Minor experiment: mini ocean
one of the ways of selling the idea of a sea creature rising from the ocean, i decided to look into how it is possible to do it in a smaller scale in which it still looks beleivable. The Godzilla series of films went around this by using what is known as a Shoku prop, a smaller scale verion of the character so that the action can be done on a smaller level instead of damaging the larger scale props, such as godzilla rising from the ocean, far away shots of other creatures and even small props to depict flying monsters such as rodan and king ghidorah
how i wanted to use such a prop was to simulate my creatures tail breaching the ocean and splashing down with its whale like tail. Unfortunatly i don't have acsess to any large scale swimming pools so i made do with a wide 42 litre storage containter. my first issue was that the conainter was clear, meaning that it would not look like a small ocean, rather just a container filled with water, so i had decided to spray paint the container black so that it would reflect off the water making look like the murky sea.
My other issue was that the container would need to be covered so that the background around the container could not be seen, which could ruin the illusion, so i had covered the top areas of the container of wide black cardboard to give the illusion of the night. finally i wanted the only light source in the scene to be the moonlight, so by using the spare peices of black cardboard and cutting a tiny hole into it, covering a studio light that is situated over the containter creating the illusion of moonlight.
As i had no prop to test out the theory, we had decided to use are arms to simulate the motion of the tailto see what it would look like photographed. finallly much like eiji tsuburaya methods of manipulating the frame rate to make things appear lumbering and heavy looking, the test footage was filmed in a higher frame rate then slowed down to make the hand (tail) appear heavy.
The only issue i could not sort is the water itself, as to simulate the rippling waves of the ocean is to lighly tap the corners of the containter, but it did not look as convicning as i wanted it to be, but still passable. Overall i'm quite happy with how the experiment turned out as i can further invest in this idea by creating a tail prop to actually interact with the water, the only thing i wish i would get a hold of is a larger containter, that way