PORT ANGELES — Ever had that feeling when you’re swimming in a body of water and your feet can no longer touch bottom that there’s something else in the water with you, watching?
That’s one of the themes being explored in a new, short film featuring locations on the North Olympic Peninsula and two actors from Clallam County.
Part fact, mostly fiction, the story of “Willatuk: The Legend of Seattle’s Sea Serpent” is also a metaphor for a healthy relationship between humans and their environment, said Oliver Tuthill Jr., the film’s writer, director and producer.
Tuthill, who lives in the Seattle area, christened the sea monster, which resembles artist’s renditions of Scotland’s famous Loch Ness monster.
The cast and crew filmed on the Makah Reservation recently and will film parts of the movie at the 2005 Canoe Journey in August.
On Saturday they filmed segments in Kenmore, a suburb of Seattle that borders Lake Washington.
While researching the topic of a Northwestern sea monster that uses a tunnel beneath Seattle that connects the Puget Sound to Lake Washington, he found vague accounts of sightings.
But the film’s goal is to kick-start a homegrown myth of a giant creature of the briny deep.
“I’m kind of making it up, but people have said to me, ‘Oliver, you don’t understand, there is a sea monster here,’ ” said Tuthill, 59.