In 2019, Craig Hammack walked us through ILM’s visual effects work on Captain Marvel. Since then, he’s contributed to Black Widow, Red Notice, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Today, he shares insights into a very different kind of project: the live-action adaptation of Lilo & Stitch.
Eric Guaglione, an Emmy and VES Award-nominated creative, has built a distinguished career as a Director, Animation Director, and Screenwriter. As Show Creator and Supervising Director, he’s led several hit series totaling more than 8 billion views over 180+ episodes. His credits include Star Trek, Mary Poppins Returns, Mulan, and The Angry Birds Movie. He worked as an Computer Animator Supervisor on the original Lilo & Stitch and returns to the franchise in the role of Animation Director for the live-action version.
How did you get involved in this film?
Craig: I was contacted about the opportunity shortly after finishing my previous show at ILM. I had not had the chance to work on a character-driven project in my career, so I jumped at the chance. Soon after, a call was arranged with Dean and the film producers, facilitated by a friend and colleague I had worked with on Tomorrowland, named Tom Peitzman. In the end, it was a bit of a combo deal. ILM would do the bulk of the work, and I would be loaned out to take on the role of the client-side Visual Effects Supervisor and Head of Department.
Eric: I’m very grateful Ben Aghdami, Disney’s VP of VFX, invited me to come on board for the show. Having worked with Ben earlier, I was excited to return to Disney for the project.
What was your feeling to bring this beloved animated feature into the live action world?
Craig: I was very excited and a little terrified. I’m not an animation guy. My background is in architecture, and as an artist, I did FX work. As a supervisor, I’ve gotten the chance to work on a wide variety of projects, but none of them were real character animation. Between the Black Panther movies and Deepwater Horizon, I’ve done projects that have fan expectation and importance, but perhaps not with the brand recognition of Stitch. His likeness is absolutely everywhere. The other daunting part is knowing that he’s a title character who has a large emotional arc throughout the story, but doesn’t really have much dialogue, and who will need to interact quite a bit with a very young actress, who likely hasn’t had much experience with VFX. Stitch is an amazing character to get to do, but yeah, a pretty daunting task and responsibility to the legacy.
Eric: Having been a Supervisor on the original Lilo & Stitch, and knowing how infatuated fans are about the property, I wouldn’t have taken on the challenge unless I felt there was a version where Lilo & Stitch made sense in live action. If you stop to think about it, of all the Disney properties Lilo & Stitch is one that really made sense – live action for the human characters, and animation for the aliens. It’s a clear split.
How did you choose the various studios and split the work amongst them?
Craig: ILM was always going to take a majority of the work, and was originally going to take all the Stitch work. We really wanted a consistency of look and motion, down to the most subtle of things. That said, the work grew, and it became a necessity to spread the work over a couple more vendors. Bringing in a couple of other vendors also gave us some added flexibility at the end of the schedule.
Initially, we were only going to bring in Luma Pictures to help out. There was a chunk of work directly after Stitch crashed to earth that was all nighttime Stitch chaos and made sense as a split. Eventually, Luma would take on the Jumba/Pleakley ship travel shots as they come to Earth as well as the Jumba/Pleakley shots as they get dressed in their disguises. Luma worked out well, but as the rest of the work continued to change and grow, we eventually decided a third vendor was needed.
At that point Tyler Cordova, the Visual Effects Producer on the film, reached out to MPC and was able to enlist them to take on a fun bunch of various Stitch scenes. Sadly, MPC went out of business about 6 weeks before our delivery. They had finished most of the work, but there were some key shots that we had to scramble to get finished. That led us to bring on Untold Studios and give them the monumental task of picking up and finishing those shots. Alongside those vendors, we also had Crafty Apes VFX, Atomic Arts, Cantina Creative, and a small in-house crew do some work as well.
Stitch has such an iconic and specific look. What were the key challenges in translating that design into a photorealistic character while keeping his original appeal intact?
Craig: So many. Stitch is everywhere. He’s such a unique and beloved character design that turning him into a photoreal 3D representation is full of gigantic pitfalls that could easily turn an entire fanbase against you. Luckily, we had a fantastic concept artist we were working with for him. Ben Wooten did some early explorations that Dean loved, and we were able to build from. With a character like this, there’s really no design aspect you can deviate too far from without people coming after you with pitchforks. A few of the important questions that had to be answered, though, were what the quality of the fur would be, what his overall size and proportions would be, and how we were going to deal with the eyes to get the most expression. With the fur, we wanted to make sure we could still get a very clean silhouette as he strikes his poses, similar to the line drawing, but also wanted him to feel soft, cute and huggable. We went with Koala/alpaca fur for the short hair of the body and more of a laid-down dog hair for the face, to ensure we could read as much expression as possible. His size in the original is closer to Lilo’s. She’s a little smaller and he’s a little bigger, so that it can be a buddy relationship. For us, it was important that he be believable as a pet, and not be scary or dangerous looking in the real world next to Lilo. For the eyes, there is a quite detailed full pupil/iris to the eye, but as soon as you see too much of it, you lose the ‘Stitch’ look and things get odd, so we play that very subtle and use the large black eyes to actually emphasize the rest of his facial expressions. We also found that, similar to the original, we needed to cheat very specific spec hits in his eyes to keep them alive and familiar to the original way he is drawn.
How did you approach the development of Stitch’s fur, eyes, and overall texture to ensure he felt tangible and present within live-action environments?
Craig: Some of this was covered in the previous question, but the short answer is always lots of real-world reference. As mentioned, Ben helped guide us to about half a dozen different kinds of animals that we could reference for body hair vs chest/belly hair vs face hair vs ear hair. Also, it was important to Ben and Dean that the hair color had the kind of complexity that you see in real nature. Where it’s not that each hair shares a blue tone, but that at a distance, the hair complexities blend to a blue tone. Up close, the hairs are actually multi-colored. Some hair is white, some is black, and some is blue, and each changes slightly down the length of the hair too. Because of this—and the fact that hairs are cylindrical—they shade differently at different light angles, so any small tweak to a parameter can throw the look and feel off dramatically. This leads to a very long development process to get it right. For the eyes, we found animals like deer and seals to be excellent references for the complexities you can get out of large/dark eyes.
In terms of animation, how did you balance cartoony expressiveness with realistic movement to make Stitch feel both grounded and full of personality?
Eric: The joy of animating Stitch is that he’s fundamentally “real.” What I mean is that Stitch can shift from extreme naughtiness to moments of inner reflection and sincere compassion. It so broad, and it can shift so quickly. It allows us in animation to capture these changes and flaunt how real his behaviours can be. Ironically, it’s not about being particularly cartoony, it’s more about inner thoughts, emotion and character appeal.
Speaking of appeal, I was insistent that Stitch’s poses followed the ideas behind the drawn version. It’s much easier to control shapes and forms when hand drawn. Animating in CG is more like animating a puppet. So it was important to strike the right poses, to maintain the look and appeal of the original – no simple task. I provided a number of guides and draw-overs to steer the team in achieving “on model” poses with our CG puppet.
Were there particular scenes or sequences that pushed Stitch’s animation to new extremes—emotionally, physically, or comedically? How did you tackle them?
Eric: It’s rather subtle but I think live action offered us room to add a layer of detail to Stitch’s resistance to becoming a “model citizen.” I love the added detail the animators were able to add, for instance swatting away at Lilo’s kind gestures, or how Stitch manically struggles to resist smashing every wine glass on the table. It was also fun, and challenging to play off the live action actors. One has to watch carefully, to time the animation’s humour against what has already been filmed.
Stitch is constantly switching between mischievous chaos and tender vulnerability. From an animation standpoint, how did you approach conveying those emotional shifts without breaking the realism of his performance?
Eric: Just as in the original animated feature, we establish Stitch as Jumba’s ‘experiment 626’ – designed to destroy. He’s a menace to society. Over time, and especially as he integrates into the dysfunctional “’Ohana” (family) of Lilo and Nani, it exposes Stitch’s vulnerable side. Lilo gives Stitch her unconditional love, something Stitch is unprepared for. The fun part is animating Stitch in deep conflict — his innate badness struggling against the newfound sense of belonging. It’s what makes Stitch seem so real – his inner conflicts are exposed for all to see, making him relatable.
Were there specific performance tests or animation studies you developed early on to find the right rhythm and energy for Stitch in a live-action context?
Eric: There were a number of animation tests done early-on to explore Stitch’s more animalistic side. Our Director was interested in exploring a more dog-like behaviour but ultimately it was felt that steered too far away from the beloved nature of Stitch – the mischievous alien who play-acts “dog” as a ruse to get Lilo to provide his safety from capture.
For me, the question was, “can the original film’s animation style play well sitting directly into a live action world?” The answer was a resounding yes, and therefore the results feel more true to the original than many other adaptations. It really helped that the character designs were also quite faithful to the original. It was more about adapting the designs for a full in-the-round view rather than fundamentally changing them for the sake of “realism.”
Stitch often moves in ways that defy traditional anatomy—climbing walls, contorting, or reacting in highly exaggerated ways. How did you adapt those movements for a more grounded visual style while keeping his iconic behavior?
Eric: Our approach was to capture a sense of weight and presence to Stitch’s movements, to make him fit convincingly into the live action world. That being said, we didn’t limit ourselves with too much logic. The first rule was always “make it feel right and entertaining, then worry about realism.”
Can you describe your collaboration with the voice team or motion references (if any) to inform the timing, facial expressions, or gestures in Stitch’s animation?
Eric: I strongly encourage animators to do their own acting reference so that they can explore and actually feel the performance rather than solely relying on visuals. They also studied the voice actors’ recording sessions. We always strive to find those little natural and sometimes accidental things one sees in real performances, that can add depth to animated performances.
For the live action remake of Lilo & Stitch, we leaned heavily on the original film’s animation style. I even edited down the original to Stitch-only, or Pleakley-only sequence of clips, so that it was easier to scrub through these references. We were never aiming to copy the original, but rather, I was keen on capturing the essence of the original to make this live action version feel like the original. There were some iconic moments where we stayed pretty close to the original, such as, “…Stitch…. My name – Stitch.” We just loved them so much – we didn’t want to change for the sake of change.
What were the main challenges during the shoot when it came to Stitch’s presence—did you rely mostly on stand-ins, puppets, or eye-line tools to help the actors interact with him convincingly?
Craig: I entertained quite a lot of options in prep for a more advanced/tech solution, but knowing that Lilo was going to be a very young actress it seemed like the more personal and friendly we could make it the better, even if that meant quite a bit of messy plate cleanup for our amazing roto and paint team.
Can you walk us through the process of creating one of the more complex alien characters—from concept art to final animation?
Craig: I’ll use The Grand Councilwoman as a good example. It all starts with the original movie and a conversation between Ben Wooten and Dean. From that Ben started iterating on concepts that would bring a new, more realistic look, but taken from the key forms and ideas of the Chris Sanders version. To get her photoreal was again a matter of various real-world references like dolphin skin and ostrich knees and toes. Our feature costume designers helped with the costume design and material studies. To shoot the beach scene at the end of the movie we had a very tall actress in tall platform shoes as a stand-in for eyeline, blocking, and some rough lighting reference. At that point it’s handed off to ILM and Matt’s team.
Were there specific technical or artistic challenges in animating the aliens’ interaction with human characters or the environment—especially for scenes involving physical contact or dynamic movement?
Eric: Don’t look too closely but the biggest discrepancy lies in shots where Lilo physically interacts with Stitch, when she’s picking him up. Given that he’s supposed to weigh a lot, that would make Lilo a rather strong little girl! Hopefully the beautiful animation and VFX work, plus the emotion of the moment, distracts one from this little fact!
Otherwise, the puppeteers and on-set tricks to move objects, helped not only the actors to have something to act against, but provide us timing cues for the animation.
Did you use different animation techniques or rigs for the aliens compared to Stitch, given their varied anatomies and personalities?
Eric: Alien Pleakley was one of my favourite characters. Much like the original, we went for a very fluid, organic squid-like floppy motion. The animators totally embraced how much fun Pleakley could be. And he looked great set into live action – wonderfully ridiculous and slimy.
Jumba, too, was modelled after the original, but unlike the drawn version, we had to fit Jumba into physical spaces on the set. Only then do you realize how big he is, as he squeezes his belly sideways through a door frame. It added a dimensionality to him not explored as much in the original.
Were there any memorable moments or scenes from the series that you found particularly rewarding or challenging to work on from a visual effects standpoint?
Eric: The most difficult animation shots were those that required physical interaction with the actors. Thank goodness all of them gave us performances that made it plausible these characters were in their midst. In particular, Maia’s (Lilo’s) performances were so endearing and perky, and Sydney (Nani) acts so naturally. It’s rare to see the energy so well matched between actors and characters that are not actually present on set, especially considering the zany vitality of Stitch, Pleakley or Jumba.
Looking back on the project, what aspects of the visual effects are you most proud of?
Craig: It’s always hard to objectively look at something you are so close to, but I would have to say I’m very proud of the consistency of the work, especially the Stitch scenes. He’s a title character who does quite a bit in quite a few environments. In the end, a very challenging creature shared across 4 vendors, in my opinion, stayed consistently looking good. A few of the individual moments that I’m most proud of are Stitch on the bed drinking the lava lamp, and the emotional shots of Stitch sitting on the bottom of the ocean resigned to his fate. Absolutely gorgeous work by ILM in both cases.
Eric: It’s surreal to have worked on the original Lilo & Stitch, and then over 22 years later, work on the same film. I had hoped for an outcome that felt fresh but true to the original without simply copying it. I’m proud of the outcome. Even fellow Disney colleagues who worked on the original with me have expressed their pleasure of this remake.
How long have you worked on this film?
Craig: I believe I started serious discussions about the project in the fall of 2022.
What’s the VFX shots count?
Craig: VFX shots in the final cut: 1673.
A big thanks for your time.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
ILM: Dedicated page about Lilo & Stitch on ILM website.
MPC: Dedicated page about Lilo & Stitch on MPC website.
© Vincent Frei – The Art of VFX – 2025
