The sublime costumes of the new fairytale adventure ‘Mirror Mirror’, ranging from the Queen’s outrageous golden and blood red gowns to Snow White’s pastel court gowns and her spare and sculptural battle gear, were created by the late Eiko Ishioka in what was to be her last film. The Oscar-winning costume designer worked with director Tarsem Singh on four films before her death in January of 2012.

“She was born outside the box,” says Singh of Ishioka. “Every director is always trying to get people to think differently. You never had to tell her that. Everything about her was unconventional, even her research and how she did it—and how much of it she did. She had two speeds: full speed and stop. When you have a person like that, you just never let them go. “

Ishioka, who earned an Oscar for the spectacular costumes in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, was also a respected visual artist whose work is the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. “She was an incredible artist,” says Singh. “She didn’t just design pieces of clothing, she created works of art.”

Her elaborate and imaginative designs combine pageantry and personality, drawing on influences from the 16th to 19th centuries to create something entirely new. “Eiko was all about spectacle,” says Goldmann. “But, like Tom Foden and Brendan Galvin, everything she did was also about building character. She was a genius at the visual, but she was also an amazing help in building Snow White’s and the Prince’s characters. The actors had an arc not only emotionally, but also physically.”

Impressively, her sensational designs were not limited to the gowns and suits worn by the film’s stars. Ishioka also designed the over 300 costumes that are worn by the film’s extras. Almost all were handmade. Hammer says that all that effort is part of what makes the film so special. “The costumes really set the tone for the entire movie. Eiko did a wonderful job creating something that seems so operatic and over the top, yet at the same time completely believable.”

Executive producer Kevin Misher says the collaboration between Singh and Ishioka went beyond the aesthetic to the spiritual. “The work they did together speaks to that connection,” he says. “I think her work on this film is a testament to her artistry in general and to their relationship in particular. It is a lovely gift she leaves for us to remember how special she was.”

Makeup and hairstyles designed for the film by hair and make-up artist Felicity Bowring add to the hyperbolic opulence of the costumes. “Everything stems from Eiko’s designs,” says Bowring. “It was delicious to work with her vibrant colors. Imagine people wearing vivid red, yellow, orange, green, hot pink and silver all in the same scene.

For a costume ball, we created about ten face-painted animal masks for the guests instead of having the usual masks that go onto people’s faces. And the hair had to go with the proportions of the costumes. When a dress has a bustle that sits three feet out from the body, a wig has to offset that and be tall enough so that it too looks extraordinary.”

Image Courtesy of Mirror Mirror

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Those familiar with the age-old fairytale will not be surprised to learn that ‘Mirror Mirror’s spectacular climax is a royal ball to celebrate the marriage of Snow White and her Prince. Director Tarsem Singh wanted to heighten the festive atmosphere with a dazzling musical number done in classic Bollywood style.

He selected Nina Hart’s late ’60s pop song “Love.” “I had the song in mind from the beginning, but they kept telling me I wouldn’t be able to get the rights,” says the director. “Finally, right before we started shooting, it worked out. When I heard that Lily could sing, I had her record a version of the song for us. She was fantastic. We knew we had to incorporate her vocals into a big dance sequence.”

Choreographer Paul Becker came in during preproduction to design the number, which involves the entire cast as well as over 200 extras. “It starts almost without warning,” he says. “Lily suddenly breaks into song and dance and everyone else seems to be wondering what she is up to. But then slowly the Dwarfs join in and then everyone starts to dance. It’s just a big party.”

Becker designed the dance to resemble one of Hollywood’s unforgettable Busby Berkeley production numbers, with overhead shots capturing the swirling patterns of dancers below. According to Lily Collins, “It was a great time. It felt like a huge music video with hundreds of people dancing around me. We really let loose. I never in a million years thought I would be able to do a number like that. It was just amazing.”

The film’s music, which ranges fom haunting to exhilarating to poignant, was written by eight-time Academy Award winner Alan Menken, composer of a host of unforgettable scores for movies including four classic Disney animated treasures: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas.

The subject matter of the film has something in common with those earlier projects, but the treatment is very different, according to the composer. “What’s unique about this movie is the visual beauty and sophistication of Tarsem’s directing, combined with the innocence of an oft-told tale,” says Menken. “It’s a new kind of fairytale—elegant and edgy and fun.”

Singh gave Menken two directives before setting him to work. “He told me to make the score my own,” says Menken. “And he trusted me to own the process. That kind of artistic freedom made it a lot of fun for me.”

The director also asked him to develop a “thematic” score, one in which the music would reflect and enhance the characters and the story. “That’s unusual these days,” Menken says. “He wanted big, broad themes and that’s right in my wheelhouse.”

For the innocent and gallant Snow White, the composer created purely emotional music, heartrending as Snow gets her first glimpse of the financially ruined townspeople or soaring as she fell in love with the Prince at first sight. “We didn’t walk any fine lines,” he says. “We went right for the primary colors in those themes.

“And I threaded the themes throughout,” he goes on. “The dwarfs are like the Marx Brothers at times, so their thematic material emphasizes the comedic. When we first meet the Queen in the court, we’re playing a very formal, Mozartian theme. The Prince himself is introduced with classic hunting horns that signify nobility.”

The net effect of Singh’s brilliant leaps of imagination is to transport both the film’s stars and the audience into a sparkling world of fantasy. As Collins says, “Everyone loves a good fairy tale. They create a space where you can laugh, where you can be scared, and where you can simply be amazed. Ours is a multi-generational story and that’s what a fairy tale is supposed to be, something that everyone can enjoy.”

Julia Roberts agrees, adding, “I think the audience is going to get lost in this film. I would love for them to just sit back and be transported somewhere else for two hours.”

Singh’s greatest hope is that the audience will be the ones to reap the rewards of the cast and crew’s meticulous efforts. “My primary goal with this film is to create a family movie that people will have a lot of fun seeing,” he says. “It’s been a great honor getting to creatively reinterpret this classic story, which has meant so much to so many generations. I really hope the audience enjoys what we’ve created.”

Image Courtesy of Mirror Mirror

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Against the backdrop of this meticulously imagined world, a gleefully physical adventure unfolds as a sheltered princess of ‘Mirror Mirror’ learns to adapt to life outside the palace walls. From her woodland hosts, Snow White begins to learn to stand up for herself in stirring action sequences. As always, director Tarsem Singh was concerned with authenticity. “I wanted actual physical fighting with real weapons and real aggression,” says Singh. “But more than anything, I wanted the actors to actually take part in the adventurous parts of this film.”

The film’s stars underwent months of intensive training for grueling action scenes involving swordplay, acrobatics, high-speed horseback riding and more. “It was five days a week, almost six hours a day of sword fighting,” says Armie Hammer. “And I had the blisters and the calluses to prove it.

I learned how to do a back flip with a sword in my hand, and a front flip with a sword in my hand, and a side flip and a vortex flip—all things that I never knew how to do before. I was always excited to see what we were going to be doing next. My favorite thing was riding the horses right on the soundstage at a full gallop.”

Lily Collins adds, “There was a lot of fight training in this film. We did sword fighting and fencing and wrestling and acrobatics and then physical training. We worked out in the gym, we ran, we lifted weights. It was really intense.”

Fight coordinator Jean Frenette taught the actors the basics of combat, step by arduous step. “There’s a progression to it,” he says. “It’s like boot camp in the beginning. The process of repetition helps the actors build up their confidence and skill level over time. We want them to treat it seriously but we don’t want them to over-train and burn out. It’s a lot like preparing an athlete for a competition.”

Stunt coordinator Marc Desourdy adds, “Lily and Armie were fantastic. They’re so coordinated and so talented. They learn very quickly. Lily was very keen on doing all of her own stunts. We put her to work doing flips and acrobatics. And we did the same with Armie. When you see them close-up, sword fighting, it’s all them.”

In the end, the work paid off in action sequences that appear effortless, says Goldmann. “Watching them on film, it’s easy to forget all the work that went into it. Lily and Armie rehearsed and trained, and rehearsed and trained. They put in the time so that when we shot these sequences, they came out perfectly.”

One of Singh’s cunning innovations resulted in a series of action scenes that require complex preparation and physical daring. Since the Dwarfs had been thrown out of the village because of their size, he thought, they might likely become fixated on their height. Trying to compensate for their stature, Mirror Mirror’s little men commit their robberies on stilts. Desourdy tracked down a group of daredevil stilt walkers in Toulouse, France, to train the actors to fight on stilts.

“They were amazing,” he says. “They taught our guys to walk, run and jump with stilts. The stunts that are performed on the stilts are absolutely sensational and unlike anything you’ve seen before. The audience is in for a treat.”

Image Courtesy of Mirror Mirror

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It will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen director Tarsem Singh’s earlier work that ‘Mirror Mirror’ is an extraordinary visual feast. Built on massive sound stages in Montreal, the settings include a haunting snowbound forest, a rustic and richly detailed cabin inside a hollow tree, a gloriously over-the top Great Hall for the Queen’s elaborate and expensive fetes and a seemingly infinite palace bedroom in which to hatch her nefarious schemes.

Complementing the fantastical locations are the film’s sumptuous costumes, hair and makeup, which leapfrog from century to century, incorporating both authentic historical detail and complete fantasy.

As executive producer Kevin Misher says, “Tarsem brings a blend of poetry, magic and visual flare to every film he works on. He incorporates a vast spectrum of influences from Eastern architecture to Western culture and everything in between.”

Production design was at the core of the film from the very beginning of the creative process, according to Singh. “When conceptualizing ‘Mirror Mirror’, I remembered a Russian film I’d seen called Ivan’s Childhood. There’s a romantic scene in that movie that takes place in a silver birch forest. I immediately thought that if I could have a similar set designed it could define the tone of this film.”

Singh explains his passion for visual detail this way, “Physically constructing an alternate reality is a beautiful experience. I want to create the world that the characters live in, so that the actors have a better understanding of how they should be portrayed. It was a real joy creating the world that these characters live in.”

Production designer Tom Foden, cinematographer Brendan Galvin and costume designer Eiko Ishioka have all collaborated with Singh on three earlier films. This longstanding artistic partnership was a keystone in the success of the production design, says producer Bernie Goldmann. “Tom and Tarsem have developed a way of working together to really define the look of the movie. Tom provided us with a great foundation for both the magic and the emotion we envisioned. He’s an incredible designer who helped us build characters with his work.

“Watching the sets take shape over time blew me away,” he continues. “I was always aware that I might never see a set like that again. It was really old fashioned moviemaking and it felt like we were making a Warner Bros.’ movie from the ’30s or ’40s. The level of detail and craftsmanship was unbelievable. It’s over-the-top opulent.”

Rather than depend on special effects to create the vast universe of ‘Mirror Mirror’, the filmmakers opted for practical sets whenever possible. “We certainly use green screen and wonderful visual effects in the film,” says Singh. “However, I also wanted to make the actors’ surroundings as visceral and real as possible.

That’s why the sets had to be oversized.” The production design was unlike any Julia Roberts had seen before. “The sets are sensational,” she marvels. “The Magical Cottage, where the Queen meets with her alter ego, is beautiful and the Great Hall, where we did a lot of the party scenes, is mind-blowing. When you see the space filled up with all these people dressed in wild outfits, it’s really something. They don’t make many movies like this anymore.”

Hammer, too, says the sets were bigger and bolder than he could ever have imagined. “The Queen’s bedroom was bigger than most amphitheaters,” he says. “The whole atmosphere is so grand that you are able to suspend your disbelief. The scale is so enormous that it’s almost difficult to comprehend. People are going to walk into this film and see something truly unique.”

Image Courtesy of Mirror Mirror

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