By: Jayden Dudek
Thanks to regular nasal swabbing tests due to Covid, we are all pretty used to nasal swabs sticking into our noses. But Chris Williams, director and writer of the movie, “The Sea Beast,” which will showcase scenes inside of main character Red Bluster’s nose, is becoming deeply familiar with nasal canals.
To conduct his research, Williams said, “I watched videos of tiny cameras navigating nasal passages.” He also conducted multiple google searches looking for the insides of different animals.
The movie is set in a place where hunters fight otherworldly creatures. “The Sea Beast” stars Maisie, the daughter of 2 hunters, who rides the waves as the captain of a legendary boat. On the boat she finds Jacob, who is the next captain of the ship. During a battle with sea beasts, they accidentally got swallowed by Red Bluster, also known as Red, and got into one of Red’s nostrils. They then formed a strong friendship.
The movie is fun to watch. A lot of efforts were made by the film crew to make the animation more attractive.
Skin
Woonyung Jung, the movie art director wanted Red, the main character, to have scars on her skin to show she has been in tons of battles against the hunters. Matthias Lechner, the production designer, wanted the skin to be more straightforward and more like a mammal. People bond with mammals more than fish of bugs.
Size
One of the challenges that the film crew faced was how to place the giant Red and humans in the same movie screen. The crew resolved the problem by using the realistically simulated sea water in the background as “a ruler” to show the size of Red.
Color
The crew used “Porco Rosso”, a 1992 animated film from Studio Ghibli as inspiration for the color palette of “The Sea Beast”. The fine adjustment of color is not an easy job.
“When I boosted up the saturation too much, she looked small — she became like a toy creature,” said Jung, the art director, “When I brought down the saturation, she became too realistic, like a live-action creature.” The teammates agreed on a somewhat light colored. Lecher said that the team is siding with nature.
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