Black Hole

  Another one of our projects, "Black Hole", just aired on the SciFi channel.  The reaction from the audience was about what I expected.  Most people thought the movie was a bit dumb in the science area, but watchable.  The review I read also concurs with my thoughts that the destruction sequences were successful, but the creature was less so. 

"Black Hole" was a difficult job is several ways.  First, I thought there shouldn't be a creature in this movie.  A black hole is scary enough, and doesn't need the movie device of a monster on the loose.  Secondly, this was an interesting idea, (scientists creating an actual black hole on earth) and I had never seen it done before.   But third, the scale of this movie was huge!  This was a massive job to destroy St Louis on a scifi channel diet.

I spent many hours trying to talk the producer out of the creature, but the network was insisting on it.  So we were stuck.  Now I had to come up with a creature that would work in the budget/schedule we had.  I tried to obscure the creature as much as possible, and still give the network what it wanted.  We came up with a creature that was only revealed by it's effect on the surrounding environment.  However, due to the limitations of the project, we were forced to keyframe the animation.  This was very labor intensive, and led me to the decision to never take on a humanoid creature unless we have access to a motion capture system.

I understand why the network wanted a creature, so I'm not arguing their logic.  A creature provides a focus that a big disaster might not have.  My point was that this disaster was unique, and definitely in the "science fiction" realm.  Therefore it was all that was needed.  In any case, the movie turned out well, and is a good popcorn munching feature. 

Click here to see a small clip of the creature.

As always, additional images and information can be found at the Worldwide FX website.