The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story is an official Sony Animation film that expands the Spider-Verse of Miles Morales and helps support mental health, and even has an NBA and Beach Boys connection! It’s also a great bit of Halloween spookiness! It premiered at the Annecy International Film Festival and was made available to everyone here:
The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story is a bold look into the mind of Miles Morales, from school and parents to supervillians. Miles has to deal with the normal stress of being a teenager plus saving the world, and one dark night he feels overwhelmed and has fantastic visions chase him. “A trippy little jaunt through his subconscious”.
Beyond the surface of superhero battles and fantastical worlds superheroes can dive into many complex themes, including the struggles of mental health issues. The Hulk has the most severe split personality, and Tony Stark dealt with alcoholism in the 70s, Peter Parker experienced survivor’s Guilt in Soul of The Hunter. Miles is in better shape in this story, just needing an understanding person to talk to about his anxiety.
The film is beautifully made, and was created by a Sony new talent program called ‘Leading and Empowering New Storytellers’ (LENS). Jarelle Dampier is at the helm as director of the short, while the script is written by Khalla Amazan. Clara Chan served as vfx supervisor and Joe Darko who served as animation supervisor. The rest of the crew was Sony Animation, and they brought the original actors, eg Shameik Moore. The concept of the story actually came to Dampier when he was accepted into the LENS program as a director. Dampier explains, “The day that I was offered this job to direct this film. I had the largest panic attack I remember in my life.” That emotion helps fuel the film and led to a partnership.
The YouTube release partnered with the Kevin Love Fund to raise money and awareness of mental health treatment. The Fund wants to improve people’s physical and emotional well-being, with a goal of assisting more than 1 billion people in 5 years. Kevin Love is an All-Star and NBA champion who had mental health issues that attracted a lot of attention a while back.
The Fund created a lesson plan so teachers could help students tell their own stories. Everyone is dealing with something.
The short was going to be part of the Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and evolved into it’s own project.
Love’s uncle, Mike, is a founding member of The Beach Boys, and Kevin is playing for the Miami Heat. Jarelle Dampier worked on What If…? and Kung Fu Panda 4. Some amazing connections from this animated film. A fun animated film that allows for a deeper understanding of self and encourages reaching out. And it really works for Halloween too.
David Raiklen wrote, directed and scored his first film at age 9. He began studying keyboard and composing at age 5. He attended, then taught at UCLA, USC and CalArts. Among his teachers are John Williams and Mel Powel.
He has worked for Fox, Disney and Sprint. David has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2004 American Music Center Award. Dr. Raiklen has composed music and sound design for theater (Death and the Maiden), dance (Russian Ballet), television (Sing Me a Story), cell phone (Spacey Movie), museums (Museum of Tolerance), concert (Violin Sonata ), and film (Appalachian Trail).
His compositions have been performed at the Hollywood Bowl and the first Disney Hall. David Raiken is also host of a successful radio program, Classical Fan Club.
