The 12-minute film uses approximately 24,000 drawings of animation: an overall average of 33 per second, beating Ponyo sur la falaise (2008)'s 26 per second as the highest in the history of Studio Ghibli.
One of the short films exclusive to the Ghibli museum.
The witch in the film is Hayao Miyazaki's take on Baba Yaga, a figure in Slavic mythology associated with milling as she traditionally travels by flying in a mortar steered by its pestle.
The field scene is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Harvesters, a Flemish Renaissance oil painting dated to 1565.
Hayao Miyazaki: [gorging on food] Baba Yaga messily slurps fried eggs amongst the piled-up remains of other food.