Guillermo del Toro has wanted to make his Pinocchio for a long time. “No art form has influenced my life and my work more than animation, and no single character in history has had as deep of a personal connection to me as Pinocchio,” said the filmmaker when his new Netflix adaptation was announced. Now, at long last, his stop-motion Pinocchio film is almost here, and we have a behind-the-scenes clip directly from Netflix’s annual Tudum fan event. Check it out above.

The featurette dives into the timeless art of stop-motion in a big way, demonstrating the painstaking process of puppeteering the characters of Pinocchio through a single scene — an action as simple as a monkey leaping down a set of stairs takes hours of effort. (You can see a time-lapse sequence of it in the featurette). It also requires occasionally comical workarounds; at one point, del Toro delivers his Tudum message from beside a massive Pinocchio head, which is used to make a cricket on Pinocchio’s shoulder appear in correct proportion.

But for del Toro (and for the many meticulous fans of stop-motion), the medium’s images also hold a profound power. “Stop-motion, in the early days where you had the moiré, and the flicker of fur and fabric, even the atmospheric dust on the sets: the imperfection of it was sort of gorgeous to look at,” del Toro says. “Because it told you how the thing was done.” 

Pinocchio aims to combine that imperfection with modern technological advances. “I really wanted this movie to land in a way that had the expressiveness and the material nature of a handmade piece of animation, an artisanal, beautiful exercise in carving, painting, sculpting,” del Toro notes. “But it had the sophistication of movement that research on rigs and puppetry-making have taken us to.”

By the looks of things, Pinocchio (which del Toro co-directed with Mark Gustafson and co-wrote with Patrick McHale) has struck that balance perfectly. The film’s voice cast includes Gregory Mann, Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Tilda Swinton, Christoph Waltz, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson and Burn Gorman. 

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio hits Netflix on Dec. 9; it will also see a limited theatrical release.

With five distinct celebrations, Tudum: A Netflix Global Fan Event includes first-look photos, never-before-seen footage, new trailers, behind-the-scenes access, celebrity appearances, interviews, and more from over 100 of your favorite series, films and specials.