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After Disney’s World Premiere of centenary short Once Upon a Studio during the opening night ceremony, Annecy hosted on Monday the World Premiere of The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story, the first short film to come out of the new leadership training program LENS (Leading and Empowering New Storytellers), powered by Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks and led by producers Michelle Raimo Kouyate and David Schulenburg.
A riveting tale diving into Miles Morales’ growing anxieties, The Spider Within is nothing short of terrifying. “Ever since I’ve been asked to join this project, I’ve wanted to tackle the subject of mental health,” says an emotion-filled Jarelle Dampier, director of this first LENS short.
“Once you’re given a sandbox such as the Spider-Verse, It’s incredibly difficult to choose what point of view you’ll adopt, what topics and characters you want to bring in your story. For me, it quickly became clear that everything would be contained. I wanted to focus not on big action scenes, but on the emotional depth of the characters, and particularly on the relationship between Miles and his father. And to do that, even though I love Miles, we had to torture him a bit.”
For the short’s writer, Khaila Amazan, this could be achieved only through the horror genre. “Making this radical choice allowed us to get psychological. To portray Miles’ Anxiety, the overwhelming sensation of panic and fear that he could experience dealing with daily life along with his Spider-Man identity, we asked ourselves: What would Spider-Man look like to a criminal? To us, he’s the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. To the bad guys, he must be their worst nightmare.”
The feat of bringing the short from script to delivery state was achieved brilliantly by the animation and VFX team, led by Joe Darko (animation) and Clara Chan (VFX). Completed in a surreal six weeks each, the animation, lighting and colors are as terrifying as they can get.
“The distorted reality that one feels when panic attacks strike are what drove us towards this shapeshifting figure haunting Miles,” says Darko. And to carry the weight of this nightmarish apparition, Chan’s team — who worked on Across the Spider-Verse and has been working for more than two decades in animation — brought forth a whole part of this colorful universe with them.
“In the end, what we wanted to do is to address the need of talking about one’s feelings, sharing them instead of burying them and letting them fester,” says Dampler. “As a kid, I did not have the chance to discuss with my father a lot. As a Dad, I want my son to be able to share his feelings. I think now, we live in an era where vulnerability is our superpower. A Spider Within is not about being Spider-Man everyday. It’s about the relationship between Miles and his father, and Miles deciding to share his fears and feelings. And for me, it’s how we’re going to a find a way forward.”
The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story has yet to receive a release date, but there’s no doubt it will reach a wide audience that’s craving for more of Spider-Verse’s complex characters and mind-blowing visuals.
