Dean Fleischer-Camp directs and co-stars in new feature Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which takes the beloved animated character from the popular online shorts (voiced by Jenny Slate) and brings him to the big screen. Studio A24 (which acquired the film from its Toronto premiere last September) hopes families enjoy this journey of Marcel looking for his family. It opens in New York City and Los Angeles this Friday June 24th and expands nationwide on July 15th.

Fleischer-Camp shares some exclusive moviemaking secrets, from the stop-motion and voice work, to a “60 Minutes” producer convincing him to appear on-camera. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: You and Jenny Slate made these Marcel the Shell online shorts that were such big hits. When and how did you decide you can make a feature-length movie out of this character?

Dean Fleischer-Camp: The plan was always to make a feature. I went to film school, and Jenny and I always wanted to make this into a feature film. It just took a while to figure out how to expand the story in a way that felt good to us and holistic to what I had created in the shorts. And it took a while to find the right partners to do it with.

JM: And as a fan of stop-motion animation, I watched the movie and admired the techniques and perspective you bring to this. What amazes you about stop-motion, and how did you want to showcase that art form in this film?

DFC: I don’t think it has been utilized in exactly this way before. I’ve always been a fan of stop-motion animation. There’s an emotionality inherent in stop-motion because it’s imperfect — it’s such a tactile, human craft. It is very fallible. There’s a vulnerability and an emotion in that that really… works with Marcel and the themes we were working on. It’s so expressive, and I love it for that.

JM: The Chiodo Bros. are a part of this. [I interviewed them] a couple years ago for Alien Xmas, their holiday special on Netflix. How did you get involved with them?

DFC: Kirsten Lepore, who is the animation director on this film — who I met at Sundance 10 years ago when I had my first Marcel short there and she had a short she made called Bottle — we hit it off immediately. She loves the same thing about stop-motion. Stop-motion can sometimes feel too staccato and stiff. She loves the organic and the mistakes. The short she made was a love story between two characters — one was made of snow and one was made of sand. And she used real material for that, which is almost impossible to do with stop-motion, as you know. She had Stephen Chiodo as a professor or senior advisor at CalArts, where she went to Grad School. We met with a few different animation studios to produce the animation, and they just seemed like the right spiritual force to oversee and produce it. I think it’s a shock to a lot of people that they also created Killer Klowns From Outer Space, which scared the bejesus out of me when I was a child. (laughs)

JM: The story is about finding Marcel’s family, and at one point it takes a dramatic turn when Marcel’s Nana (voiced by Isabella Rosselini) makes a decision for Marcel’s benefit more than her own. Really impressed by the paths you go down with this. Without spoiling everything, why did you decide to choose this as the dramatic turning point in your story?

DFC: Anybody who’s been a caretaker for someone in their life is familiar with a dynamic where the younger, more able-bodied person in that relationship wants to do what’s best for the person they’re taking care of. But the person who’s being taken care of wants what’s best for the other person. And those two things are not always aligned — and in fact sometimes someone who is recovering from something or is needing care… the last thing they want is for their grandchild or whoever it is to limit themselves and their possibility in life by looking after them. And so it felt like a really beautiful way for Nana Connie to sacrifice to allow Marcel to sort of spread his wings. But it is also not a totally selfless act because that’s what she would want for him too.

JM: I love Jenny Slate’s voice performance in this. She has been in the voice acting world for a long time, and her work in this reminds me of a classic Peanuts character. There’s a combination of innocence, confidence and curiosity that she brings to Marcel.

DFC: And similar to Peanuts as well, I think, a melancholy that’s always a part of some of my favorite children’s properties, but it’s not really that common. Roald Dahl comes to mind. Peanuts comes to mind, but it’s sort of unique. Jenny is, bar none, the best improvisor I’ve ever worked with and a really incredible actress. Most people know her comedic work but she’s just as great of a dramatic actress and she really has the heart of a poet and is very introspective and very thoughtful. Making this film with her in the specific way that I made it was a never-ending gift.

DFC:The character wouldn’t be the character without her. And we sort of wrote the screenplay in this very unusual fashion. I wanted to expand this character but didn’t want to lose what made it great in the first place. And part of that is the looseness of the dialogue and the authenticity and the “doc” aesthetic of it. That’s easy to do in a short where you can explore which joke makes you laugh. It’s much harder to do as part of a full structured feature film that tells the bigger story and requires orchestration. The challenge was figuring out how to preserve that, and what we landed on was that… Nick Paley, who co-wrote the film with us… he and I would write for a few months and then we would record for a couple days with Jenny and then later we’d fold in Isabella. And during that recording, we would shoot the scene as written, but then we would go back and say, “Is there a better way to make this work?” Or Jenny would come up with some great riff and we would incorporate that.

Nick and I would retire back to our edit cave. We both came from editing. We met editing on a TV show. We would spend the next part of that phase picking out the gems. And then we would spend the next few months writing again and then we’d have another two or three days of recording. It was iterative like that for two and a half years. So probably 10-12 days of recording over two and a half years, and that allowed us to fold all of the things that make Jenny an incredible performer and so dynamic and all of the things that I think are really lovely about a great documentary into a screenplay that ultimately is telling a larger story.

JM: You’re right that editing is also key in this. And you are in the movie quite a bit!

DFC: I am!

JM: Now, was that an easy decision to make or did you really have to think about it?

DFC: I really didn’t want to be in front of the camera and I don’t consider myself an actor, but the character was sort of spawned from this dialogue between me and Jenny as Marcel. So we pitched it with that character being a subplot and their relationship is sort of a buddy comedy. But me actually being in front of the camera came from really trying to tell the best story. Ultimately, I had to recognize and come to terms with the fact that in order for my character to self-actualize, you would have to put down the camera and be in front of it with Marcel, so I reluctantly played myself in the film.

JM: You do a great job. And there’s the moment where the “60 Minutes” producer asks you, “So Dean, do you wanna be on camera as well?” Those were authentic moments when you’re like, “Ugh… I’m not sure.” Right?! (laughs)

DFC: I’ll tell you a secret: That was one of the earliest recordings that we did for the film. That is my genuine reaction to her. She’s a real “60 Minutes” producer, Shari Finkelstein. We asked her to just try to persuade Marcel to be on the show, like she would any guest. And that was just her following her instincts. She asked me if I would be on-camera, and I was like, “I don’t know…” (laughs) And then Jenny started razzing me as Marcel. It was such a great little funny character moment that that was what pivoted us towards thinking, “Okay, now we gotta have Dean on-camera.” (laughs)

JM: Wow!

DFC: So that was a real spontaneous moment. But anytime anyone tells me I’m a really good actor in the film, I just tell them that I just happen to know the editor.

JM: (laughs) And I was thinking that you can never be able to watch “60 Minutes” the same way ever again, right? You know all the secrets now about one of the most iconic television shows of all-time.

DFC: That’s right. And they were so generous with their time and resources. The crew that we hired is a real “60 Minutes” crew. Shari’s a real producer who works with Lesley [Stahl]. They filmed the intro themselves on their stages.

JM: It looked like that — you see the background and the stool. So were you nervous — hoping they get this feel and intro and vibe right?

DFC: Of course. For the longest time we had to plan to shoot it ourselves. We were badgering their technical director. “Okay, what kind of green screen do you use? And who does your graphics? What camera do you have in-studio?” And finally I think they were like, “This is too annoying. We’ll just shoot it ourselves.” (laughs)

JM: I think this character is going to connect with so many people — especially new people who haven’t seen the shorts who are going to this movie. What do you wanna do now with this character? I think there are possibilities of getting into Marcel’s mind a little bit more — maybe on a weekly or a monthly basis. What are you thinking?

DFC: I hope everyone goes to see the film and that there’s a market for more from this little story world. Hopefully we get to tell some more stories within this world. I think it, sneakily, will be the best time that you have at a theater because it’s not one of those big spectacle movies BUT it has this amazing magic that it works on every audience I’ve sat in with where it just feels so different watching it with a group. Experiencing those emotions and also all the laughs with a big group — it’s such a community movie where you’ll feel good about whoever you’re sitting next to. (laughs)