Wildwood’s director says AI is ‘antithetical to everything that we are at this studio’
Laika CEO Travis Knight explains why he remains hopeful despite the potential for AI to be ‘devastating.’
Wildwood is the most ambitious film yet from Laika, the stop-motion studio best known for the likes of Coraline and ParaNorman. It’s a sprawling fantasy adventure that took five years to complete. The process involved more 230 puppets — including 36 of the main character Prue alone — which were brought to life by a team of 49 animators. All told, more than 1,000 artists worked on the film in some form. The painstaking process that goes into making a Laika film offers a distinct counterpoint to the instant progress promised by generative AI tools.
Recently Wildwood director and Laika CEO Travis Knight joined a chorus of influencer filmmakers in denouncing the technology. So when I had a chance to speak to Knight ahead of Wildwood’s premiere on October 23rd, I asked him what it’s like releasing a film like this at a time when AI tools seem inescapable.
“In so many ways generative AI is antithetical to everything that we are at this studio,” Knight told me. “It’s not that we don’t believe in technology. We do. We use technology, we use computers. We’re not just making films entirely with tools that we’ve inherited from a watchmaker’s widow. A pencil is technology, a paintbrush is technology, a 3D printer is technology, a computer workstation is technology. But all of these things have meaning and value when you put them in the hands of an artist.”
“There is no humanity in what comes out of the other side of that”
In fact, Wildwood is full of technical advances for Laika, many of which iterate on the studio’s previous work.
