Interview: ‘Wildwood’ Director Travis Knight Discusses Just What Goes into Making a Film at Laika

Travis Knight is more than a filmmaker. He’s the current CEO of Laika, having served in all sorts of positions at the stop motion animation studio. Having worked on nearly all of his films, directing Kubo and the Two Strings, he’s made Laika a part of his life. For over a decade and a half, he worked on Wildwood, which wound up being the second stop motion project he’s helmed. This feels like a culmination of all his work at Laika, though hardly his final word in animation. Last week, as the flick was about to come out, I had a few minutes on Zoom to speak with Knight. Today, our discussion comes your way.

In my review of the film last week (here), I spoke about Knight and company like so:

Director Travis Knight and writer Chris Butler are Laika stalwarts, with this their most ambitious work to date. Adapting the novel by Colin Meloy (illustrated by Carson Ellis), this is truly one of the most gorgeous animated works ever made. Cinematography from Caleb Deschanel is stunning, both transporting you to another world while never letting you forget the love that went into every single shot. The visuals are amazing, while the score from composer Dario Marianelli sours. Knight and Butler also did good work with Masters of the Universe earlier this year, even if this is more of a passion project.

Below, you can see my conversation with Knight. We had very little time, as is the case with press days centered around TV style interviews, but I think we made the most of it. Who better than Knight to talk about just what goes into making a movie at Laika? I think it’s especially interesting considering is other directorial outings have been live action and toy based, with Bumblebee and Masters of the Universe earlier this year (which I fondly reviewed here). Anyone who enjoys Laika, stop motion animation, or just quality animated storytelling will have a glorious time with Wildwood. If you haven’t seen it yet, get on that immediately…

Here now is my interview with Wildwood director Travis Knight. Enjoy:

Wildwood is in theaters now!