Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

It was first a 2010 short film, then shortly after, it became a children’s book, and now, it’s the most adorable stop-motion movie ever made, as well as the most technologically ambitious. While films in the past have put hand-drawn animation over live-action before, and CGI characters are currently everywhere, never before has stop-motion puppetry been used to this detailed of an extent with technology that’s well ahead of its time. This medium of animation is known for being such an enormous task, and sure enough, this little movie was so complex that it took the storyboard artists three years to create the animatic.
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When creating the props for the film shoot, anything that the cute little shell interacted with had to be either rigged with materials that could be animated or remade from scratch with bendable materials. These props included plants, a couch, and even the dust on a table while these little characters were ice skating on top of it. The animated components in each frame had to be filmed separately from the live-action environment, meaning before they were combined in post-production, they had to match one another perfectly in light, composition, and even camera focus. No other movie exists like Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, and in time, it should pick up momentum and go on to inspire other special effects artists as they acquire a plethora of brand-new tools in their toolkits.

PG (D)
Comedy/Fantasy
1 hr. 30 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to feel HAPPY and SAD.