Interview: Brian McLean & Oliver Jones – Wildwood

For Wildwood, the Puppet Department led by Oliver Jones and Rapid Prototype Department headed by Brian McLean represent two complementary sides of LAIKA’s highly specialized stop-motion process. Jones has been at Laika since its early years beginning with 2009’s Coraline (2009), and before that, he cut his teeth on Fantastic Mr. Fox. Also dating back to Coraline, McLean, has been instrumental in integrating 3D printing with traditional stop-motion. On Wildwood, Jones’ team built three versions of the enormous golden eagle known as the General, including a five-foot-wide puppet with more than 3,000 individually movable feathers — a true technical marvel, while McLean’s team produces the unique facial assets required for virtually every frame — the second per second transformation of a rolling teardrop on Prue’s face requires the quality control of F1 pit crew level.

I had the chance to ask them questions about their process on Travis Knight’s Wildwood – which will receive its world premiere on October 11th at the 70th BFI London Film Festival followed with the theatrical release on October 23rd via Fathom Entertainment in the U.S. I highly encourage to whet your tastebuds at LAIKA studios’ Youtube channel which offers a fascinating deep dive into the creative process.