When the credits roll for “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,” the name Cathy Colley will be listed as a scene artist.

For Colley, a former Trojan, “That’s big.”

“Anytime, your name’s listed among the credits for a big movie, that’s big. At least it is for me,” Colley said.

For Colley, an opportunity to work on “The SpongeBob Movie” was extra special.

“Watching Spongebob is a ritual of mine,” she said. “When I have a weekend off, I’ll sit around and watch Spongebob. It’s funny enough to make adults giggle and entertaining for kids at the same time. It’s mindless entertainment. You can watch and not think too hard about it.”

Colley never imagined that she would choose a career path that would lead her to the film industry.

She took art classes at Charles Henderson High School and also was involved in theater. At the University of Alabama, Colley found her niche in painting scenery as backdrops for theatrical productions.

“I enjoyed painting scenes so much that I got a master’s degree in scene design,” she said.

After graduation, Colley decided to continue her education with a specification in scenic design at the University of North Carolina School of Art in Winston-Salem.

“A professor and a friend got me interested in working in the film industry,” Colley said. “I had background work that involved backdrops like those that continue to be used in …films.”

Colley was excited about the opportunity and fascinated with the work.

“Basically, the producers have ideas of what they want and we, as artists, recreate what is described to us,” she said. “We take an idea and make it beautiful … or ugly. Whatever the call.”

Colley said a scene artist may be asked to create a woodland scene or a cloudy sky or a simple farmhouse or some elaborate high-rise.

“On ‘SpongeBob,’ there was a team of about 20 scene artists,” Colley said. “We painted the interior of the pirate’s ship and went downtown Savannah and painted the outside of the buildings along a street.”

Because the buildings were historical, the painters were required to use colors of paint that were true to that specific time period.

“We painted many of the special effects, including a replica of a porta-potty,” Colley said “We worked on a lot of things that are not seen in the film.”

No matter what scene Colley is painting, it is always a challenge to take the designer’s idea put color on it.

“Scene painters take ideas and make them pretty” Colley said. “Scene painting can be very physical. You have to climb ladders and work on scaffolding. You have to work in hot weather and cold weather and some days you work 14 hours or more.

“But the good thing is that you get to do what you love doing – taking an idea and making it pretty or ugly is challenging and rewarding.”

In today’s world, computers are taking over much of the scene work in the film industry. But Colley said there will always be a need for scene painters.

There are some scenes that computers can’t recreate and there will always be a need for scene painters in the theater.

“Some areas can’t be recreated on a sound stage and, hopefully, they never will be,” she said. “What I’m doing as a scene painter is fascinating. I never imagined that I would be doing this. I never saw it happening but I’m excited that it did.”