They say that big things come in little packages, and that’s especially true for Dean Fleischer Camp and Jenny Slate’s stop-motion character Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. The tender little anthropomorphic shell hit the internet in 2010 with a series of short films and quickly became a YouTube sensation. Now, more than a decade later, Marcel stars in his first feature film, directed by Fleischer Camp with Slate returning to voice the shell. The film is currently in theaters across the country.
But bringing Marcel’s miniature world to life was no easy feat. We talked to the film’s cinematographer, Bianca Cline, about the challenges of combining stop-motion with live-action filmmaking. As one of the few trans cinematographers working today, Cline considers it important to tell her story to a new generation of queer and trans filmmakers. She believes her trans identity is not incidental to her creativity, but fuels her practice as an artist. Cline’s credits include Murder Among the Mormons, Belly of the Beast, and Oreo Proud Parent, a short film for Oreo’s Pride campaign.
The Mary Sue: How did you get involved with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On? Were you a fan of the shorts or was it new to you?
Bianca Cline: It was totally new, I’d never heard of Marcel before, and I got the script through my agent and as soon as I read it I was hooked. Although I will say, there actually wasn’t a script when it came … there was finished audio, all the dialogue, sound effects, music was all finished and then there were storyboards to go along with it, so I watched it that way. It was kind of like a mini movie, it was a very unique experience for coming to a film but a really lovely one.
TMS: what challenges do you face shooting a stop-motion film? The process itself seems so painstaking.
BC: The film is very, it’s quite unique, so the process was a blend of live-action mixed with stop-motion. We did it kind of like you would do with a film with a CGI character, where we filmed the movie at a house in Hollywood, where Marcel lives, and we filmed it with a stand-in Marcel. We would put him on a stick or wires and move him through the scene, and we would figure out what the lighting was supposed to be, where focus was going to be, and we’d get a reference of what he should look like.
Then we’d film it again without him, so we had a clean version, and then the stop-motion was done almost a year later, well it got extended because of Covid, and there’s a guy named Eric Adkins (stop-motion director of photography) who was doing the stop motion of Marcel himself, with the same lighting that I created on set, he’d match the lenses I used, and then insert Marcel back into the live-action film we’d shot. So we were constantly trying to figure out how to make it feel real.
TMS: What drew you to cinematography? Was there a movie or TV series that really made you want to explore this craft?
BC: When I was a kid I used to put on plays, and I was always interested in telling stories that way, and as soon as my family had a camera I commandeered it and made it my own, and I filming whenever I could, and my mom said, “you know you could do that as a living?”, and it never crossed my mind, even though I grew up in LA. I just always thought, you know, doctor, lawyer, engineer, those are real jobs, and I was instantly like, yep, that’s what I’m going to do. When I was 16 I saw a movie called Immortal Beloved, and the photography was just gorgeous, and more than that it told the story about music and someone who can’t hear, and it was, it was the first time I realized what cinematography can do, that it can make me feel. Like with music, you don’t have to say it outright, you can just feel it, and I feel that it’s my job as cinematographer to make people feel things that they aren’t necessarily aware of. That movie changed my life.
TMS: Since we’re coming on the end of Pride Month, do you have a Pride Month must-watch movie?
BC: My favorite movie about queer people in general is either Beginners or a TV show called Veneno (HBO Max). Absolutely amazing, I love that show. It’s the best thing I’ve seen about being trans.
TMS: As one of the few trans cinematographers working today, what advice do you have for trans and non-binary folks who want to work in the industry and find community in this business?
BC: It’s really a puzzle I’m trying to figure out. I’m very surprised by how few trans people there are in the film industry, at least in camera crew, where I know most of my trans people. It seems like, and I think it is a place that is very open to trans and queer people in general, so it’s surprising to me that there’s not more trans people involved. I think that maybe that’s just generational, because people my age didn’t grow up in a time where it was more acceptable or that producers were looking for people like us. I think that those things are changing and hopefully will change more. I would say keep pushing. I think there’s this strange thing of confidence begets confidence, and it’s difficult to get confidence without getting started, but I think that if you can fake the confidence for a little bit, it starts to snowball, and you go from there. And then it becomes real. Because you know who you are and you have stories to tell. And queer people in general do have stories to tell!
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On is currently in theaters. You can check out more of Bianca Cline’s work on her website.
(featured image: A24)
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