Dean Fleisher Camp had an excuse to be late for an interview. He was hired by Disney to direct a live-action film version of Stitch at the exact moment he was supposed to talk to io9. A decade ago, a short film made with his friend Jenny Slate was viewed by tens of millions of people on the internet, and now it has been turned into a movie. When Camp did log on, he was very excited about the news that Stitch had become the best-reviewed movie of the year, but he was also a little bit sad that it had become the best-reviewed movie of the year. The co-star of the film is Camp, who is also the director, co-writer, and co- creator of the character. Camp plays himself as a film maker who rents an apartment and finds a talking shell there. He made a movie about the shell and it went crazy. Camp talked about the origins of the film, how it was influenced by properties like Sesame Street, and why it was important the film be stop- motion.
When did you first come up with the idea for a feature and when did it become reality?
I wanted to make a feature out of the original shorts. I like to watch movies. When I made those shorts, I was working as an editor and trying to get into directing. It was the plan all along. You can get the meetings at the big studios, but they aren't interested in trusting you, a first-time filmmaker, to make the movie that you want to make Jenny, the voice of the character's co- creator, felt the same way as I did. It's going to be a longer road, but we're going to do this on our own. We called Liz and said we had an idea for a feature. We have been living with the character for a long time and I was confident we could expand it but needed to find financers. We were very lucky to meet the people at Cinereach who financed it and were instrumental, not just financially, but creatively as well.
The timing on all that was not known.
The short came out in the summer of 2012 We didn't do anything with the character for a long time after making two more shorts and a couple of children's books. Seven years ago, we called Liz and said, "Okay, let's set up some meetings, how do we do this?"
Excellent. You guys had settled on the story at that point but was it always going to be yours as well? There is a meta version of it. Did you consider other ideas?
There were some ideas we explored that felt wrong. Nick Paley, our co-writer, was kind of like "There's no reason to blow this character out" when we brought him to work with us. He gets lost in Paris like the studios recommend. We were like, there is no reason to blow it out because he is already a tiny thing. What is unique and special about him is lost when he is put in outsized-for- a-human situations.
Nick was the first person to say, "Okay, let's see how much we can get away with." How small an adventure can still be an adventure to Marcel and can still be meaningful. When Nick arrived, we focused on it being really small. My character was also related to that.
I don't like being filmed. I don't think I'm an actor. When we first pitched it, my character had the same storyline, but I wasn't supposed to be on camera. My partner twisted my arm into it. In order for this character to self-actualize, he had to lay down the body armor of this camera and become a friend and not just a documentarian.
You work less than a traditional actor.
It's my God. It's much cheaper than that. I don't know who we're getting.
The shorts go viral in the movie just like they did in real life. How closely did your experience in real life match the experience you had in the movie?
The camp had a version of it. I can speak for myself, and say that I experienced a version of myself that said, "Oh, my gosh, it's great that all these people are responding to Marcel and they love him." When something is that big, you also get people that are seeing the wrong thing in him or liking it for a slightly wrong reason that makes me, as his creator, feel misinterpreted. He put up a video that said "Help me find my family" and people were taking selfies outside of his house but it was related to the feeling of missing family.
Everyone talks about how cute and small he is and that is what people write about him. I don't think that's interesting about him. I feel like I have a friend who is brilliant and goes to MIT, but no one asks him about mechanical engineering. Everyone is saying, "Oh, my gosh, you're so small."
The film shows that these shells can talk and think. There is never a question of where he came from when he is famous. Is that left unanswered, or did you never explore that at all?
It was not answered. I didn't want to answer it because I felt like it was pointless. I wanted to get into the meat of this character, not the superficial shock of, "Oh, my God, there's a talking shell!" It took a long time for everyone on our team to believe that it didn't need that moment. The tuning fork for me was always the one that said, "It's a talking puppet" or "It's a nine-foot- tall yellow bird that talks."
You're absolutely correct. It isn't necessary to be in there. I was curious about the way we consume movies now.
Yes, camp. What was the most fascinating writing lesson? We got that question many times. We would do screenings with friends and ask them questions such as "How did they meet?" and "What are the rules of this world?" It's understandable. I came up with the line where Dean said, "You've never talked to anyone before?" andMarcel said, "No, people don't really notice us." We can move on with the movie if we just address it and dismiss it. We didn't get that note again.
The next question is a small detail for the movie.
You're going. I am curious to know if 60 Minutes is included. Did you add it to the script when you knew you could deliver? It's a great reveal.
The camp was always there. You would think that if you made a list of 200 famous news anchors, one of them would return your call. Our list was always just one name long. It was a bit of a gamble.
The way in which we made the film allowed us to try to get a version of it for her before we had to rewrite it. Liz had an interview on 60 Minutes. We were able to get the animatic, which was similar to the storyboards and audio, and she liked it.
There is aSPOILER here.
It is a wonderful reveal. Did you always want to see the film in theaters? It is based on an online story. It could have been streamed. Tell me about it.
Growing up, I loved movies. I went to school to make a movie. I like to watch movies. I wanted the film to be released in a theater. It seemed like it was out of the window when we were finishing it. We were able to show it in theaters. For decades now, people have been trained to believe that they should save theatrical for the big spectacle films. You have to watch that movie on a big screen. comedies are better with a group of people. It's better to see a horror movie with a group of people. There are many reasons to see a film in a movie theater, not the least of which is the spectacle of the film.
Absolutely. I don't want to ask about it because it sounded very difficult, but I read a lot of other interviews about how you made the film. I wondered if there was ever a consideration of making the movie using computer-generated imagery instead of stop- motion. It would go against the character but maybe it would have been simpler.
It could have been cheaper. I'm not sure. The producers would have to be asked. It would have been easier to do. I think that he started off as a stop motion film, and while a few movies prove that good CG artists can pretty, pretty well mimic the look and aesthetic of stop motion, what I felt is always missing from those is I was committed to making this movie as much like that. When I watched the film, I was proud of how many mistakes there were and how emotional it was. You can mimic the look, but you can't bake in mistakes if you can't anticipate them. Stop motion is actually a tactical process. It's not clear. When you have a character like Marcel, who is kind of making due in a world of challenges, that is really emotional.
So, last thing, okay? You have the best reviewed film of the year so far. This weekend, you are going wide. I want to know what you think of the reviews and how you are doing.
It has been great to read how positive the reviews have been. It was surprising and honest. A movie is usually unanimously praised. It makes me feel a little scared. I keep wondering if I am in a coma. It has been good. It has been good.
There was a lot of hope and prayer in this movie. At the end of the movie, we would get a movie that really moved people. Even though there is a technical process going on, we were hoping that it would result in something that doesn't feel technical or mechanical, but really reaches people. It is amazing. It gives me a lot of confidence in my artistic vision. When you say them out loud, they sound dumb.
The movie "Marcel the Shell With Shoes On" is now showing in theaters all over the world.
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