Alex Prager takes on Disney Princesses: ‘They are as iconic as an Hermès bag or Marilyn Monroe’

In Alex Prager’s work, nothing is ever quite what it seems. Her surreal, uncanny style sits at the periphery of reality and fantasy - which makes a new collaboration with Disney a more natural move than it may first appear.

‘This was a dream project for me,’ Prager tells Wallpaper*. ‘I felt a connection to the initial scripts and Disney is a personal favourite and inspiration of mine. I also had great partners, who were incredibly smart and creative. When I pitched doing everything in-camera with traditional practical effects, the response was excitement and I knew we were aligned for this story of childhood imagination and its lasting impact.’

Prager’s photographs and films consider human nature’s complexity, often through a cinematic and fantastical lens, which lends itself naturally to the short film Once A Princess, Always A Princess, created to mark World Princess Week. Taking a friendship between two young girls as the focus, the story zips between the imaginative world they create and the parallel, quotidian reality.

‘Those transitions were really important to me because I wanted the audience to understand when they were in the real world versus their imagination,’ Prager adds. ‘I didn’t want the real world to feel bleak because they are children and children see pretty much everything through a lens of play. Luckily I was working with Hoyte van Hoytema, Jahmin Assa and Paul Rogers who all brought such a sensitivity to the project. We would talk through my approach and then through conversations, seeing locations and telling stories about our own childhoods, ideas would evolve and grow through this. This became our playground, a place for us to craft this story together.’

Working in-camera - where effects were created during filming, instead of being added later in post-production - added a layer of magic to the creation process, says Prager. ‘It's real life movie magic, partially why I got into filmmaking in the first place. When effects are practical and in-camera, it feels more visceral because the sense of gravity and tactile nature reflect how we perceive emotion as something very physical. Every effect we used was physically rigged, from floating carpets to drifting clouds. For the underwater sequences, the team used the classic Hollywood “dry-for-wet” technique, and the puppets we created were all built of wood and felt and puppeteered in-camera, and the digital effects were used to integrate what we built practically.’

For Prager, the project has been a personal one, linking back to her experiences of watching the Disney Princesses as a child. ‘The Disney Princesses are iconic. They represent so much more than just pretty heroines on screen. For me they are like an Hermès bag or Marilyn Monroe. They are the modern day myth of Woman. They are layered. You see what you want in them, they are an amalgam of every female character that's ever been told, condensed into a few characters. They are every dream and nightmare - what you want in a good fairytale - and they are aspirational and inspiring.’