'Wildwood' Director Travis Knight Discusses Its Mature Themes And Long Development Process
FilmSpeak had the pleasure of sitting down with director Travis Knight to discuss Wildwood, the latest stop-motion animated film From LAIKA Studios, to discuss the film’s mature themes and long development process.
‘Wildwood’ centers on a young girl named Prue (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) who ventures into the mysterious and precarious woods on the outskirts of her city in order to rescue her younger brother who has been kidnapped and bring him home to safety with the help of a young by named Curtis (Jacob Tremblay). Director Travis Knight was eager to speak to the film’s more emotionally mature themes and the long development process from the project’s inception to the big screen, resulting in LAIKA’s most visually ambitious film yet.
The film, like LAIKA’s previous projects, isn’t afraid to delve into more emotionally mature territory and tackle heavier themes for younger audiences while also providing ample entertainment value for them to also enjoy. Speaking about tackling this darker, more emotionally mature material, Knight expressed, “It was critical for me and it was one of the things I held onto most firmly as we were making this movie. The fairytales of our childhoods, they didn’t pretend the darkness didn’t exist. They gave darkness a place to exist…I think it’s one of those things when you’re tackling darker subject matter like we are in this movie about really important things as far as I’m concerned, you know really important things, love and loss and grief and empathy, you want to make sure you’re treating that subject matter with respect.”
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Though the film clocks in at nearly two and half hours, there isn’t a single second wasted in telling this singular story, the pacing and narrative efficiency truly impressive. When discussing the film’s pacing and storytelling, Knight explained, “It’s a very tricky balance. Movies, films, are a time based art. You only have so much time to tell a story. It’s something very different than something like a novel. If you have two hours to tell a story, you want to use that time wisely. I do believe filmmakers have a contract with the audience which is that if you give me your time and attention, I’m going to make it worth your while.”
Before finally hitting theaters, the film has had a sixteen year development process, a process that has only seemed to benefit the film and Knight’s storytelling within it. When speaking about how the extended and exhausting development process helped shape the feature into an even better film, he expressed, “It is frustrating, it is exhausting, it is painstaking and maddening…I think back to kind of how I’ve worked in this medium over many, many years and sometimes there can be frustrations like if only we could go faster, if only there was a way we could speed this process up, but now I have really come to believe that that’s a gift. Time really is a gift. It forces us to slow down, it forces us to make choices that we really meaningfully believe in. It forces us to put effort and care and devotion into what we do.”
Not only was LAIKA’s ‘Wildwood’ worth the long wait, but it is by a wide margin their finest and most dazzling film to date, showcasing an evolution and visual ambition that is matched by the studio’s wonderful and emotionally rich storytelling that treats younger audiences with care and respect, giving them stories they know they can not only handle, but stories that they deserve to have. What Knight and his team of immensely talented and dedicated artists have achieved here is nothing short of remarkable, not only setting a new benchmark for the studio, but for the animated format in general as well.