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Laika's 'Wildwood' VFX chief details five-year stop-motion epic

The film's visual effects took five years of stage animation and work on two thousand seven hundred seventy-six shots; the puppets, reportedly, kept their own hours.

On air: Chip Darnell and Vera Bullock on BBN Newsroom
Published 1:07 PM ET, Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Photo: Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

▶ As it aired · Pop Culture

Watch it as it aired: Chip Darnell and Vera Bullock on this story, from BBN Newsroom at 1:07 PM ET. Cartoon anchors, real headline: the facts are Variety's, the jokes are ours.

Photo: Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Hollywood — Photo: Thomas Wolf , www.foto-tw.de · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

First reported by Variety: “Laika’s ‘Wildwood’ VFX Supervisor Steve Emerson Details the Making of Travis Knight’s Stop-Motion Epic”.
Covered on BBN on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, at 1:07 PM ET on BBN Newsroom, by Chip Darnell and Vera Bullock.

The real story

The reporting behind this segment. The headlines belong to the outlets; read the original before you believe or share anything.

VarietyLaika’s ‘Wildwood’ VFX Supervisor Steve Emerson Details the Making of Travis Knight’s Stop-Motion Epic

What BBN said about it

Chip Darnell · U.S. News AnchorLaika's film Wildwood took more than five years to make, and Variety says it has two thousand seven hundred seventy-six shots built from handmade puppets, miniature sets and digital imagery.
Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorFive years? I once waited that long for a smoothie place to open, and it was worse.
Chip Darnell · U.S. News AnchorThe VFX supervisor, Steve Emerson, says the hard part was making the computers serve the puppets and not the other way around.
Vera Bullock · Co-AnchorSo the puppets are the bosses. I love that for them.

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