Bullied banana slug Deb leaves the garden to search the seashore for a shell – her ticket to popularity – only to find the shell of her dreams wedged under ornery beached whale Gisele.
Creator Amanda DeSimone spoke to Melbourne WebFest about the painstaking dedication that goes into creating a stop-motion web series with Slug Seeks Shell (USA).
How did the characters and setting take shape?
In 2016 the world seemed uglier than ever, and I felt compelled to go against my misanthropic nature to create a relentlessly optimistic character in a fantastical world. My sister/co-producer Victoria and I spent a lot of time over the years exploring the tide pools near where we live in Redondo Beach, California. The otherworldly communities of plants and animals that form in these intertidal zones inspired the setting and creatures of Slug Seeks Shell. As our characters are anthropomorphic, I based their personalities and behaviors on those of specific friends, family members and pets we’ve known throughout our lives. In a way, we’re paying homage to them with this series. And, luckily, we’re blessed to have talented voice actor friends who pounded hearts, souls and sass for days into these lumps of clay.
Slug Seeks Shell Teaser
What were some of your biggest stylistic inspirations in creating the look for this series?
We were influenced by the stuff we grew up watching like Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, all of Aardman’s claymation works like Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep and, of course, SpongeBob SquarePants.
Overall, how long have you been working on your series?
Four years. The legends are true — stop motion is incredibly time-consuming.
What is your favourite part of the series?
The vocalizations of the nonverbal character Clamentine, created by our sound designer Doug Johnson. Clamentine communicates with a unique blend of chirps, squeaks, purrs and seemingly human babble which Victoria and I are 99% sure is Doug himself, (he refuses to admit it officially and therefore remains uncredited). Doug is a no-nonsense type and by no means silly, so imagining him making these ridiculous, cute utterances in order to give voice to a clam is both hilarious and touching. Gross fact: Victoria and I saved the clamshell that later became Clamentine from one of our family’s annual Clams Posilipo Christmas Eve dinners.
If they only took one thing, one message, what would you like the audience to take away from the series?
To anyone who’s ever wanted to create something: Don’t wait around hoping to get chosen by some gatekeeper, do it yourself. The tools for creating and distributing high-quality content are now affordable and accessible to us members of the unwashed masses. You may not get rich, but at least you got to have fun making something with your sister and your friends. Send me the link, I’ll watch it.
Has the end product strayed far from your initial vision?
It certainly has. Initially, I planned on doing a quick, crude job of animating the series, including using live-action mouth sync à la Annoying Orange. But when I did some tests in that style, it didn’t fit the tone we were going for. And it looked creepy to the point where it distracted from the story. So I learned Dragonframe (stop motion software) and how to use camera settings and lighting specifically for stop motion. I wound up with much smoother-looking claymation than I’d originally budgeted for time-wise. But I’m confident that it’s more palatable to a wider audience, so I feel it was worth the extra time and effort.
What was your greatest challenge creating the series?
Staying motivated to single-handedly animate frame by frame on my own time and dime. To keep me on track, Victoria, who is a nurse, would stop by after a 12-hour hospital shift to review my progress. I’d press play, and together we’d watch a few seconds of animation go by. While she’d been out helping people during some of the worst moments of their lives, I made an octopus slap a snake on a 2 ft x 3 ft set in my bedroom. At least our mother has always pretended to be equally proud of both of us.
Victoria’s response to my animation efforts would either be a nonchalant “Yeah, looks good” or the dreaded “Uh-oh.” Which usually meant I’d be spending the next couple hours in Photoshop digitally removing a dog hair from hundreds of frames.
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