[Edaily Starin Choi Hee-jae Reporter] The movie "Whalefall: The Man Eaten by a Whale" brings an extreme struggle for survival to the screen with a production of overwhelming scale.

“Whalefall: The Man Eaten by a Whale” (Whalefall) is a survival thriller in which diver Jay (played by Austin Abrams), swallowed alive by a massive 60-metric-ton sperm whale, fights for his life in an extreme struggle to escape the whale’s belly within the mere 60 minutes he has left before his air runs out.

The production team first created a massive, life-size model of the whale’s head and mouth—measuring approximately 9 meters in length—that would swallow Jay whole. Production designer Ramsey Avery and the visual effects team collaborated to complete the whale’s head, including the esophagus, larynx, and tongue, in just 12 weeks. A moving 6-axis rig was then integrated to allow Austin Abrams, who plays Jay, to come face-to-face with the colossal whale.

Once swallowed by the whale, the entire space becomes a threat. The whale’s stomach—created by Weta Workshop, a world-renowned studio famous for its visual effects and special production work on films such as *Avatar*, *Planet of the Apes*, and the *Predator* series—contracts and twists, constantly shaking the very ground beneath Jay’s feet.

In particular, the “barrel roll” apparatus—which rotates the set 360 degrees—was used to film scenes where the actor is violently thrown from side to side amid a deluge of water. The production team created a variety of stomach sets, as well as sets for the esophagus and larynx, crafting an unpredictable environment where every movement of the whale threatens survival.

Guillaume Rochelon, the Academy Award-winning VFX supervisor for *Life of Pi* and *Nop*, took on the task of bringing these massive, life-sized sets to life. Having breathed life into the tiger on the lifeboat in *Life of Pi* and brought to life a massive, unidentified alien creature in *Nop*, he is a highly skilled artist who has won two Academy Awards for Visual Effects. This time, he vividly recreates the interior of a living whale, drawing audiences into an unprecedented survival scenario.

Guillaume Rochlong explained, “We wanted to make the whale feel alive and tangible.” Viewing the whale as a character in its own right, the production team built a physical set where the actor could interact directly with it, then added VFX to complete this colossal creature.

Not only the whale’s belly but also the vast, mysterious threats of the deep sea surrounding Jay were brought to life in a massive filming space. Special effects supervisor Mark Hocker, who worked on *Stranger Things*, and his team built an underwater tank capable of holding approximately 660,000 liters of water in less than a month.

The production team incorporated ingenious ideas into this tank, designed for filming underwater scenes featuring the sperm whale and the underwater cliff sequences. For the scene where Jay swims up a deep underwater canyon, they devised a “rock elevator” that lowered a rock set instead of the actor, creating the illusion of an ascent through the vast depths within the limited water depth.

To vividly convey to audiences the actor’s all-out struggle for survival, the cameras also plunged into these extreme environments. Reports indicate that the film crew used bungee rigs and cranes to capture Jay’s movements as they unfolded within the swaying set.

“Whalefall” opens on the 14th.