How Vanessa Stachel hand-crafted a queer fairytale for Greenpeace

What was the relationship like with Greenpeace when creating The Nymph?

The Nymph started as a graduation film from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg so the original story idea was my own. But we showed the concept early on to Greenpeace Germany. They really liked it and supported us in everything we planned. 

For me, this love story has always been a queer one. I really believe we need to see more love stories besides the hetero-normative ones.

The thing that was essential for Greenpeace though, was that there should be hope in the end. Us humans can still make a difference, and that should shine through. We were really grateful for this trust in our creativity!

How did the concept for this story evolve?

I had the idea already some years ago. I wanted to tell a love story that's an allegory for the relationship between humans and nature becoming toxic. But the idea was always too big for my semester projects, so it was perfect to do that as my graduation film. Production company Simon & Paul also joined in early on and made the scale possible we were aiming for.

I love fantastical settings and the way you can put relevant topics into something more abstract. I believe this can make a topic like environmental protection have even more impact. 

Also I wanted a new approach to personifying nature. We always see Mother Nature depicted as endlessly giving and kind. From a feminist point of view this annoys me, as I think being a giving and kind person is something that’s not limited to one gender. 

For me, this love story has always been a queer one. I really believe we need to see more love stories besides the hetero-normative ones.

Where did you draw inspiration from, visually and thematically?

I hope you can see that I'm a huge The Lord of the Rings nerd! The trilogy was everything to me in my teenage days. Also I love the craft and storytelling in Pan’s Labyrinth.

I love fantastical settings and the way you can put relevant topics into something more abstract. I believe this can make a topic like environmental protection have even more impact. 

A big team of production design assistants worked endless hours on shovelling earth, planting grass and bushes, glueing and cutting additional paper set pieces and hand-painting the backdrop for the dead forest set.

Another inspiration was those painted backdrops that were used in the early days of studio photography or old-school painted theatre stage elements.

I'm a big fan of the Dior Spring Summer Campaign of 2023 where they also put real plants in front of a painted/printed backdrop. It looks so magical and painterly and that was a look we also imagined for the film. 

And then of course all the Disney Fairytale classics or Shrek that start with a fairytale book opening. It sets the perfect mood to enter an enchanted world.

How did you design and craft the set? 

For our production designer Ines tee Haar, this was her graduation project as well, so she started building the lake early on, planning the sizes and dimensions of the half round set (firstly, as a miniature.) We checked with our DP Nico Schrenk who also had specific requirements for the set so that the planned shots actually worked. 

I think the love you put into crafting things is reflected in the film in the end. And as this is a love story, it needs to feel human. 

But the living plants were put into the set just shortly before the shoot as we needed them to survive and still look beautiful the first 5 days of our 7 day shoot. To achieve that we put UV lamps all over the set when we weren't working.

For the theatrical painterly look, we hung a 26x4.5-meter backdrop with the beautiful forest that we designed and printed, so we had full control of where we would see trees or the sky.

A big team of production design assistants worked endless hours on shovelling earth, planting grass and bushes, glueing and cutting additional paper set pieces and hand-painting the backdrop for the dead forest set.

The Nymph is beautifully handcrafted using practical elements. How important was it to you to tell the story in this way, and how was it made possible in terms of cost and timescale?

I think the love you put into crafting things is reflected in the film in the end. And as this is a love story, it needs to feel human. The love in the details is also visible in all other departments like the sound design, music and the VFX which we wanted to reflect the richness and beauty of nature. And of course, crafting is so much fun! It's truly wonderful what you can build with your own hands.

Overall, we had more than 300 single illustrated pieces to put together. We used lots of references from romantic or landscape painters like Caspar David Friedrich, Asher Brown Durand or Thomas Cole.

Timewise, we were lucky to be allowed to have the film school studio for eight weeks straight for building, shooting & cleaning up for the live action part. The storybook scenes were stressful as everything had to happen in three weeks, as we had a fixed date for the picture lock so that the online post could start in time. We had to take some costs into our own hands, but buying greenery for the live action set and paper and glue for the fairytale book scenes was quite affordable.

Can you tell us more about creating the pop-up storybook scenes?

Immediately after the live action shoot, I started to learn with online tutorials how to build pop-up books and made rough paper mock-ups of all the scenes, which I then gave to our graphic designer and illustrator Sascha May to make them work.

But to be transparent here: Lots of the illustrations were made with the assistance of generative AI. Overall, we had more than 300 single illustrated pieces to put together. We used lots of references from romantic or landscape painters like Caspar David Friedrich, Asher Brown Durand or Thomas Cole.

We were so lucky to have found those two [actors] as they were so invested and a joy to work with.

But of course, nothing could be used straight out of AI. Everything still had to be selected, painted over and photoshopped together.

I guess you could say we used AI as a more accurate stock resource. We definitely did not give away any thinking and planning. But with the AI we could realise the desired look with our small team and the limited time frame.

All the single elements were then printed, cut-out with a laser cutter and glued together for the shoot. We worked with a motion control robot to give those scenes those supernatural magical movements.

What was the casting process like for this film?

We teamed up with Matheis casting from Berlin for this film. They did a Europe-wide search for talent and we received many casting tapes for both roles. After callbacks and chemistry reads we had found our wonderful cast. So I guess, pretty straight forward, but we were so lucky to have found those two as they were so invested and a joy to work with.

Everyone was giving their best and there was such a team spirit.