Imjin River Nature Center

Overview

A river of lava flows, cools and cracks into a cliff — 270,000 years of geological time compressed into one film.

The columnar joints along the Hantan River were formed by volcanic lava that followed the river valley and cooled there. A gallery usually explains that process with diagrams and text, while the only thing the visitor can actually see is the finished cliff. This film starts from the gap between those two things: show the time in between.

The piece is divided into five stages — eruption, lava flow, cooling contraction, joint formation, erosion and exposure. Each stage was settled as geology before it was visualised, and the angle of the joints and the shape of the columns were set against survey material from the Hantan River itself.

AI-generated imagery was used for look development and in-between frames, while the landform and the camera move stayed under manual control throughout. Used raw, generation changes the geology in every shot, so a base landform was built first and generated texture was laid over it.

“It could not be a film that explains the process. It had to be a film that stands the visitor inside the time.”