“MARY IN THE

MIRROR”
Concept Document

A young girl takes a look at

herself in the mirror- literally. And
she doesn’t like what she sees.
“MARY IN THE MIRROR”

By Michael Hilliger
hilligerm5486@my.uwstout.edu
(262) 473-5604

DES176
Fall 2017
Instructor Andy Christensen
 PROJECT DESCRIPTION

MEDIA TYPE: Animated Short Film

GENRE: Tragedy

TARGET AUDIENCE: Ages 13+

TREATMENT:

Mary is a young girl who does not do very well in school, and is very
shaken and shy about it. She tends to put off her problems and ignore
them by watching television instead of facing them herself. When her
mother comes home from a parent teacher conference one day, she
communicates with Mary about her problems, asking her to do better.
A distraught Mary retreats to her room, where she grieves in front of a
mirror for a while. All of a sudden, her reflection begins knocking on
the glass, and leaps through the mirror onto Mary’s desk. The reflection
leads Mary to outside, where the two travel through the night over to
Mary’s school. The reflection pulls stones out of her pocket, tossing one
to Mary, and begins throwing stones at the building. Mary is appalled
by the act, but the reflection gestures for Mary to do the same. Mary
is hesitant at first, but when her frustrations build up, she throws her
stone. She unintentionally smashes a window in the process. When a
frightened Mary looks around for her reflection, it is gone, and Mary
is alone, and forced to deal with the consequences of her own actions.
BACKSTORY:
-Mary and her mother live together in a small town.

-Mary’s father is absent, for expendable reasons, such as

divorce, death, missing, etc. The important thing is
that Mary is a pretty shaken-up kid and her mother
does her best, but isn’t entirely sure how to move on.

-Mary is a smart kid, but often has difficulty focusing,
and zones out a whole lot.

PLOTLINE:
MARY
Mary is a nine-year old girl living with her mother in a low-key Amer-
ican town. Mary is imaginative, weird, and intelligent. However, she is
not very good at focusing or facing her problems.
MARY’S MOTHER
Mary’s mother is a well-meaning mother who gets along with her
daughter. She has not become fully accustomed to the life of being a sin-
gle mother, but is more than good enough at it.
vcvxv

REFLECTION
Reflection is a “copy” of Mary, with the main difference being a bit of
underlying malevolence. She hastily performs many bad ideas that the
real Mary would use her better judgment to stop.

Regarding design, there was originally going to some sort of visual

difference between the two, however, it didn’t make sense why the real
Mary would look so different from her reflection. To signify the dif-
ference, I had the two act differently. Think of Reflection as the devil
shoulder angel, and Mary as the “undecided-leaning-toward-good”
angel.
ENVIRONMENT DESIGN
Mary lives in a small American town. The time period is not set in
stone, as elements are borrowed from the time period of the 1890’s
to the 1960’s. The use wooden box telephones, but they also have ful-
ly-functioning automobiles and televisions. Elements of the schoolyard
are borrowed from Lakeview Elementary School in Whitewater, WI.
SAMPLE

SAMPLE SCRIPT
SAMPLE
STORYBOARDS
 BIOGRAPHY / ARTIST STATEMENT

I have many years of experience working in several areas of sto-

rytelling, including live action, animation, comics, music, and video
game design. I am capable of doing some of everything within those
topics, including directing, writing, drawing, acting, editing, pro-
gramming, and music composition. I could greatly aid this project
with my talents and skill.

PAST PROJECTS AND RESOURCES:

“Freshman Parking Lot”
Comic Strip
Contact: Josh Duncan
joshua.duncan@cune.org

“Floopy Saves The Kingdom”

Video Game
Contact: Laura Masbruch
lmasbruch@wwusd.org

 DESIGN PROCESS

Above: Rough storyboards of the nighttime walk with Mary’s Reflection.

Top: Rough Storyboards of the conversation with Mom
Middle: Pan/Master Shot
Bottom: Unused scene depicting Mary’s family history
Opposite and Next Page: Roughs for Mary’s family history scene
Above: Scenes from a deleted segment showing Mary in school.
 MUSIC

The music for “Mary in The Mirror” is written in the key of

Gb, which has the characteristics of the relief of accomplishing a
great task.

However, for the most part, the score does not resolve to the
tonic (I) chord, therefore we never see that resolution/closure,
and the struggle persists throughout.

The entire score is played on a piano. The lower notes have

a scary, eerie sound to them, and the upper notes have a mysteri-
ous, mystical sound to them.

Minor second intervals are played when Mary hears knock-

ing on the door, since the tones are so close that they sound
overly creepy and disturbing.

Random notes that don’t belong in the key of Gb are played

when Mary breaks the window at her school, which give the feel-
ing of a mistake, that something is wrong.