Wooden puppets and miniature sets: Inside the making of the short stop ‘Over the Garden Wall’
Since its release in 2014, the Cartoon Network animated series Over the Garden Wall it has become a cult classic. The 10-episode show follows brothers Wirt and Greg on a journey through a magical forest known as “The Unknown.” It has all the ingredients for an annual fall watch: Skeleton jack-o-lanterns, truly foreboding evil powers, beautiful animation, and a thought-provoking storyline. And this year, in the series’ 10th anniversary, fans will get something new Over the Garden Wall content for the first time since its inception.
Today, Cartoon Network and animation studio Aardman are set to release a three-minute short celebrating the original festival. The short was written by directors Dan Ojari and Mike Please (who previously put together a stop-motion short) Robin Robin) alongside show creator Patrick McHale, and features new voices from the original cast including Elijah Wood (of The Lord of the Rings honor) as Wirt. Unlike the original series, which was done in a 2D digital animation style, the short is entirely stop-motion.
Rethinking Over the Garden Wall in a new animation style, the team of Ojari and Please rely on almost realistic effects. Wirt, Greg, and other hand-carved cartoon characters stand a few inches tall (or smaller, in some cases). The short sets—which took about two months to build—are elaborate scenes, including a magical forest brought to life in animation.
We spoke with Ojari and Please to discuss the production of the unique short, the return of the game’s original cast, and the fear of some fans that the short is made using AI.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How did the idea for this day come about?
Ojari: Patrick McHale contacted us earlier this year, around March. He sent us an email on Monday morning, but I think it came in early, because we both looked at our phones when we woke up and saw this email from Pat with this dream proposal. It felt like a weird dream—we both started acting like, ‘Did you get that email too? Or am I imagining things?’ From there we started talking to Pat about it, and it became clear that it was a real project.
What makes this a dream project for you?
Please: First of all, it’s an extraordinary show, and everyone who watches it, I think, feels this connection to its challenges—the goodness and the horror of humanity packed into this really accessible, rich piece of entertainment. Dan and I obviously watched the show when it came out. I think it’s had this big influence on our work and being able to see the kind of projects that might push mainstream animation. If you check out our other work, like Robin Robinthat we’ve done for Netflix over the past few years, there are tons of real Over the Garden Wall in there.
Were there any design challenges in translating the actors to the moving puppets?
Ojari: Everything in this project came together without much conflict, which is very unusual. We worked with Josh and Nathan Flynn, who we’ve worked with in the past—they did the character design sculpts. For this project, we were able to work with them throughout the process, from figuring out how to translate the characters into 3D to making the actual animations and weapons. They are mega [Over the Garden Wall] followers; Indeed Nathan sent [Patrick McHale] small Christmas decorations for one year.
Please: I have to say, a lot of our stop motion work is built on the foundation of illustration. We start with a solid image foundation. So the translation from Over the Garden Wall it was very natural. They are iconic characters as well, especially these main shapes, so they are completely dedicated to this wooden look.
How much of the animation is real versus digital?
Please: The only thing that is digital is the facial animation. We just finished shooting the last photo, and it’s a big forest, 10×10 square meters. We had five different rooms with different sets. We have a bunch of offshoot mini sets as well.
There’s a great VFX team that adds to the whole atmosphere, and all the characters have these little bathrooms that we have to remove because they don’t stand up very well. [in real life]. So there’s a lot of VFX in it, but all the sets are real; all cartoons are real. Just a CG face.
Ojari: We usually build a world from scratch in a stylized way, but we wanted to make it feel like this could be a real little world, right down to the bottom of these sets. The art department went out and collected real pieces of wood.
Please: There were a few ideas on [announcement] Instagram posts think it’s AI. I was very happy to see that!
Ojari: The good thing is, we have a [behind the scenes video] we exit where we show the process. It seems more important now to write about how you do things, and also because I think the art behind it is reflected in the final result.
What do you think is important about returning to these fundamental principles of animation with animation and motion?
Please: After taking that out and seeing the comments about the AI, how interesting it was to see, because it’s like, “Oh, no, we did the complete opposite.” We couldn’t have invented a more complicated way to bring this world to life. And I think it’s really bright.
I think hopefully when you see it, it will have this sense of immersion in humanity, which I think is a rare occurrence, but it will always be precious. Doing real things, for us, is a lot of fun. Building a giant animated forest is the best way to spend your day. If you were to spend that day doing your professional briefing…that sounds boring as hell.
What was the casting process like? Did you find the original cast in the studio?
Please: Yes, we did. We have Elijah Woods [as Wirt] back in the studio, with Melanie Lynskey [as Beatrice]and Frank Fairfield [as the narrator/Toymaker]. Collin Dean, who played Greg, is now an adult, so we had a limited number of cuts from the original series to build the story structure around.
Ojari: What was really fun was being in the room, and it felt like the show was alive again; the characters were alive. And seeing Patrick – he liked the fact that it revived this beautiful project for a while.
Please: After Elijah’s first take, he asked, “How was it?” And Patrick said, “I don’t know, because what I heard is that Wirt is alive again.”
Can you share any tips on the matter?
Please: It’s two things. Its mission is primarily to celebrate this beautiful world that Patrick created, and to give the fans who have been faithful and loyal to this game for the past 10 years “thank you” for sticking with these kids in the woods.
But also, because Pat has such a deep appreciation for what the world is, and why we can revisit it, that there is a strong theme that stands out about lost memories, and things that have moved on but we revisit them. If something is gone, is it forgotten, even though we no longer see it? So there are these questions raised, even though the series is gone, does it still exist? What does it mean to keep clinging to this world?
So there’s a bit of a meta comment there.
Please: Yes, very meta.
Ojari: I think it’s quite meta. But it also feels like a scene that could have played within the original story, or even after it.
Please: Depending on my mood, when I look back on it, it made me cry a few times, it made me laugh every time. It does a lot of interesting things.
