Daniel Kraus on Whalefall, Survival at Sea Movies, and Building a Cetacean Story

Welcome to The Film Stage Presents! Today we’re speaking with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Daniel Kraus about his novel Whalefall and the new film of the same name (which he co-wrote with director Brian Duffield).  We chat about Whalefall, adapting it from book to screen, his recent Pulitzer win for his novel Angel Down, and other underrated sea survivor movies. Among them are All Is Lost, White Squall, and In the Heart of the Sea.  Additional topics discussed include the differences between books and movies, how the whale in Whalefall is actually a setting and not a villain, and the survival books we read as kids (The Cay by Theodore Taylor, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, Lord of the Flies by William Golding). There are mentions of the great Walter Hill film Southern Comfort and the great Carroll Ballard film The Black Stallion. Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity also comes up, which Kraus feels is the best comp to Whalefall.