Get Lost In Silent Hill w/ Mirkala

Throughout the years, Silent Hill has been one of my favorite horror franchises. Since the moment I played the first game, I was hooked. I loved the overall horror experience the games provided. With every sequel that followed I became more and more obsessed with every aspect of the games, from the design aesthetic to the music. The movies are a bit of a mixed bag-- the first one does a solid job capturing the look and feel of the games while treating the material with respect, but never manages to fully capture that feeling of isolation and dread that is so important to the games. The second film is a complete mess and is full of wasted potential by bastardizing the 3rd games story (my personal favorite).

For all my interest and fandom of the Silent Hill lore, I never got around to doing any Silent Hill themed projects. This shoot concept went through many stages of planning and different iterations until it got where it now stands. The main concept of the shoot revolves around the poster for the Silent Hill Lakeside Amusement Park created by myself and an illustrator buddy of mine Cole Roberts (check his instagram account @lifeofcole to check his other fantastic work). The poster features the fictional amusement parks genuinely creepy mascot “Robbie the Rabbit” in a blood splattered, deteriorated advertisement which I had professionally printed for use in this shoot. I knew I wanted to plaster the posters on a wall and make it appear as if this shoot was taking place IN Silent Hill itself. After various concepts, I settled in on the idea of the model acting as if she was lost in Silent Hill. 

Mirkala was up for the task of playing the tortured soul trapped in the haunted town. She was a joy to work with and did a great job emoting on all levels. It’s always great when the model believes in the project and gives her all, and Mirkala did that from the very start. These initial photos of her sitting against the wall seemingly giving up on trying to find her way turned out exactly as I envisioned it, which was a great overall sign for the shoot. We were able to take advantage of our location and shoot a completely different scene that expanded on the concept of being lost in Silent Hill. The interior location of the shoot was a perfect setup to what I’ll refer to as the “exploration/revelation shots” where we were able to recreate the moody dark hallways that are so prevalent in the game. Special thanks to Mirkala’s good friend, Karla, for playing the part of one of Silent Hill's infamous nurses. Because of her we created a shot I have wanted to do for a long time. 

While the shoot concept started out different in concept and went through a few variations before landing on the final concept, I am thrilled with the outcome. The exterior shot with the poster covered walls did pose a dilemma as far as being faithful to the source material and made me question adding a layer of fog that the game is famous for or to keep it clear to better see the photo. In the end, I think we struck a good balance with the two pulled back shots having the fog whereas the close up benefits greatly from removing the fog layer and keeping the contrast and shadows to highlight her frightened expression. 

We put in a lot of time, effort, and sweat into shoot and hope it shows in the final product. Enjoy!

As an added bonus I've included a free downloadable mix of choice tracks compiled from the various Silent Hill soundtracks. Just click the link below to download and listen!

Download the Silent Hill Mix