Puppets
Long ago I decided to make puppets and video them to tell stories. Originally I wanted to do something like a cross between Robin of Sherwood and Lord of the Rings, very high goals there. I decided puppets were not just for kids, and that I could get a better performance from an amateur puppeteers than an amateur actor (having known several drama students and seen the wooden performances and inability to look convincing after three years of study!).
Ten years later I am still planning on doing it. I have tinkered with building a puppet over that decade, always coming back to it but never getting very far. Until about six months ago when I picked it up and started work again. I now have a puppet, painted up, with hair and costume and a name. He has a basic stage set up in my loft with home made lights (made out of baby powder tins and bits of plastic). The stage is just three walls, frames made up of wooden batons and hung with my initial backdrop, a plastic depiction of a dungeon wall I bought a couple of years ago at Halloween.
My plans for the actual show have grown smaller and smaller as I have realised the limitations of my own abilities, my budget, the space I have to work with, and what one person can do on his own. The current show revolves around a Yorkshire Troll, a Victorian Gentleman, who has left his home because the recession has caused him to lose his job as a paper pusher at the treacle mines. He has come to the 'city' and there found Steampunks, and as a result has gone to find the old Tesla transmitter Queen Victoria had built at the end of her reign. He is supporting the Steampunks and will be doing a magazine like program, while also trying to warn people of the ministry of the government that deals with making everyone the same, the Conformity Authority.
There is still much to do, proper sets to build, more puppets, and proper scripting. I have to learn to download, edit and produce the programs, and set them up as podcasts. But right now the basic problem is that I am having problems getting the puppet to stand up straight, instead of skewed and leaning off to one side. I do already have a prototype film on Youtube that I made with a prototype puppet some years ago, but there should be a lot more soon *fingers crossed* I can't remember how to do links on this thing but cut and paste the following to your address bar and it might work :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQjT-8vNoM&context=C367f99bADOEgsToPDskJKm3Vogx7MDnBxVk0v8c98
There will hopefully be more later.
Ten years later I am still planning on doing it. I have tinkered with building a puppet over that decade, always coming back to it but never getting very far. Until about six months ago when I picked it up and started work again. I now have a puppet, painted up, with hair and costume and a name. He has a basic stage set up in my loft with home made lights (made out of baby powder tins and bits of plastic). The stage is just three walls, frames made up of wooden batons and hung with my initial backdrop, a plastic depiction of a dungeon wall I bought a couple of years ago at Halloween.
My plans for the actual show have grown smaller and smaller as I have realised the limitations of my own abilities, my budget, the space I have to work with, and what one person can do on his own. The current show revolves around a Yorkshire Troll, a Victorian Gentleman, who has left his home because the recession has caused him to lose his job as a paper pusher at the treacle mines. He has come to the 'city' and there found Steampunks, and as a result has gone to find the old Tesla transmitter Queen Victoria had built at the end of her reign. He is supporting the Steampunks and will be doing a magazine like program, while also trying to warn people of the ministry of the government that deals with making everyone the same, the Conformity Authority.
There is still much to do, proper sets to build, more puppets, and proper scripting. I have to learn to download, edit and produce the programs, and set them up as podcasts. But right now the basic problem is that I am having problems getting the puppet to stand up straight, instead of skewed and leaning off to one side. I do already have a prototype film on Youtube that I made with a prototype puppet some years ago, but there should be a lot more soon *fingers crossed* I can't remember how to do links on this thing but cut and paste the following to your address bar and it might work :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQjT-8vNoM&context=C367f99bADOEgsToPDskJKm3Vogx7MDnBxVk0v8c98
There will hopefully be more later.