Wildwood's animators on "negative animation", 300 pins in a velvet dress, and choreographing a sparrow

Animation World Network published an interview on 27 October 2026, recorded at SCAD AnimationFest, with four members of LAIKA's Wildwood animation team: head of animation Brad Schiff, lead animator Rachelle Lambden, animator Jason Stalman, and Tilly Fidler, who AWN says animated nearly every shot of Ember, the film's small sparrow. Lambden and Stalman shared Alexandra, the grieving woman the forest knows as a witch (voiced by Carey Mulligan). The animators' stated aim was to play her as a grieving human rather than a villain.

Most of the interview is about the hidden work between frames rather than the visible pose. Lambden describes "negative animation", which she defines as correcting the animation to put it back to neutral. Wildwood's faces are replacement parts, so every swap disturbs hair and necks. Stray hair tendrils then have to be put back with fine-tipped tweezers, and eyelids corrected with a small blade while the animator braces an elbow on the table. Stalman says he put about 300 pins into Alexandra's velvet dress while animating her, to keep the fabric from moving when it should not. Fidler describes Ember's flight as choreographed: the bird could circle the other characters, but had to arrive at specific places by specific frames, which she compares to a dancer working to marks on a stage. Lambden adds that the animators filmed their own live-action reference for emotional scenes, and that acting despair daily for reference took its own toll.

The durable craft points are folded into the Wiki: negative animation under replacement face systems, temporary pinning under puppet costume engineering, and animator-shot reference and frame-specific choreography under performance reference.