This paper looks at methods and processes behind the short CGI Animation film ‘The distance between the staircase and the sky’ (Athanasopoulou, 2022), which formed a core part of my doctoral research in VR, empathy, and experimental documentary (Athanasopoulou, 2023). The expression ‘to make room’ is explored in multiple ways: in the sense of creating and experiencing a virtual space/place through VR and AR; as crafting digital landscapes and architectural interiors with digital photogrammetry for a short animated film; as allowing distant collaboration through performative exchanges. Rather than focus solely on the technological ‘black box’, room is also made for the collaborator through augmenting their voice by poetry, within processes set in motion - in a very physical sense - via walking. Within much of the discourse around XR, attention is paid to technological innovation; however, the practice discussed in this paper ‘makes room’ for the body in the centre: the player’s body that animates the immersive technologies; the animator’s body translating physical space into digital space and, ultimately, into filmic space - so that the viewer can also gain a ‘sense of place’ within the space of the cinema. In these times of simultaneous enthusiasm and dread over the power of AI, can we make room for Animation to empower and enlighten technologies of immersion? Instead of repeating the often unsubstantiated empathy claims of XR, can we use its tools to move and to be moved, through films and experiences animating us as makers, viewers, players, and theorists? By sharing the hidden pipelines of an experimental digital filmmaking practice enriched by philosophy and Practice-as-Research, this paper makes room for Animation, Virtual, and Augmented Reality to play together.