Making 'Wurtsboro'
Sept 9th, 2023
This seminar, originally posted September 9th, 2023, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the short film Wurtsboro, written and directed by Käla Mandrake. The film is an adaptation of her 2009 poetic novella, Fiction Story.
Core Concepts & Themes:
Psychological Thriller: The film explores the boundary between reality, imagination, and the spiritual self, playing on the idea that we often trick ourselves when emotionally involved in our personal narratives (3:03-3:42).
Narrative Structure: Unlike the source book, which features multiple viewpoints, the film utilizes a single first-person voice-over combined with silent footage and an instrumental score (5:15-5:41).
Visual Storytelling: The movie focuses on an obsessive friendship between two characters, the “girl in white” and the “girl in black,” set in Wurtsboro, New York, and Manhattan (5:48-6:31).
Production Details:
Music: The film features an instrumental score by Moby, which was selected to enhance the film’s atmospheric, silent-film-inspired quality (6:40-6:55).
Visual Techniques: Käla Mandrake utilized subliminal “flash frames” and superimposed imagery to provide clues about the characters’ true nature throughout the edit (8:14-8:46).
The Reveal: The film serves as a meditation on the psyche; the “girl in white” is revealed to be a figment of the protagonist’s imagination—a fragmented part of her own psyche or a coping mechanism—rather than a separate, living individual (9:12-9:42).
Artistic Intent:
The director highlights that the film’s conclusion represents a “spiritual awakening” and the integration of dark and light within the protagonist, symbolizing the process of becoming whole (9:58-10:52).
Here is a behind-the-scenes look into the making of the film:
WURTSBORO is a short film that is an adaptation of my 2009 novella called FICTION STORY. Basically I took a few excerpts from this book and pieced together a storyline that’s loosely based on the book that I wrote. It definitely has the same kind of feeling, the same kind of vibe, but the characters are a little bit different. Basically I played around with the narrative a bit.
The Book. 1st edition.
In the book there are several individuals, several voices, with each chapter told in first-person narrative from the perspective of a different character. In the first edition of FICTION STORY, each character is not represented by name, but by an astrological sign.
The Book. 2nd edition.
I had made a digital version of the second edition of the book which names Greek mythological figures as archetypes so that the characters are not only identified by their zodiac signs but by a Greek mythological archetype. It gives deeper psychological clues into the traits of these individuals. For example, the first character in the book, the central character, is represented by the zodiac symbol of Pisces, and in the Greek mythological figure she is based off of is Persephone, the goddess of the subconscious, the underworld. Whether it is the death of her childhood friend, or the betrayal of two Sirens, or the mysterious and revered voice of Hades, FICTION STORY gives a snapshot of her relationships with four female figures and two male figures.
Book to Film Adaptation.
What I did with the film was to take different characters and sort of blend them together. It’s a psychological thriller that’s sort of a play on what is reality and what is fiction, what is your imagination, your dream world, what is real, and what isn’t. The deeper insight is to acknowledge that when we are so deeply involved in our emotions, in the stories that we tell ourselves, we need to tap into that spiritual side of ourselves, our souls. Sometimes we sort of trick ourselves and that’s the idea behind the book and the movie - the common thread that goes between the two of them.
The Film.
When I put together this short film I decided on first-person narration, only one character’s voice. So the entire movie is told through voiceover and music and silent footage. The characters in the movie do not have lines, they don’t speak, so in this way the film is more a hybrid of silent film, audio book, and music video. The film tells a story of two girls who have a dependent, almost obsessive friendship. The film opens in the country, in the Catskills, Upstate New York, in an area called Wurtsboro. The two characters are the Girl in White and the Girl in Black. It begins with the Girl in White walking out of her country house, through the woods, and into the lake, seemingly committing suicide. We see her floating like a beautiful angel in the water. The Girl in Black is the other character, haunted by the memories of her best friend so she leaves the country and goes back to the city, to New York City, to Manhattan. She walks the streets of the city with her camera. She’s a photographer. She takes pictures of signs. She’s looking for a sign to guide her in the right direction.
Behind the Scenes.
For the city footage, I shot each actress separately on separate days, but we went to the same places so that later I could superimpose the Girl in White into the footage of the Girl in Black. Since this was a psychological film I really wanted the visuals to reflect that as well, so during the edit in the scene where the Girl in Black is walking the streets of Manhattan with her camera I inserted flashing subliminal frames. They’re like blinking flash frames hidden within the footage. These are meant to be hints for the reveal at the end of the film which is that her friend, the Girl in White, and the signs she’s been looking for, have been with her the whole time.
The Reveal.
The reveal in the movie script is that the two girls are the same human being. The Girl in White and the Girl in Black are one. The Girl in White exists only in her head. She never died in the water because she had always been simply a figment of the imagination, or a way to connect with the spiritual aspects of herself. A sort of healing angelic figure. We see in the beginning of the movie that she gets metaphorically killed off when the Girl in Black steps away from herself, goes against her own true authentic nature and disturbs the delicate deep integrity that she holds inside herself. Through the disappearance of the Girl in White, her angel, she goes through a spiritual journey - solitary walks at night on empty streets, recurring dreams, signs and symbols like the transformational butterfly - and captures life through her camera in order to keep them frozen in time, and at a distance, as a way to detach emotionally just enough so that she can step back and observe herself, her life, and the world around her with a clear mind.
The Girl in White reappears and comes back at the end of the movie because our protagonist has finally become whole. It is the integration of dark and light within her.
The Release.
WURTSBORO made its film premiere at the Tribeca Grand in New York City on January 22nd, 2011, on the birthday of my Grandma Sheila, the same woman who gave me my first diary as an eight year old girl.
Love,
Käla