Director, Guillermo del Toro: This is a story about puppets acted by puppets. We wanted the sets and the characters to feel beautifully sculpted and old world. We sculpted the hair, we sculpted the clothes, we sculpted the surroundings. The innocence of Pinocchio, his simplicity, we wanted to do a design that told that story.
Actor, Gregory Mann: He doesn’t have any fancy features. He’s literally just a carved piece of wood with some things sticking out on the side of him for arms and legs.
Facial Animator, Kim Slate: Our goal was to make him feel like a wooden object, something solid and not something rubbery or flesh-like. So we were conscious of using a lot of straight lines and angles, rather than curves. His mouth is sort of a carved object that was just chiseled out of the wood.
Guillermo del Toro: We made him asymmetrical because Gepetto carves him when he’s drunk and he starts with the ear and his hair, and he is really, really careful with that. And then, he goes, “Ah!” And kind of finishes him quick. You know?
Narrator: For each character, the team built multiple puppets in different sizes. This allowed them to film several scenes simultaneously and to adjust scale, depending on the shot. This was a special challenge with Pinocchio and his much smaller sidekick, Sebastian J. Cricket, who lives in a nook inside Pinocchio’s chest.
Director, Mark Gustafson: It’s a very interesting process trying to figure out the size of the characters. There were probably at least 30 Pinocchios. He goes through a lot in this film. So there are a lot of different versions of him.
Guillermo del Toro: We use different size of puppets for different needs. In very few shots, but necessary shots, we need the Cricket on the shoulder of Pinocchio talking to him, whispering in his ear. And in order for him to be the right size, we use this big Pinocchio, [and] this small Cricket.