Beyond the emotional acuity, much of the film’s ambitious methods can feel like an anachronism in 2026. “So much technical knowhow, dexterity, storytelling, design and vision are required to make a cinematic masterpiece,” Knight told the gallery attendees.“So much” is right: the film pulled together more than 1,000 creatives and artists who collectively created over 140,000 puppet masks, more than 130 sets, on a 100,000 foot stage in Portland, Oregon. “Everything is fundamentally hands on,” Knight went on. “There are 2,775 shots, which by my calculation means it’s over 173,000 frames.”
In a world where AI and algorithms are trumpeting our extinction on a daily basis, Wildwood kicks the conversation in entirely the other direction. “We have these big action sequences. We have these big aerial fights. We’ve got chase scenes. But the hardest stuff to do are the shots where characters are hardly doing anything,” says Brad Schiff, LAIKA’s head of animation. “There’s a lot of emotional intelligence to stop-motion animators.” And a lot of patience. On average, a full-day of shooting results in just one or two seconds of film.
The painstakingly slow pace is rewarded, as a whimsical work is gradually brought to life through a series of frames. “At the end of the work day, you can hit a button and see the life that you’ve created that day,” says Schiff. “It’s so immediately gratifying. And it’s the ultimate magic trick. You’re literally creating life out of an inanimate object.”
For Peyton Elizabeth Lee, who voices the lead character Prue, alongside actors like Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, and Jacob Tremblay, that experience was quite different. “It was a really unique challenge,” explains Lee, who recorded all the dialogue in a sound booth before the puppets and props had even been created. “I became involved in the project about five years ago, and there was already such a clear image of this film and who the characters were in Travis’s mind. And so it was really just about working with him and collaborating with him so that he could really explain to me what this world was and who Prue was,” she continues. “And then just finding the textures and the nuances of my own voice to really build her character.”
