Wild Kingdom Shooting on location around the state of Victoria in Australia, the filmmakers found a variety of environments for the wild things’ island. “Each location was chosen to visually reinforce Max’s emotions,” says Acord. “[Viewers] can then interpret his emotional experiences within the visual context of a forest, desert or windy cliff-top.” augmented with minimal visualeffects work — a decision designed to allow realistic emotional interaction between Records and the other actors. “Spike wanted the experience to be tactile for both Max and the suit-performers,” Acord explains. “He didn’t want to use CG creatures or force Max to perform to a greenscreen. He knew that using suitperformers would create some limitations, but it was a worthwhile tradeoff — the opportunity of having the suit-performers interact with Max adds so much to the naturalism of the young actor’s perfor- 36 November 2009