In Brian Duffield’s adaptation of Daniel Kraus’ survival thriller Whalefall, Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams) is swallowed by a sperm whale while scuba diving and has to desperately fight to escape its gullet. It’s a wild concept, but Kraus and production designer Ramsey Avery sell it by making Jay’s plight as realistic as possible. That involved building a 35-foot-long whale head and four different stomach sets that could be jostled, climbed, and filled with goop simulating digestive juices.
“It was super important that Austin felt like he was in these environments and his body had to respond to them,” Avery told Polygon in a virtual interview. “All that motion on camera is motion that we’re making. It’s not animated. That means Austin’s body is responding to real action in real time.”
One set was built on a rig to create a rocking motion, while another was part of a cylinder akin to a washing machine so Austin could be tossed around. Another was constructed on a seesaw so it could be tipped to soak Abrams in methylcellulose, an organic slime that simulated the whale’s stomach acid. Puppets were used for the giant squid that grapples Jay, pulling him into the whale’s mouth.
“Some of the tentacles had wires in them, and a couple of them actually had a rig inside that could make it squirm, which was creepy as all get out,” Avery said.
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