Abysses on France 2: How were the animal attack scenes created?

On Monday 12 June 2023, France 2 continues to broadcast the Abysses event series from 9.10pm. In this highly successful piece of fiction, scientists around the world (or almost!) are concerned when the seabed and its creatures rise up against the men and attack them!

In the credits, the audience finds actors Léonie Benes, Cécile de France (credited to AlloCiné), Alexander Karim, Joshua Ojik, Barbara Sukova, Krista Kosonen, Rosabelle Laurenti Sellers, Takuya Kimura, Aidin Jalal, Takehiro Dukan-Hira, Hollands Johnson and Brewster.

A lot of screen crafting and special effects have been used to create the illusion that the scenes are taking place in the open sea, and the animal attacks are quite impressive. Ian Stolz, VFX supervisor on eight episodes of Abyss, also took the time to reveal the production secrets of this sequence to AlloCiné…

AlloCiné: Where did the actors shoot for the scenes in or under water: at sea, in a tank, on a green screen?

Jan Stolz: For the whale and the killer whale attack, we basically shot the scenes in a giant water tank with the sky in the background. The moment the whale crashed into the tourist boat was filmed on a real boat. The falling of the whale (underwater) is captured in computer graphics.

Were they using real animals or were they created using computer graphics?

All whales are computer generated. Just a few shots of orcas swimming are stock footage combined with real animals. The killer whale that washed up on the beach at the beginning of the series is also in CGI.

Were the attacks created or were the actual images reused in “The Abyss”?

All attacks in the series are created by CG animated creatures such as crabs, schools of fish or whales. Sometimes we used stock images to enhance the plans or set plans for different locations.