Reference 06
Dave McKean's films and theatre: MirrorMask, The Gospel of Us, Luna
The film work arrived late and fully formed: three features in nine years, each one designed to the last frame by the director himself, plus theatre that refuses to stay indoors.
MirrorMask, 2005: Dave McKean's Henson experiment
MirrorMask exists because the Jim Henson Company wanted a successor to Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal on a fraction of their budgets, and gambled that a designer-director could conjure the difference digitally. McKean built the dream-city in Maya and After Effects with a tiny team, Neil Gaiman wrote the script to the images, and the film premiered at Sundance in 2005. Reviews split on the story and united on the look; two decades on, its frames still turn up wherever concept artists trade references.
The Gospel of Us, 2012: filming a town's passion play
The second feature could not be more different. Over Easter 2011, Michael Sheen led the Passion of Port Talbot, seventy-two hours of street theatre performed across his Welsh home town with a cast of a thousand locals. McKean directed the film of it, The Gospel of Us, released in 2012, and it won two BAFTA Cymru awards. The collage habit survived the documentary setting: the film cuts between staged scenes, crowd footage and dream inserts as if they were layers of one image.
Luna, 2014: the personal one
Luna is the film McKean had circled for years: two couples in a coastal house, a lost child, grief negotiated through animated dream sequences that pour straight out of the sketchbooks. Made independently and shot largely in Kent, it took the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards in 2014. It divides audiences exactly the way Cages divides comic readers, and for the same reason. It asks for patience and pays in atmosphere.
The stage: Wolf's Child and the opera years
Theatre keeps pulling the studio outdoors. Wolf's Child, made with Wildworks for the 2015 Norfolk & Norwich Festival, walked its audience through woodland at dusk while the story of a feral upbringing unfolded around them. Earlier, the National Theatre of Scotland had turned The Wolves in the Walls into a 2006 opera wearing his designs. Neither event can be repeated or streamed, which McKean seems to regard as a feature: some images should only exist once, at scale, in weather.
The short films, collected in 2018, are the connective tissue between features, and several read as test flights for Luna's animation passages. Completists should start there; everyone else should start with whichever feature's premise pulls hardest.
Frequently Asked Questions
What films has Dave McKean directed?
Three features: MirrorMask in 2005, The Gospel of Us in 2012 and Luna in 2014, plus a body of short films collected in 2018. He designed all three features as thoroughly as he directed them.
What is MirrorMask about?
A circus teenager, Helena, falls into a dream-city built from her own drawings and has to find the charm that keeps the city of light safe from the queen of shadows. Neil Gaiman wrote the script; the Jim Henson Company produced.
Did MirrorMask get a cinema release?
A limited one. It premiered at Sundance in 2005, played festivals and selected screens, and found its real audience on disc and streaming, where its reputation has grown steadily.
What is The Gospel of Us?
The 2012 film of the Port Talbot Passion, the three-day street theatre event led by Michael Sheen in his home town. McKean directed the film, which won two BAFTA Cymru awards.
What is Luna?
His most personal feature, from 2014: two couples, a Kent coast house, and a lost child worked through in dreams and animation. It took the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards.
What is Wolf's Child?
A 2015 site-specific theatre production made with the Cornish company Wildworks for the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, performed outdoors at dusk with the audience walking the woods alongside the cast.
Has Dave McKean designed for the stage beyond Wolf's Child?
Yes: the Wolves in the Walls became a National Theatre of Scotland opera in 2006 with his designs, and exhibition and projection work has fed several other stagings. The stage list is shorter than the film one, but it keeps growing.
Will there be another Dave McKean film?
Nothing is currently announced with a date. The short-film work has continued since Luna, and he has spoken about further features as a question of financing rather than desire.