Stop-motion animation ‘Wildwood’ is a project that took 16 years to make it to the big screen and is already a frontrunner for next year’s Oscars.
After a murder of crows kidnaps her little brother, a young girl ventures into an enchanted forest filled with talking animals and other magical beings, where a looming war will decide everyone’s fate.
This is the fanciful tale told in “Wildwood,” from the stop-motion animation studio Laika, an ambitious project that took 16 years to make it to the big screen, and already a frontrunner for next year’s Oscars.
“To put that in perspective, 16 years ago, Barack Obama was then a fresh-faced president in his very first term. Oh, it was a better time, my friends,” director Travis Knight said at the film’s premiere in Los Angeles.
“This movie exists because hundreds and hundreds of people poured years of their lives into trying to tell the most beautiful story that they could using their hands, using their imagination,” Knight explained in an interview with AFP.
“That is something that computers can’t do,” added the filmmaker, who is also the CEO of Laika, the U.S. studio behind “Coraline.”
In the age of artificial intelligence, Knight extols the virtues of stop-motion, an animation technique in which the movements of tiny physical objects are captured one frame at a time, to create the effect of fluid motion when played back.
“It is a celebration of humanity because what you’re seeing in this film is human creativity, human artistry, human effort on a grand scale,” he said.
“Wildwood” is the story of Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) and her quest to rescue her brother, who has been taken by the crows into the Impassable Wilderness or the forests outside Portland, Oregon, which are hidden from mere mortals.
Along with her friend Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), Prue discovers a fantastic world, but one in which ambition and grief are fueling discord that could erupt in conflict.
The actors whose voices are featured in the film also helped shape how their characters move. Their gestures were filmed as they recorded their lines, so that animators could incorporate those mannerisms into the movie.
Angela Bassett, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali and Awkwafina are all part of the cast.
For its technical team, “Wildwood” marks a milestone in terms of the expressions created, and the menagerie of animals featured.
The film, inspired by Colin Meloy’s book of the same name, is an ode to Portland, where Laika is based.
