Wildwood is the sixth film from Laika, the studio behind Coraline, and it took a long time to reach cinemas. CEO Travis Knight optioned Colin Meloy's book in 2011, but production did not begin until a decade later. Knight says he has worked on it in some form for 16 years.
The story follows a girl named Prue, who enters a forbidden wilderness near Portland to find her baby brother and finds a world of spells, talking animals and warring groups. It took nearly 50 animators and more than 200 puppets, including a 12-minute battle and a chase through the city.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, whose credits include Titanic and The Godfather, said stop-motion was far more complicated than he expected.
π The Backstory
Laika is known for Missing Link and Kubo and the Two Strings, and the studio builds new techniques with each film. On Missing Link it fitted puppets with a small diaphragm so they appeared to breathe, and the trick became standard.
For Wildwood the team used more flexible fabrics and made a lighter, stronger silicone to replace foam latex, which smells and crumbles over time. A tracking system keeps tabs on hundreds of puppets.
Knight has said generative AI is "antithetical" to what the studio does, which is why the film is entirely handmade.
π― Why It Matters
Handmade animation takes years and large teams. Wildwood shows what that effort buys: detail and movement that computer animation still struggles to copy.
Wildwood is the sixth film from Laika, the studio behind Coraline, and it took a long time to reach cinemas. CEO Travis Knight optioned Colin Meloy's book in 2011, but production did not begin until a decade later. Knight says he has worked on it in some form for 16 years.
The story follows a girl named Prue, who enters a forbidden wilderness near Portland to find her baby brother and finds a world of spells, talking animals and warring groups. It took nearly 50 animators and more than 200 puppets, including a 12-minute battle and a chase through the city.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, whose credits include Titanic and The Godfather, said stop-motion was far more complicated than he expected.
Laika is known for Missing Link and Kubo and the Two Strings, and the studio builds new techniques with each film. On Missing Link it fitted puppets with a small diaphragm so they appeared to breathe, and the trick became standard.
For Wildwood the team used more flexible fabrics and made a lighter, stronger silicone to replace foam latex, which smells and crumbles over time. A tracking system keeps tabs on hundreds of puppets.
Knight has said generative AI is "antithetical" to what the studio does, which is why the film is entirely handmade.
Handmade animation takes years and large teams. Wildwood shows what that effort buys: detail and movement that computer animation still struggles to copy.