How ‘Whalefall’ Built a Living, Churning Whale Stomach

Minor spoiler warning: This article discusses the central survival premise of Whalefall.

Whalefall puts Austin Abrams inside a sperm whale, but the production did not ask him to perform against an empty green screen. Production designer Ramsey Avery and a large effects team built practical, water-filled environments designed to move, compress and churn around the actor.

The film follows Jay, a grieving diver searching for his father’s remains off the California coast. After a clash between a whale and a giant squid, Jay is swallowed and must find a way out before his oxygen supply disappears.

A 30-foot head and a tank full of problems

The crew constructed roughly 30 feet of the whale’s head and placed it in a tank measuring 60 feet across and 20 feet deep. Its mouth could open and close, while a physical tongue moved on an animatronic system. Director Brian Duffield wanted the sequence to feel submerged and immediate, making water, camera placement and stunt safety part of every design choice.

Avery’s team studied sperm-whale autopsies with biomedical scientist Joy Reidenberg, then examined footage from inside living cetaceans to understand how tissue behaves when filled with fluid. The finished stomach was not intended as a perfect anatomy model; it was a research-informed movie environment that also had to survive weeks of filming.

Foam, silicone and a washing-machine rig

The primary stomach used layers of upholstery foam and translucent colored silicone over heavy canvas. Fully expanded, the interior measured about eight feet wide and six feet tall, but it often compressed to something closer to a sleeping bag. That shrinking space created the claustrophobia seen on screen while leaving just enough room for Abrams and one or two cameras.

Four stomach models were mounted on different rigs. One kept the environment in constant swimming motion; another spun like a washing machine. For the bile sequence, the crew thickened liquid with methyl cellulose, added silicone debris and mounted the set on a teeter-totter mechanism to create heavy sloshing.

Weta Workshop contributed practical builds, while digital effects extended and refined what had been captured in camera. The collaboration reached lighting and costume design too: LEDs inside the stomach were planned to become bioluminescence, forcing the team to test how Abrams’ diving suit would read against the artificial tissue.

The result turns an impossible location into a tactile performance space. Instead of merely showing a giant creature, Whalefall makes the mechanics of its interior part of the suspense.