In the Jungle of the Air

You might find this little film familiar, and if you do it's most likely because you're very well read. If you didn't skip the end credits you saw that I based this project on Conan Doyle's short story "The Horror of the Heights." My film is basically that story, minus the last fourth, or so. If you haven't read it please do, it's excellent sci-fi horror. 

I had pondered for years on how to realize the story as one of my film projects, and I've always known that no matter how I did it, I would end up with something I'd feel lacking. But adapting the tale as a faux silent movie (which is how films were made when Doyle wrote his story in 1913) could work. 

Our intrepid aviator is played by Joakim Strömgren, who is also a member of the special needs people film group I've been running for a few years. He was decked out in a fake leather headgear bought from a dress-up shop, and a Rocketeer replica jacket found on eBay. The rudder he's holding on to is the handle of a dust broom. All his scenes were shot against my greenscreen.

The monoplane is a collection of photos snapped at a Swedish air show. I cut out the plane in Photoshop, skipping all the intricate wires, and adding them back in using the line tool in Photoshop.

All backgrounds were still images of cloudy skies downloaded from Depositphotos.  I animated the images using the distortion tools in After Effects, making the clouds move slightly. Some bits of cloud were also cut out and placed in separate layers, so I could add the creatures and the plane between tufts of clouds.

Speaking of the creatures, they were all rather unconventional compared to what I usually make. The giant jellyfish were a combination of photos of real jellyfish combined with tentacles made in Photoshop. All parts were animated in After Effects.

The big bad of the film is another mixed media monster, with several animated parts.

My original plan was to make a big, complex puppet and animate it traditionally. In the end I went for a different approach. I sculpted the head for the monster in medium grade Monster Clay and took a bunch of photos of it with my phone. 

This is how the monster looked after tinkering with it a while in Photoshop. The body is photos of an older puppet, the cosmic flute player from my film "Azathoth." I just snipped bits of this puppet, sections with various textures and Frankebstein'ed it together. The big ballon sacs on the monster's back are manipulated photos of jellyfish.

The two big tentacles are just the one tentacle, animated a couple of times. I actually built this prop for an upcoming project, where it'll be attached to a carnivorous plant.

The smaller tentacles on the monster's belly are just the tip of the big tentacled, photographed with my phone and animated in After Effects with the Puppet tool, making them sway slightly. The finished monster is pretty much how it's described in Doyle's story.

The only complete puppet I built for this film is the "air snakes", which is just the one puppet. It's really simple, just a length of 2 mm aluminum wire with a threaded nut attached to one end. A yarn wrapping dabbed with latex, plus some latex details added around the "head" by pressing the snake into clay and painting in details with latex and a pointy tool.

The actual head part was built up with cotton dipped in latex. Fast and simple.

The threaded bolt hidden in the head allowed the puppet to be attached to a simple flying rig. I didn't paint it, since I liked the bare, shiny look of it. It looked pretty good in black and white / sepia tone.

I thought I'd include a couple of artistic visions of the big monster from Doyle's story. It's been around for a while, and you can find it uploaded here and there. There are several really good audiobook versions on YouTube.

There is a weird offshoot from this story that I have to mention too. There is a theory that there are actually giant jellyfish monsters way up there in the various spheres. Some say they have, on occasion, been caught on film, so I'll end this post with a few purported real Horrors of the Heights.