New Exhibition: Behind-the-Scenes of Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio Film at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Film director Guillermo del Toro with a puppet of villain Count Volpe on the set of Pinocchio. Image courtesy Jason Schmidt/Netflix

A fascinating new exhibition has opened at the Museum of Modern Art showcasing the work of celebrated film director Guillermo del Toro and his latest film Pinocchio. The show explores the world of stop-motion animation, including the team of craftspeople and artists behind the film, reports Antonio Visconti from New York 

The director gazes at a Pinocchio puppet 

with the spectacular church set in 

the background. Image courtesy

of Jason Schmidt/Netflix

Called Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio, the new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art shows the exacting process behind the filmmaker’s first stop-motion animation film. This is only MoMA's fourth major gallery exhibition to focus on the art of motion picture animation since 2005. 

 “With Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, we had the unique opportunity to organize an exhibition during the active production of a feature film by one of this generation’s most important filmmakers,” says curator Ron Magliozzi. “The chance to observe firsthand how Guillermo and fellow director Mark Gustafson engaged with the craftspeople and artists on their team inspired our selection and installation of the works on display.” 

Visitors will be able to explore the collaborative craft of stop-motion animation filmmaking, from look development to the years-long production process, through a presentation of five full working sets and four large set pieces, alongside puppets and marionettes, maquettes, sculptural molds, drawings, development materials, time-lapse and motion-test videos, digital color tests, archival photography, and props from the film. 

"We had the unique opportunity to organize an exhibition during the active production of a feature film by one of this generation’s most important filmmakers"

Co-director Mark Gustafson with

Guillermo del Toro on the set of

Pinocchio. Image courtesy of

Jason Schmidt/Netflix

There are also images of the hundreds of crew members from three animation studios: Shadow Machine in Portland, Oregon; Taller del Chucho in Guadalajara, Mexico; and McKinnon & Saunders in Altrincham, England, who all worked together under del Toro’s direction to bring the reimagined classic to life. 

There is a scene-setting display of three classical and contemporary editions of Carlo Collodi’s book The Adventures of Pinocchio (1883) from Italy and the United States, including the 2002 edition illustrated by Gris Grimly, which inspired the filmmakers. It features an installation of oversized pizza boxes, which were used during the production of the film to store hundreds of 3D-printed Pinocchio faces, approximately 300 of which will be on view. 

The opening gallery also presents a time-lapse video of an animator at work using stop-motion photography to shoot a Pinocchio puppet being tossed in a wave, contextualized with real-life examples of the multiple Pinocchio puppets used during filming and a fully disassembled version to display all of the puppet’s components. 

“The chance to observe firsthand how Guillermo and fellow director Mark Gustafson engaged with the craftspeople and artists on their team inspired our selection and installation of the works on display.” 

Sets from the film showing the extraordinary

detail and skill of the modellers with the lighting 

and camera set ups. Museum of Modern Art

New York. Image Emile Askey

The first section of the exhibition, titled Look Development, centres on the research and experimentation done by the production team to create the natural elements that made up the film’s world and inspired the appearances of each character. 

This gallery includes the historical and topographical models for Pinocchio’s village, lifelike studies of wood and stone elements, and a number of archival photographs used as references to ground the animation in historical reality. 

The adaptation of Pinocchio is reimagined to be set in 1930s Italy, with fascism on the rise. The pairing of the work Loading Dock 'M' Gate on view in this gallery, with an untitled archival photograph from 1934, depicting the giant "M" installed to meet Fascist politician Benito Mussolini's arrival in a small Italian village, highlights historical source material that informed the production team. 

This part of the exhibition also introduces examples of all of the finished puppets from the film, paired with look- development maquettes in varying stages of the process, such as the silicone and resin castings of vegetables that provided inspiration for the character Dogfish’s monstrous skin, texture, and scarring. 

Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Pinocchio is reimagined to be set in 1930s Italy, with Fascism on the rise

 

The many faces of Pinocchio, 

at the Museum of Modern Art's 

New York Guillermo del Toro:

Crafting Pinocchio show. 

Image: Emile Askey 

The second section of the show, On the Set, opens with a Production Scheduling Board and features eight sets from the production.

This continues the exploration of the studio process, highlighting the attention to detail given to each of the sets, a testament to the handcrafted process of stop-motion filmmaking. Of particular note are the stained-glass windows and frescoes on the walls of the “Church Corner” set that reference both Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio and his other films. 

Animation work screens and time-lapse video recordings interspersed in these galleries give visitors behind-the-scenes insight into how animators use live-action video and stop-motion animation to bring scenes to life. 

The largest Pinocchio puppet, made up of a head and torso measuring approximately 172.2 cm, which was used to film closeups of the character, is suspended from the ceiling. This large-scale hanging puppet is accompanied by a look-development study of the “Branch Nose Bridge” maquette, crafted from cardboard and masking tape.

Animation work screens and time-lapse video recordings give behind-the-scenes insight into how animators use live-action video and stop-motion animation to bring scenes to life

Shadow machine. Columbina Production Puppet.

2019~2020. Steel, wire, resin, paint, fabric, brass.

8.9 x 8.9 x 22.8 cm. Guillermo del Toro's 

Pinocchio 2022. Image courtesy of Netflix

Other props and materials from the film, include the annotated pages from the original musical score by composer Alexandre Desplat, a “Cricket under oversized glass and hammer” prop, and a display of 24 distinctively illustrated editions of Pinocchio from eight countries, dating from 1898 to 2020. 

Three newly commissioned video essays by filmmaker Javier Soto explore motifs that are frequently addressed in del Toro’s films: the monstrous, spaces on screen, and mortality. 

 There are also displays of original studio-edition posters and alternative posters designed by pop artists for the 12 feature films directed by del Toro, along with a site-specific soundscape that will feature acoustic references to the director’s films, by sound editor and designer Nathan Robitaille.

Guillermo del Toro: Crafting Pinocchio runs from December 11, 2022 – April 15, 2023, Floor 2, 2 South, The Paul J. Sachs Galleries of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.