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This winter, devotees of the critically acclaimed series Craig of the Creek are about to get something every superfan craves — an origin story. Creators Ben Levin and Matt Burnett have produced, directed and written Craig Before the Creek as a feature-length film that will take audiences on the journey that brought Craig, Kelsey and JP together.
Like many of the subjects explored in the Emmy-nominated series, this story was inspired by the experiences of the writers, who look back into their own childhoods for topics that kids (and adults) find familiar. Levin’s own relocation in the middle of a school year became a jumping-off point.
‘We were looking for a way to do a movie that had a clean, stand-alone story. We wanted this to function like something that could introduce you to the world if you were a new viewer.’
— Craig of the Creek creator Matt Burnett
A New Adventure
“When I was a kid, I moved to Maryland and discovered the creek by my house,” says Levin. “I moved in the middle of second grade, and I remember that being a difficult time because I moved in the middle of the school year and had to find new friends and I was in this kind of strange neighborhood that was unfamiliar to me. That became the idea of how Craig meets these new kids, and they become close through the things that happen in the movie. He moves to a new neighborhood and has to get to know new kids.”
Burnett adds, “Like most of the stories we tell on the series, they all come from an experience of a crew member, and we try and really ground it in personal, real relatable experiences. We really had that with Ben’s experience. We also were looking for a way to do a movie that had a clean, stand-alone story. We wanted this to function like something that could introduce you to the world if you were a new viewer or something that could be special for existing viewers who are already fans of the show. We’d never talked about how they met and who they really were in the series. They’ve always just been Craig, Kelsey and JP. Even if you’ve watched 100 or 150 episodes of this show, this isn’t something you’ve seen before. That really pushed us in the direction to do an origin story.”
The animated feature also follows Craig’s journey to find a lost treasure that is hidden somewhere in the creek. Along the way he forges the friendships that define the series, and he must summon the courage to battle pirates who want to destroy the creek itself and bring an end to the place he’s come to love.
Produced by Cartoon Network Studios, the film is co-directed by Najja Porter. Executive producers are Burnett, Levin and Sam Register, the head of Cartoon Network Studios, Warner Bros. Animation and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. Rossitza Likomanova is supervising producer, Lisa Zunich is a producer and Susan Varghese is an associate producer. The voice cast features longtime favorites Philip Solomon, Lucia Cunningham, Noël Wells, H Michael Croner, Phil LaMarr, Vico Ortiz, Kimberly Hébert Gregory and Byron Marc Newsome.
Since the voice actors had to imagine their characters before the series started, each one had to bring something unique from the character’s past that also fit with the stories they’d already done. This meant making sure their choices supported both the film and the series.
“Our cast is really phenomenal, and we’ve had some kind of emotional episodes of Craig and the Creek, and I think Phillip [Solomon] always brings it,” says Levin. “He’s such an amazing actor. This was a chance for him to just really show his range. He gets extremely silly but also gets super heartfelt. Also, H [Michael Croner] is just a big part of the voice of JP and is a big part of the comedy of the show. He brings a lot of improvisation to the records for the series, and he did to the movie as well.”
As they started to plan the look of the film, Levin, Burnett and co-director Najja Porter began to imagine a more cinematic look for the project since it was slated to be a film rather than episodic television. They began to look at new tools and adding unexpected elements to their traditional 2D look.
“We still had all of our same artists from the show work on the backgrounds, and so the line art was all done the same with maybe just a few tweaks here and there to add a little bit more detail,” says Porter. “Then, the painters took on a completely different style to it. I did like a mockup, and I showed them like, ‘This is how I’m doing it,’ and they took their process that they normally do, and they added these extra steps to include all that detail. We also used very specific brushes to mimic textures and paints and things like that. I think we kept it to two or three brushes. For example, with the leaves and the trees, instead of it just being shapes, we wanted to actually show some leaves with a lot of detail and, like, give texture to the dirt and other things in the background. We still had to keep it simple so that the artists could have a workflow that was doable on a fast schedule.”
Exploring a Larger Canvas
While the backgrounds were created by the show’s usual crew, the production partnered with Saerom Animation (who also works on the series) and Warner Bros. Animation for additional work. The team also incorporated new tools like Quantel to help create a more cinematic look for the project. Working with these new tools and techniques to get the cinematic look they wanted pushed everyone on the project. Key elements in the storytelling took on a new life as they imagined the larger scope of the film.
“It was just fun to challenge ourselves with things like [the] pirate ship we have,” says Burnett. “We use a CG model and trying to get that to match with our usual hand-drawn look was new territory for us. I think what we really needed to do with the movie was drive home that the creek is magical just being in there. We played a lot more with lighting and shadows and just really trying to get the characters to feel immersed in this world. For existing audience members, at one point you see Craig entering a very familiar house, but it’s like completely empty and it’s a little eerie, and contrasting that with the lushness of the creek just showed how magical it is.”
Craig Before Creek will premiere on Cartoon Network on Jan. 13 and also air on Jan. 14. The cabler will also celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 15 with a marathon block of the original series. The movie is available now to purchase digitally from Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play, Vudu and others (SRP $14.99). The DVD will be available on March 26.
