00:00I would like to ask you, what are your visual references for creating the characters?
00:07Our starting point was Carson Ellis, obviously.
00:12She's the extremely talented illustrator of the book.
00:16She's got such a distinctive style that is very connected to Wildwood.
00:21And I think even though we wanted to adapt those characters for the story that Travis wanted to tell,
00:29and also wanted to adapt them for the big screen,
00:34we wanted to make sure that there is still a homage to her work.
00:40Because there is something that is very charming, that's very appealing in the simplicity of her illustration
00:48that really connects to Wildwood and to this world of wonder.
00:52And I think we did it as much as we could in the tiny details.
01:01Among the various scenes in the film, I was particularly struck by the final part,
01:06which was also caught in the sky by the birds.
01:09Was it difficult to create these waves?
01:12Yes. Yes, it's very difficult because in stop motion there is no shortcut.
01:19You've got to create everything.
01:20Every pixel you see on screen has to be built from scratch.
01:24Every leaf, every hair has to be done by artists behind working.
01:28And I think because it was very important to showcase the darkness, the violence that goes into that world,
01:41that that final battle feels as big and as epic as it can be.
01:48And so for that, we worked a lot to make sure that we feel that there is thousands of people
01:56in that world fighting right now.
01:58And it doesn't feel like it's a duplicated crowd.
02:03And it feels like it's unique individuals all fighting.
02:06It's humans. It's animals.
02:08And that uniqueness was a lot of work to make sure that each coyote's got their unique fur, you know,
02:14and their unique costume, each bear, each foxes, and each humans have their own identity.
02:19So it feels like those are real people fighting and you feel for them.
02:23Can you repeat what makes Lekka's character so unique?
02:28Well, I think what makes Lekka's character very unique, and you can see it in whole their legacy of work,
02:36and from Coraline, you know, to Whitewood, is they never wanted to shy away from really capturing what life is,
02:49but both sides in a person, in a character.
02:52And they always embrace those contradictions, those imperfections in characters.
02:58So, you know, the lumps and bumps that all the studio might find unappealing
03:03are not good for, like, the final leading character on screen.
03:07Here we actually embrace it, and we like those asymmetry.
03:10We like those imperfections because it makes those characters feel real.
03:15And you get attached to them because you relate to them.
03:18And so I think that's what makes them special.
03:22That's something that, you know, we definitely wanted to also have in Whitewood,
03:26even though the style is way more naturalistic, way more subtle than what, you know,
03:32had been done maybe before for other movies, but here it made sense for the story we wanted to tell.
03:38We try to have those, like, little imperfections, those little asymmetry, you know, improve, for instance.
03:43Those things that just makes her, like, a unique kid, not like a kind of a made-up cartoon character.
03:50Yes, sure. Thank you for your time.
03:53Thank you for your time.
