into our own hands and moved it to Scotland.

Rutger Hauer, with whom I worked before, would initially play the part of Mendel. The production was all set and ready to go for April 2016, with flights, crew, and locations booked. But then thunder struck.

Just days before the planned shoot, Rutger called me in a panic, telling me that there had been a break in and that - amongst other things - his passport with US Green Card had been stolen. He wasn't able to leave the US, and the shoot had to be postponed.

While looking for alternative shoot dates, Rutger's knee started to act up and got from bad to really bad. It was hard for him to walk, let alone to run on the uneven terrain of the Scottish forests. We had to recast his part.

We found the amazing Bosco Hogan, with whom I immediately clicked and who instantly understood the part. At last we could film, in November 2017.

But because of the setbacks, the production lost a good amount of money, and we had to make the same film with a lot less budget.

With a half Dutch, half Scottish crew we filmed for 6 days in the gorgeous nature around GlenCoe, in the NorthWest of Scotland.

On the first day, we filmed the opening and end scenes in the house. Bosco and the wonderful Catriona MacColl had an amazing chemistry that resonated throughout the shoot.

Except for some issues with the drone, the shoot went fairly smooth. Scotland is known for constant drizzles, and any visible rain or drizzle would pose a problem for the visual effects. Fortunately, we got lucky with the weather.

Concept Art

Concept Art Noud van Miltenburg, Anthony Sixto

The concept for Mirage was born while working with students from AKV St. Joost in Breda, the Netherlands during an Excellence Program.

The concept art is made by one of the students and concept artist Anthony Sixto from California.

In the concept art stage we explored the various stages of the Mirage, and how it could mirror the emotional state of Mendel.

The starting point was that when Mendel was calm, the Mirage would be calm, and when Mendel became violent, the Mirage became violent. And when Mendel breaks down and gives in to his grief, the Mirage also breaks apart and no longer forms a threat.

Visual Effects

Visual effects & Breakdown Tim Smit

The post production of Mirage was a long and exhausting process.

The visual effects were very ambitious from the start out, from a technical and an artistic perspective, but also due to the sheer volume of shots. When production lost money it became near impossible to finish the film.

The fact that it got done, and that it turned out so well is all credit to the incredible Tim Smit, who devoted endless amounts of time to the project, and who kept pushing himself and the aesthetic of the film.

All the setups below are made by Tim.

The biggest challenge was the battle between Mendel and the Mirage. especially when the simulations had to move around and naturally interact with Bosco.

Tim created several curves or shapes that would emit particles, and then a number of animated force fields that would push the particles around. Sometimes they had to whirl, other times roll in on themselves, rise up from heat, or push each other way. It was an endless process of tweaking the parameters to find the right balance for each shot.

It took days to simulate and render each of these shot.

For the scene where Mendel is trapped inside a cocoon-like whirl, we decided to film metallic liquid in a tank and use that as a texture on the surface of the cocoon. This gave especially organic and natural results.

For the waterfall scene, we constructed a pile of stones on location, that we topped with some digital stones. We used a blue head puppet that was replaced with a digital stone head. Tim projected the face of the Mendel's wife on the stones to bring it to life.