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“Wildwood” director Travis Knight is weighing in on Hollywood’s use of AI.
“I’m not embracing it at all,” Knight told me Wednesday night at AFI Fest’s opening night U.S. premiere of “Wildwood.” “I see technology as a tool,
and we use technology at Laika. A pencil is technology, a paintbrush is technology, a 3D printer is a computer is technology. Technology is useful when you put it in the hands of people, when you put it in the hands of artists who can amplify their voice.
“Technology is not useful when it takes the place of the artist, and that’s the concern with generative AI,” he continued. “It’s an amazing piece of technology, but the concern is that when it supplants the artist, then we have an issue because the computer cannot speak about humanity at all. It doesn’t know what it feels like.”
“Wildwood” is a stop-motion fantasy feature about a young girl (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) who travels into a forbidden forest when her baby brother is kidnapped by a murder of crows. It took 16 years to complete the film, Knight said.
“Sixteen years is a long time,” Knight said. “As I’ve said before, this film is old enough to have driven me to the premiere tonight. But it’s a funny thing because it’s a big fantasy story. It’s a big sweeping adventure story. It’s a beautiful extravaganza. It’s an epic, but that’s not something that sustains you for 16 years.
He continued, “At the heart of it, it has to be something that means something to you and that’s the thing I’m most proud of is that underneath it all, it is something that is really heartfelt, it’s beautiful, it’s emotional and that’s the thing I hope audiences take away from this.”
Knight doesn’t believe that AI could have helped speed up the process — at least not if he wanted to maintain the highest quality. “That very notion fills me with rage,” he said. “Look, that’s the world we live in and the technology seems like it’s only pushing us in one direction, which is everything is going to be simpler. Everything is going to be automated; everything is going to be easier. What I would say to that is that there is something special about the human touch. There is something beautiful about humanity. And that’s one thing that stop motion represents. Stop-motion represents humanity at its finest creativity, emotion, care, devotion, time.
“That’s something that AI could never do because a computer has never felt anything,” Knight added. “It’s never felt loss or love or pain, and that’s something that people can feel and that’s something you feel in something that was made by people.”
The cast of “Wildwood” also includes Jacob Tremblay, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Carey Mulligan, Maya Erskine, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg and Tantoo Cardinal.
Bassett talked about recording her work during COVID. “I wanted to get out of the house, get creative again,” she told me. “It was just right on time.”
See photos from the AFI Fest premiere of “Wildwood” below.
