Wildwood filmmakers drew on a Billie Eilish doll and Kuwait oil fires
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel also studied footage of Kuwait's oil fires as a reference for the film's final battle.
Laika’s stop-motion film "Wildwood" drew its look from a Billie Eilish doll and footage of Kuwait’s oil fires, its filmmakers said at Contenders Film Los Angeles, Deadline reported Nov. 14.
Director Travis Knight, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and visual effects supervisor Steve Emerson discussed the film’s blend of frame-by-frame animation and visual effects. Knight said the process leaves little room to redo a shot.
"When you're making a stop-motion movie, you cannot shoot any coverage," Knight said. "If the angle wasn't quite right, we need to widen out, you can't do that. That would take an animator three weeks to reshoot."
Knight joked that the crew might otherwise be curing disease or developing sustainable energy. "Instead, they're helping me make a puppet look sad," he said.
Deschanel began planning shots before the film’s characters were complete, so he tested a puppet from an earlier Laika production. He photographed Norman from "ParaNorman" in the woods, using both sun and fog.
"I found this Billie Eilish doll, I ordered it, I brought it into the sets and would play around with the lighting," Deschanel said.
The film adapts a book written by Colin Meloy of the indie rock band The Decemberists and illustrated by Carson Ellis. Knight spent 16 years working out the adaptation and how to bring Meloy’s descriptions and Ellis’ illustrations to life.
The Portland, Oregon, story follows 13-year-old Prue, voiced by Peyton Elizabeth Lee, as she sets out to rescue her infant brother. Her classmate Curtis, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, joins her, and the film concludes with a large-scale battle.
Emerson said Knight told the team, "This thing is going to escalate and we're going to do a hellscape." The filmmakers mapped out the battle in storyboards because they could not animate material they would leave unused.
Deschanel found a reference for the sequence in the 1992 IMAX film "Fires of Kuwait," studying its footage of the oil fires. "There was all this smoke that was really dark that would cover over in the middle of the day," he said.
Deschanel wanted occasional breaks of sunlight, but he said Knight disliked the idea. Knight "ended up creating this incredible dark space that ended up being better," Deschanel said, though he added that he got some sunlight into the ending.
Emerson said the effects available to the team allowed it to "put the audience's eye where we want them to look, which was at those stop-motion performances."
"There are no digital elements not being informed by practical elements," Emerson said. Knight described the final battle as "a ballet between the practical and the digital."
Knight said getting both "Coraline" and "Wildwood" made was a fight for Laika. "It's getting harder and harder to make anything with consolidation," he said.
"Art needs advocacy. It needs champions," Knight said. "That's what we're trying to do at the studio. We're one voice. Others will join us. We have to."
"Animation doesn't just have to be for small children," Deschanel said. Deadline said it would post video of the panel Monday.
