Dec 3, 2024

Behind the scenes of the "Christmas in Spongebob & Sandy's Country" Stop-motion special

From the time Stephen Hillenburg created Spongebob Squarepants, in 1994 sassy pants-wearing sea sponge embodied the attitude of anything-goes. For Nickelodeon executive producers Mark Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller, Spongebob and other residents of the underwater town of Bikini Bottoms will have more than 300 episodes, 3 features, and a recent Netflix movie, "Saving Bikini Bottoms: The Sandy Cheeks Movie," and more. Now, with a spin・off that includes the new stop・motion holiday special "Spongebob and Sandy's Country Christmas", it has become a pillar of lively animated fun.

Much of Spongebob's appeal stems from the character's irreverent humor (voice of Tom Kenny) and the eclectic use of the animated medium of the series. These include 2d animation at Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California and Rough Draft studios in South Korea, as well as puppet shows and storybooks created with screen novelties co-founded by Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh and Chris Finnegan in Los Angeles. It contains a strange burst of pop motion. Executive producer Marc Ceccarelli told Cartoon Brew:"We are looking for opportunities to deal with screen novelties," he says. "We always ask 'is this available?', but since we had already done a Christmas special, it seemed natural to do something different.

Comic Brew spoke with Ceccarelli and Waller about Spongebob's latest stop-motion stay. The musical "half-hour," featuring the return of Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence) and her southern squirrel family trying to save the Holiday Spirit in bikini bottoms, debuted at Nickelodeon this week and is currently streaming on Paramount+.

Cartoon Brewing: Does Spongebob need a different paradigm in stop-motion-

Vincent Waller: Stow, not when we're writing The only difference is that you don't have to make the board a finished level like RDK [Rough Draft Korea]. We had to focus on getting the story and timing right, so the screen novelty took it from there.

How did you select the character that works-

Waller: We just did [Netflix] Sandy movies, so this was a chance to bring them to the show. Marc had designed everything in Sandy's family, so we sent him a screen novelty with his original design to interpret in their version.

Got in on how detailed in your Animatic-

Marc Ceccarelli: Visual humor is a big part of the 2d show. But Animatics comes together after we write the script with the writer and pass it on to the board artist. In this case, as Vincent said, we didn't go to the cleanup, but we went to the "plus" [based on existing ideas] for adjustments. And we went through the animatic to get all the scenes, get it to the right length. But we trust the screen novelties so much, we love to let them play. They re-bodied several sequences to work with ideas that only they could imagine. For example, we sent one song and came back with a suggestion because they were Sandy Country Christmas,"We can countrify this song and make it into a square dance-"We gave them a carte blanche. They got along with our music guy and they all worked out a whole new scene [Mime Square Dance].

Did the recording of your voice inform animatedly-

Waller: We do scratch tracks [Before recording voice artists but it doesn't matter how long we think we'll need with scratch tracks, acting always takes time.] You can also use the following methods: That's because we're always trying to fit the scene into the box, whereas the actors in the booth are trying to make it look natural and real.

According to Nickelodeon statistics, it took 68 months to make 3 dolls and there were more than 300 digitally printed replacement mouths. Did the dolls build everything new? -

Waller: Yes. After sending the picture of Mark, the screen novelty sent us the hand-drawn design, which changed the proportions a little. In their version, Mr. Krabs is on the thin side. We were like, "Oh, Krabs got some Ozempic.""The reason is that the original [portly]Krabs would have put him a bit too far away from the others with a crowd shot. So they took some freedom and thinned things or changed the proportions a bit.

They capture the feel of a bikini bottom very well, shaped like a flower floating in the underwater sky. Was it done with the camera-

Ceccarelli: Screen novelties figured out how to imitate our sky, and by changing the lighting they made it completely different they built the sky behind, and then they changed the lighting and it changed everything. We have to make completely new pictures for all hours of the day [in 2d].

In wide shots, the environment felt quite like a toy at times - a conscious style gag on them–

Ceccarelli: There is a great shot that goes from a little marionette version of the French narrator to his island where they play the guitar as they catch the shots. And when you get closer, it's Vincent in a diving suit in a set they built with screen novelties. They love to play with scales and use it for humor. Just like going from an obvious marionette to an obvious person – we know it's not going to fool anyone, so you're joking.

One of the funniest moments is when Spongebob temporarily becomes a live-action doll on fire.1 How did that scene–

Waller: We weren't around when they shot it, but the novelty of the screen they had Spongebob dolls came up with all these innovations. That's why we love them.

Andrew Babik is credited as Visual effects supervisor for screen novelties. Did he handle the funny Christmas themed effect or put a diving helmet on the underwater air breathing character, and vice versa-

Waller: Yes, you don't notice when the Hermes Spongebob is wearing a [water breathing] helmet at Sandy's dome. When she's pulling a Christmas tinsel straight through his helmet from his mouth, it's the same thing we do in 2d, with Spongebob's arms coming up through his helmet. That was the way to do it.

Ceccarelli: It was one of the things we were most worried about getting into this 1. We're faced with the helmet problem, its physicality, and the fact that every cheek family has to be in a scene where they need a helmet. We were worried.

Waller: That and helmet reflection is a stop-motion nightmare.

Ceccarelli: Screen novelties are very good at synthesis. They do a lot of cleanup. The way they do stop-motion animation now, they have their [animation] rig in the shot and they go back and digitally they have an entire department that already has a budget to do that much and handles it in post-production.

You observed the animation during four months of filming-

Waller: Walking through their studio was like riding a dark ride. We would go past another curtain opened to these luxurious worlds. And while they used replacement dolls, it didn't seem like they had an unlimited budget, with as many dolls as they needed. Seamus and Mark sometimes stood outside the curtains and waited so that they could grab Sandy and run that doll to another stage.

Spongebob is always full of surprises, there was a scene that surprised you -

Ceccarelli: Oh, yes. Screen Novelties uses a number of two-dimensional animation attributes, such as squash and stretch, which are not normally seen in stop motion. A good example of that is the scene where Santa falls through a tree branch. For a particular frame, to create a distortion, they want to very quickly cut the doll from the foam due to the shape of its frame. And they have instant feedback on their digital camera so they can see if it's working. It gave it a real improvisational feel.

What makes stop motion special to you -

Waller: Stop motion has always been magical.

Ceccarelli: I think there was a resurgence of interest in what feels handmade. We've seen cg reach its limits and push it to the point where there's very little you can imagine in its medium. But just like stop motion, it doesn't always feel like it's there. I noticed that some cg animation features are being filmed by two people, so it's like a strike just like the characters do in stop motion and they knew it was what they wanted to capture. If the animation is too smooth, it feels like it has nothing to do with people making it.