Creating the 'Crow Killing' Sequence in Wildwood Took Laika Artists More Than Five Years (Exclusive)

Laika's latest stop-motion animated film, 'Wildwood,' is the Oregon-based studio's most ambitious film to date, featuring 231 puppets, 54 hero characters, and 136 locations. Written and directed by Travis Knight ('Kubo and the Two Strings'), the film, which opens October 23, follows 12-year-old Prove, a girl who begins a desperate rescue mission to save her infant.

Laika's latest stop-motion animation, Wildwood, is the Oregon-based studio's most ambitious film to date, featuring 231 puppets, 54 protagonists and 136 locations.

Written and directed by Travis Knight ("Kubo and the Two Strings"), the picture opens on October 23. Peru, a 12-year-old girl, embarks on a desperate rescue mission to save her baby brother, Mack, after being kidnapped by a crow. His quest takes him to the Wilderness of the Wild - an enchanted forest outside of Portland.

The horror aspect of the kidnapping scene was one of the most complicated things to capture. For the fog that helps the crows disappear into the desert, Knight looked to Denis Villeneuve's "The Arrival" as his inspiration. And for the sudden appearance of hundreds of crows, he chose Hitchcock's The Birds. "Travis really wanted to feel like these birds were menacing," says facial animation director Benoît Dubuc. "If you have a bunch of them crowding around you, it's scary. But if you have a thousand people around you, it's terrifying."

To create the effect of the birds carrying Mac, animation director Brad Schiff says, “We had monofilament fish hooks on the doll that pulled up her clothes so that when they put the digital props in, she felt like the crows were grabbing her. Sometimes the hooks were on his shoulder, sometimes on his back. The onesie created this sense of interaction between the practical and the digital.

"[Earlier], we introduced mechanical devices inside the puppets, so you could put in diaphragms to expand and contract to make them feel like they're breathing," Schiff adds. This animation adds a real sense of emotional realism to the characters.

This innovation allowed the animators to increase Peru's emotional intensity during the chase. "When Peru freaks out and rides a bike, not only is he moving, but you can feel his breath," says Schiff. As animators animate these puppets, they control not only the exterior of the puppet, but also the interior. It was the animation that added a real sense of emotional realism to the characters.

Performance cheat technology has also been improved in the studio. "Rigging used to be just about defying gravity, but now we can use it to control puppets with tiny screws to tilt them forward, backward, and get microscopic increments that we've never been able to get before," explains Schiff. "It's the little details that make the characters feel alive and grounded in the world."

Facial animation was another innovative development for the team. "The facial animations are created digitally, then 3D printed, and the faces are added to the dolls frame by frame," says Dubuc. "For one second of film, we might print 24 separate faces, so we can get the finesse, the subtlety and the range," he adds.

Knight said this movie is a love letter to Portland. Those familiar with the city will see recognizable locations as Provo races through the streets to save his brother. But aerial photographs also required careful attention to detail. The key was to make the audience feel like they were flying over the city. CG Supervisor Terence Thornberg notes, "We have special calls during the aerial shots, like Mount Hood in the background or the St. John Bridge. Our crew lives in Portland, so it was important to keep the sequence rooted in reality while still working for the story."

Due to the complexity of the production, the crows were designed digitally, while Peru and Mac were practical hand-made puppets. "Terence oversees the rendering to make sure these digital puppets look like real puppets," says production designer Nelson Lowry.

However, before the crows were digitally designed, they were sculpted, and the character department created various parts of the crow—feathers, beak, eyes, and feet—to scan. These constructs were used for blocking sequences and exercises.

"Wildwood" was a massive undertaking that took five years to complete. "We had to reinvent our processes in a number of ways to meet the demands of this project," explains Laurie. "This was the biggest and most complex film we've ever made."

Schiff recalls that he received the first plates in May 2021 and completed it just three weeks ago.

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