How a Woman Transformed Her Anxiety into a Stop-Motion Film Featuring 20,000 Photos of Her American Girl Dolls (Exclusive)

Michelle LeeWed, July 1, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC

0

Leia Everett posing in front of her American Girl dolls and stop-motion film setsCredit: Leia Everett -

Leia Everett has loved American Girl dolls since she received her first doll, Eloise, in 2009

When she was a tween, she turned her interest in filmmaking into her own stop-motion films starring her collection of dolls

Recently, she's been working on a new film called The Tower and reveals to PEOPLE what went into creating the project, which she will release later this year

What happens when you give your dolls the life you dreamed for them? Well, one Los Angeles woman has the answer.

Leia Everett has had a "fascination" with filmmaking and stop-motion movies since she was 10 years old. In pursuit of trying her hand at the creative outlet, she began producing her own shorts with her American Girl dolls as the main characters.

In 2012, Everett posted her first self-made stop-motion on her YouTube channel rockstar13studios, where her first American Girl named Eloise, and her "big personality," starred in different storylines, some — like the video titled "Eloise's Singles' Guide to Valentine's Day" — drawing from real-world experiences.

Lei Everett posing with her American Girl doll EloiseCredit: Lindonna Everett

"From then on, my entire life was completely taken over by my dolls," Everett, now 26, tells PEOPLE. "Every day after school from seventh grade through senior year, I was writing, filming or editing. On every vacation, I was accompanied by a doll and my camera."

Everett went on to study film at California State University, Long Beach, and graduated in 2022. Her next big project is her film The Tower, which follows Eloise on the eve of her college graduation when she receives an "alarming tarot read that sends her down a spiral of bad luck."

She came up with the idea two years ago and has shared behind-the-scenes clips of the making of it on TikTok.

"The inspiration is from a lot of places," she says. "I started writing this a little while after I graduated college and I was so anxious about the future, just like the main character. Too many things were changing really fast and I was feeling forced out of a chapter in my life I wasn’t ready to let go of. I decided to put what I was feeling into a story. Themes like insecurity, existentialism and self-perception are ones I like to write about and are all throughout this film."

Leia Everett pictured in front of one of her stop-motion movie designsCredit: Leia Everett

The independent filmmaker, who owns around a dozen American Girl figurines that were either acquired secondhand or gifted from friends, went to great lengths to bring her story to life, especially when it came to designing the doll-sized sets.

"The story takes place in about 15 different locations: a graduation ceremony, a cubicle office, a car, a park, Eloise’s house and so many more. I made a lot of terrible sketches to plan everything out, and I decided to build one set at a time, film everything I needed, then move onto the next one. I tried my best to film as much as I could in one go, but the reality was, I’d build a set and need to leave it up for a week or two and slowly check off the shot list whenever I’d have time."

Advertisement

Much like being on a real-life set, the so-called filming schedule was always changing. "Some months, I made really good progress and had back-to-back weekends of filming for eight hours a day. Other times, it would take weeks to get through one scene. I moved and went half a year without being able to film at all." The literal filming location was also uprooted after she had moved out of her "small apartment," where she would set up a designated corner in the dining room for her project her three roommates were all "very supportive" of her hobby, she says.

She already owned most of the props, dolls, costumes and equipment and only needed to buy a select few materials, like fake foliage and scrapbook paper to act as interior, which was a bonus since Everett funded the movie completely on her own. "It’s really amazing what you can do with only cardboard and hot glue," she adds.

In total, she captured almost 20,000 photos to complete the 30-minute film. "Currently, I’m working on the editing process," Everett says. "This includes the sound design, voiceovers and animations. I have a friend of mine who will compose an original score for this film, which is very exciting. It’s still a long process, but I can finally see the end in sight." Everett has plans to premiere The Tower on her YouTube channel later in the year.

Leia Everett working on a stop-motion project featuring her American Girl dollCredit: Leia Everett

The platform is where she found the "AGTube" community, which Everett describes as a social network consisting of creators making videos with their American Girl dolls. "My summers were spent outside filming and meeting up with other Portland-local ‘AGTubers’ for big group doll photoshoots," she says.

— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"It makes me really happy to see the lasting impact our dolls had," she continues. "They were so much more than toys to us. They gave us a community where we felt understood. We supported each other's videos, had a creative outlet and formed friendships with people from all over the world that we otherwise never would have met. For many of us, it was our first introduction to photography, filmmaking and other creative skills that a lot of us went on to pursue."

Even though we're adults now and many of us have never met in person, that connection is still there. There's an instant understanding when you meet someone who was part of that world because you both know exactly what it meant. AGTube feels like this unique piece of internet history that has so many memories attached to it. I'm really grateful to have been part of that community and to see that those memories still mean so much to a lot of people today."

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”