# Laika built puppets that breathe

> Inside Wildwood's frame-grabbers and breathing puppets, plus two very different animated films from TIFF 2026.
- Title: Laika built puppets that breathe · The Verge | Shortify
- Summary: Inside Wildwood's frame-grabbers and breathing puppets, plus two very different animated films from TIFF 2026. Stop-motion stopped looking like stop-motion…
- Keywords: animation, stop-motion, laika, tiff, film, technology, culture, built, puppets, breathe, The Verge
- Source: The Verge — https://theverge.com/entertainment/994314/tiff-2026-wildwood-stuffed-julian
- Author: Andrew Webster
- Published: 2026-09-12T13:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: animation, stop-motion, laika, tiff, film, technology, culture
## A short day at TIFF
A scheduling mishap cut day two of the Toronto International Film Festival down to two screenings, plus an early look at one of the year's most anticipated films.
## You know Laika's work
The studio behind ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings has gotten steadily better at both craft and technique with each film.
## Wildwood hits next month
Laika's next stop-motion feature arrives in theaters on October 23rd, and the trailer alone shows animation far smoother than anything the studio has made before.
## Frame-grabbers killed the stutter
Digital cameras let animators watch every recently shot frame as they work, tracking each puppet movement so nothing jerks unless someone wants it to.

> There's no reason for stuttery animation, other than a stylistic choice.
## An art form mid-evolution
Head of animation Brad Schiff frames the smoothness not as a trick but as stop-motion growing up on better tools.

> We're in the midst of the evolution of an art form.
## Puppets that breathe
An internal diaphragm called a breather, first tried on 2019's Missing Link, is now fitted to every major puppet. Characters visibly inhale, and they read as human.
## A bike chase in Portland
Unfinished clips showed a fast, tense chase through the city, plus a girl escaping a mansion of tail-chasing guard dogs and soaring on a giant bird.
## The numbers behind it
233 puppets, 36 of them versions of the lead girl Prue, 49 animators, and 231 weeks from first frame to finished film.
## Julian, made with heart
Cartoon Saloon's hand-drawn film follows a seven-year-old obsessed with mermaids, clashing with his conservative grandmother in Brooklyn. The ending will get you.
## Stuffed is a taxidermy musical
A lonely man answers an ad promising to make him exceptional and meets a taxidermist who wants to stuff a human. Then they fall for each other, which complicates things.
## Key takeaway

Stop-motion stopped looking like stop-motion because Laika gave its animators instant playback and its puppets a working set of lungs.