The motions of the creatures in Still Wakes the Deep were animated by the Chinese Room by pure accident, owing to a glitch that occurred at the right moment.
During their presentation at Develop: Brighton 2024, the creative director of Still Wakes the Deep, John McCormack, along with the project technical director, Louis Larsson-De Wet, and the associate art director, Laura Dodds, provided an explanation of the origins of the creature’s motions. In a technological demonstration, it was discovered that a flaw that was wholly unintentional had a role in determining how the creature should move as well as its general design.
On the other hand, Larsson-De Wet said that one of the difficulties that the team working on The Chinese Room had was determining how a “blob of flesh,” which is basically what the creatures are, moved. In reference to a technological demonstration for the monster, the project technical director remembered, “There was this technical glitch where the physics freaked out and stretched this blob thing, and we’ve all gone ‘that’s it!'”
“It was so unpredictable in the way that it moved,” Dodds said further. The manner in which it moved was so unsettling that it really disturbed everyone. When McCormack was asked about the technology demonstration, he said that the insect extended out every part of it. He also mentioned that the responsibility for the creature’s animations after that basically became “do that, again.”
Another thing that Dodds said was that the inadvertent glitch, as well as the movement of the monster that it caused, had an effect on the general design of the creature itself in the future. Textures for features like the crew’s outfits were made more fractured, for example, and Dodds also feels additionally the disturbing animation helped the monster keep its impression of power, something filmmakers frequently struggle to do after unveiling their creature.
During the process of creation, there was also considerable disagreement over the name that was actually used to refer to the creature. The nature of what has transpired led us to begin with ‘puppets,’ as the phrase goes. Someone or something has arrived on board, and it has torn the crew apart while simultaneously making an attempt to bring them back together again. These puppets were first referred to as puppets since it was the initial concept behind them, as McCormack said.
The tentacles of the beast, which are responsible for dragging helpless crew members away to be butchered at several times during Still Wakes the Deep, were also a contributing influence in the creation of this name. The ‘goop,’ on the other hand, is something that The Chinese Room strongly discourages you from referring to the monster if you do so. In no circumstances should you refer to it as the goop.