Behind The Scenes Of ‘Spongebob & Sandy’s Nation Christmas’ Cease-Movement Particular
From the time Stephen Hillenburg created Spongebob Squarepants, in 1994, the sassy pants-wearing sea sponge has embodied an anything-goes perspective. For Nickelodeon govt producers Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller, Spongebob and different denizens of the underwater city of Bikini Backside have been a mainstay of boisterous animated enjoyable – for greater than 300 episodes, three options, and spin-offs together with the current Netflix movie Saving Bikini Backside: The Sandy Cheeks Film, and now, a brand new stop-motion vacation particular, Spongebob & Sandy’s Nation Christmas.
A lot of Spongebob’s appeal springs from the character’s irreverent humor (voiced by Tom Kenny) and the sequence’ eclectic use of animated mediums. These have included 2nd animation at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California, and Tough Draft Studios in Korea, and oddball bursts of puppetry and stop-motion created at Screen Novelties – co-founded by Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh, and Chris Finnegan in Los Angeles. “We search for any alternative we will to work with Display Novelties,” govt producer Marc Ceccarelli advised Cartoon Brew. “We’re at all times asking, ‘Are they obtainable for this one?’ And since we had executed one Christmas particular already with them, it appeared like a pure to do one other.”
Cartoon Brew spoke with Ceccarelli and Waller about Spongebob’s newest stop-motion sojourn. The musical half-hour, which options the return of Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence) and her Southern squirrel household who try to save lots of the vacation spirit in Bikini Backside, debuted this week on Nickelodeon and is presently streaming on Paramount+.
Cartoon Brew: Does Spongebob require a distinct paradigm in cease movement?
Vincent Waller: Not once we’re writing and storyboarding. The one distinction is that we don’t should take the boards to as completed a stage as we do with RDK [Rough Draft Korea]. It’s simpler for us, as a result of we simply needed to concentrate on getting the story and timing proper, after which Display Novelties took it from there.
How did you select which characters to characteristic?
Waller: We’d simply executed the [Netflix] Sandy film, and so this was an opportunity to deliver them into the present. Marc had designed all of Sandy’s household, and so we despatched Display Novelties his unique designs to interpret with their model.
How detailed did you get in your animatic?
Marc Ceccarelli: Visible humor is an enormous a part of the 2nd present. However the animatics come collectively after we’ve written a script with our writers, after which we give that to our board artists. On this case, as Vincent mentioned, we didn’t go to clean-up, however we did go to ‘plussing’ [building on existing ideas] for tweaks. After which, we went by means of the animatic to get it to the suitable size and get all of the scenes up. However we belief Display Novelties a lot, we like to allow them to play. They reboarded some sequences to work in concepts that solely they might think about. As an example, we despatched over one music they usually got here again with a suggestion as a result of it was Sandy’s nation Christmas, ‘May we countrify this music and make it right into a sq. dance?’ We gave them carte blanche. They obtained with our music man and labored out a complete new scene the place they’re all [mimes square dancing].
Did your voice recordings inform the animatic?
Waller: We do scratch tracks [temporary audio before recording the voice artists]. But it surely doesn’t matter how lengthy we expect we’ll want within the scratch monitor, the appearing at all times takes longer. That’s as a result of we’re at all times attempting to suit a scene in a field, whereas the actor within the sales space is attempting to make it appear pure and make it actual.
Per Nickelodeon’s statistics, it took three months to construct 68 puppets, with greater than 300 digitally printed substitute mouths. Had been the puppet builds all new?
Waller: Sure. After we despatched over Marc’s drawings, Display Novelties despatched us their hand-drawn designs, altering proportions a bit of. Of their model, Mr. Krabs is on the skinny facet. We thought, ‘Oh, Krabs obtained some Ozempic!’ The rationale for that was the unique [portly] Krabs would have put him a bit of bit too removed from others within the crowd photographs. In order that they took some liberties, thinning issues up, or altering proportions a bit of bit.
They captured the texture of Bikini Backside very effectively, with flowery shapes floating within the underwater skies. Was that executed in-camera?
Ceccarelli: Display Novelties discovered a option to imitate our skies, and by altering the lighting, they might make it a totally totally different time of day. They constructed the sky in behind, after which they modified the lighting, and that modified every part. Whereas we [in 2d] should make fully new work for each hour of the day.
In vast photographs, the environments generally felt fairly toy-like – had been these acutely aware model gags?
Ceccarelli: They’d totally different sizes of character fashions, relying on the shot. There’s an amazing shot the place we go from a bit of marionette model of the French Narrator on his island, enjoying a guitar. After which, if you reduce in nearer, it’s Vincent in a diving swimsuit on a set that they constructed at Display Novelties. They love enjoying with scale they usually use that for humor. Like, going from an apparent marionette to an apparent individual – we all know that’s not going to idiot anyone, so that you’re in on the joke.
One of many funniest moments is when Spongebob momentarily turns into a live-action puppet on fireplace. How did you try this scene?
Waller: We weren’t round once they shot it, however that they had a puppet of Spongebob, they caught a rod up his rear, put sparklers in him, after which filmed him as they spun him. Display Novelties got here up with all these improvements. That’s why we love them.
Andrew Babik is credited as Display Novelties’ visible results supervisor. Did he deal with the humorous Christmas-themed results, placing diving helmets onto air-breathing characters underwater, and vice versa?
Waller: Sure, and the helmet work is seamless. When Spongebob is carrying the [water-breathing] helmet in Sandy’s dome, you don’t even discover. When she’s pulling Christmas tinsel from his mouth straight by means of his helmet, it’s identical to what we do in 2nd, having Spongebob’s arms come up by means of the helmet. That was the best way to do this.
Ceccarelli: That was one of many issues that we had been most nervous about going into this. We hadn’t confronted the helmet concern, the physicality of that, and the truth that all of the Cheeks household had been going to should be in scenes the place they wanted helmets. We had been nervous as a result of the considered the animators having to raise helmets off puppets to animate them, after which put the helmets again on for each movement was daunting.
Waller: That and reflections within the helmets are nightmares for stop-motion.
Ceccarelli: Display Novelties is so good with their compositing. They do lots of cleanup. The way in which they do stop-motion animation now, they’ve their [animation] rigs in shot, after which they return and rub them out digitally. They already budgeted to do lots of that, they usually have a complete division that handles that in postproduction.
Did you observe animation throughout the four-month shoot?
Waller: Strolling by means of their studio was like using a darkish trip. We’d go previous totally different curtains that opened to those attractive worlds. And although they did use substitute puppets, it was not like that they had a limiteless finances, with as many puppets as they wanted. Seamus and Mark had been generally standing exterior the curtain, ready so they might seize Sandy, and run that puppet over to a different stage.
Spongebob is at all times stuffed with surprises, had been there scenes that stunned you?
Ceccarelli: Oh, sure! Display Novelties makes use of lots of two-dimensional animation attributes of their work – like squash and stretch, which you don’t often see in cease movement. An excellent instance of that’s the scene when Santa falls by means of tree branches. For sure frames, to create distortions, they’d in a short time reduce a puppet out of froth for the form of that body. After which, since they’ve instantaneous suggestions with their digital cameras, they might see if it’s working. That gave it an actual improvisational really feel.
What makes cease movement particular for you?
Waller: Cease movement has at all times been magic!
Ceccarelli: I believe there’s been a resurgence of curiosity in issues that really feel handmade. We’ve seen cg pushed to its restrict, to the purpose the place there’s virtually nothing you may’t think about in that medium. But it surely doesn’t at all times really feel prefer it’s there, in the identical means that cease movement does. I’ve observed some cg-animated options shot on twos in order that characters strobe in the identical means that they do in cease movement. It’s virtually like they knew that was one thing that they wished to seize. If animation feels too clean, it doesn’t really feel like folks have something to do with making it.
