Today, an AI generates an image in seconds. Laika decided to go in the opposite direction.
For Wildwood, its biggest film, the Oregon studio moved 231 physical puppets frame by frame across 136 hand-built sets. Every second of film consists of 24 frames, and on one of its winged characters, according to the sources consulted, the feathers were applied one by one. One animator, Dobrin Yanev, spent more than a year and a half on a single aerial sequence featuring an eagle.
For some, it’s proof that human talent cannot be replaced. For others, it’s years of work that technology could accomplish in a fraction of the time. Even so, the studio itself made the crows in a key sequence digital.
Is it worth spending years on something a machine promises to do in minutes?