WHALEFALL practical set challenges
por Anjali Filmi: Brian Duffield
Brian Duffield confirms a practical whale stomach prop was built for WHALEFALL, designed to shift its shape after every single day of filming. The set developed an 'alive' quality with its own opinions, leaving the crew in ground zero since no one had ever worked on a dynamic environment like this before. Water drained nightly for hygiene caused the structure to reshape upon refilling, meaning Day 2 brought new constraints where Austin couldn't fit the same way and camera placement shifted entirely. As Duffield put it: "Day 2 we can't resume shooting how we were shooting because now Austin can't fit in the same way & the camera is now in a different place." Every day presented unpredictable geometry requiring live improvisation when elements changed or failed to work as expected.
Transcrição (en)
It's a really scary place to be as a director because, you know, your whole job is to be able to tell people what it is you want to do. And then to have a set that in its own way is kind of alive and has its own opinions. None of the crew has ever kind of worked on a set like this before, you know. So you're kind of going into this from a very ground zero place. No one would believe me if I was like, this is how we're doing everything. And yeah, there would be things that would change or break or just wouldn't work in the stomach. to kind of improvise live on the day a lot. No real deal, you come in, it would be a completely different like shape. Yeah, every night it changed shape, because we would drain out all the water to keep it hygienic, and then when you refill it, it kind of becomes a new shape, and so day two we're kind of like, oh, we can't resume shooting how we were shooting, because Austin literally can't fit the same way, and the camera is now in a different place, because we had these little doors for the camera, and so it was just always kind of like, what's the world gonna let us do today?
