It’s been too long. After my last post you’ll probably wonder what has happened. Not much and quite a bit

Let’s see, where I left you all last, I had just injured myself working on my second super secret project. (Ah, alliteration…) We were getting ready for the film shoot, and I stabbed myself accidentally by kneeling on a staple. (I’m fine!)

Surprisingly, I haven’t blogged after that. It’s a little bit of blogging fatigue, and a little bit of working on some other things. I’ll get to that in a minute, but for the moment I’ll continue on about the film shoot.

As should be obvious I can’t reveal too much about the whole thing. It was for a music video, and I do know they’re currently editing it… when it’ll be released is anybody’s guess although I’m sure it will be in the next couple of months. This was really the most professional shoot I’ve ever worked on; the others being a couple of five minute videos for live performances I’ve worked on, mostly student-run affairs.

I made up four puppets - one for a quick scene and three for the final shoot. The final shoot was all about me believe it or not. I had managed to get myself the actual puppeteering role, so the entire day was spent working on each scene. It was a lot of waiting around (of course), but quite a lot of fun as well. I hadn’t needed to perform since my uni days, and despite hating all aspects of performance, I enjoyed doing this. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that puppetry is less about having your face seen and more about working an inanimate object. Either way, it was quite good… I even got to use my old bunraku hood from my days with Sticky Apple Legs (the first puppetry company I set up with my friends).

The set up itself was a bit chaotic, being done from a room in the designer’s house. You can imagine how hectic it was to fit in sets, props, puppets, crew, camera, lights… and me… all in a small space.

I wrote a bit about the shoot on Puppets and Stuff, some of which is worth repeating on my own blog:

The good news is that I had a lot of fun today, and everyone loved my work, and hopefully I’ll be able to show all of you what I was up to in a month or two. I didn’t get to see much, as I was actually puppeteering most of the time, but what I saw looked really cool.

It also helps that I was working with a great bunch of people, and despite a lot of waiting around for things to be set up and a small injury (see my blog from Thursday night), all went well. I’m amazed that even with the puppets nothing broke or stopped working outside of a minor problem that was easily fixed in a few seconds. I never had to make repairs outside of adding a piece of tape!

Also, the design is a lot of fun, I had a challenge making the puppets and they were all simple solutions to complex problems… and they worked exactly as planned. At one stage I had to get one of the crew to help me with manipulation (it was planned that way) and despite neither of us knowing what we’re doing we managed to pull off a good-looking scene that was tricky to perform.

A long day, but totally worth it. Especially for me when I’m so used to theatre where you bump in (get in) in less than a few hours, and don’t have time for food. I was well fed, well treated, and even got a lift home
Ah, being the star of the show is nice…

… Funnily enough breaking into puppetry for film was one of the ideas I wanted to follow through as I know it’s excellent marketing as well as good paid work. This was voluntary but I really didn’t mind because it was just nice to be able to do something active for once, rather than relying on the net for sales/interaction.

Hope I get to do it again one day.

… Oh yes, I knew there’d be lots of waiting around. And I’m not complaining, there’s lots to be done and plenty to be set up and checked and tested. It’s just very different to theatre where you can’t afford to be building sets the day you bump in, or spend 2 hours talking about frame speed instead of getting on with rigging (I’m assuming part of it is that with theatre everything has to be pre-planned in order to get everything done in time for opening, whereas with film you can be more flexible with a schedule and have more details finalised last minute). It’s a very different way of doing things… mainly it just weirded me out because I’m a trained techie and being the performer meant I was watching everyone else run around doing stuff. It’s not in my nature to just sit around watching everyone else work especially when there’s so much to do and so little time to do it in.

Catering is a nice addition, especially since we were all working from about 9am til late (they shot my stuff morning-eve, but were still going when I left at 10pm). Understandably having food/drink available for such a long day is something you’d want to do just cause it helps break up the day and makes everyone less grumpy

Actually it was really awesome to have lots of food and drink. Rehearsal day I had lunch provided, and shoot day lunch/dinner and snacks. I have to say I know how hard film work is just because it’s common sense, but I’m far more appreciative now of runners, general crew, etc. While I was busy trying to get a scene right, someone else was making dinner without me realising that’s what they were doing. They cleaned up afterwards so the rest of the crew could get on with setting up and shooting… It’s some serious dedication to art to do stuff like that, especially when you’re not getting paid.

In terms of theatre, there’s less of that done, but in general you’re trying to get 10 hours worth of stuff done in 2. I’ve been given bottles of wine as a thank you, or treated to an occasional meal/snack, but that’s been more from people who I’ve worked with on a profit-share basis. You definitely don’t get that sort of comaraderie [ie. buying of food] from pro theatre crews. Unless it’s “buy you a beer after the show” kind of thing.

Returning to my other tasks I’ve been doing: I decided that a celebration was in order on School of Puppetry. I was looking at the archives of the site and realised that May 2007 was the first month I started publishing articles on the subject of puppetry - rather than plain blog posts. Even though there’s still 65 or so items to migrate over to that site, I thought five years of writing is worth celebrating. So I made a little announcement.

The other thing is that I am very much going through a bit of a burn-out phase at the moment. Part of it is due to worry about finances, for which there’s been a noticeable dip in pattern sales lately. The other is a constant churn-out of material for both SOP and Puppets in Melbourne. It’s hard to be creative all the time on one subject, especially when you’re also the marketeer and web admin.

To fill in the income and to give myself a bit of a mental break, I’ve signed myself up for a freelancing website where I can earn money by doing what I’m good at: writing. The benefit is that I don’t need to go anywhere or change my schedule much to fit this in, and I’ve already gotten one job already after applying for a few things over a couple of days. You’d think I’d be too burned out to write anything, but actually it’s refreshing writing on a new subject matter for once. And it gives me a mental and physical break from puppetry without detracting from the potential income.

Unfortunately this means that I’ve done absolutely nothing in regards to my original super secret project: even though last week I paid for my registration to the summit. Whether or not I’ll have it done in time, or whether I’ll go ahead with it after all… I’m undecided at this point. Going full blast on puppetry for four or five years is exhausting, especially when you have little to break it up with and not much else to do instead.

No matter what though, being able to get out there and see my puppets used for once was highly enjoyable and a great way to get rid of a lot of the rut. It’s also nice to see them work to plan, because normally making puppets to sell or patterns doesn’t offer me the opportunity to see the results. And I’m very excited to see this video now…

After my post a couple of weeks ago, you might be wondering why I haven’t updated further; as mentioned, I got caught up with another super secret project. This one is volunteering to help out on a film shoot. I can’t reveal much more than that, outside of saying that I’m doing some puppets for it and that I’ve just come back from a final rehearsal before the big shoot tomorrow. The last blog post referred to a smaller shoot where one of my puppets was needed for a very brief time.

I really would love to discuss more of the details with you - and I do have permission to do so once the film is released - as there’s quite a few fun new things that I’ve done, and something in particular that shows a simple solution for a complex problem.

In the meantime I must rejoice in the fact that the film makers are pleased with the results so far, and the less enjoyable issue that’s in the title of the blog post: a punctured knee.

A good lesson for safety is to not just do the lazy thing and try and work around the problem. In this case I was kneeling down on some cardboard box, cutting up some foam core. The box had staples in them. Seeing one near my right knee I told myself to be careful, moved into a better position and continued my work. Five minutes later and I’d forgotten about the staples and managed to get a staple right into my kneecap. I’m alright, and it was superficial, but I did end up bleeding quite a bit. … And sadly, if I’d taken a few seconds to remove the staples from the box I would be perfectly fine.

Other than that, the day went well and tomorrow’s shoot should be interesting. I’ve not worked with many film makers and have only been part of filming a couple of times. I’m really looking forward to showing you all what I’ve been up to!

In other news, next week I’ll have something a little more puppet related and celebratory - hint, it includes cupcakes!

I’d love to say I’ve done some more work on the super secret project and have some pics to show… but alas, no. This past week I’ve been focusing on a different super secret project for which I’ll elucidate all after my embargo. Suffice to say it means 3 new puppets made, one of which I hope to turn into a modified pattern to share.

However, this 2nd super secret project allowed me to do something I’ve put off for ages. One thing I wanted to do is to retake some of the photos that I previously used to advertise my puppets. Although they’ve all been retired now, I still wanted better photos. Many of them were taken against plain black or white backgrounds, which looked pretty dull. In 2009 I had a great idea to photograph the aquaria-themed puppets against a waterfall/rocks. However, I only had half the puppets of that theme made by then, and where did I take the photos? Olympic Centenial Park, when I was in the USA for the National Puppetry Festival. Obviously that makes taking photos of the rest of the puppets tricky, since I’ve had to find a similar looking waterfall to do it.

Fortunately today I happened to be right near a rather large section of parked area of some of the Yarra River (which cuts through many of the inner Melbourne suburbs). So I grabbed as many puppets as I could and did a short photo shoot. The new pics are uploaded for: the merman; the turtle; and the starfish. The other missing pics for retired puppets will be added as soon as I have some more time.

As you can see from the pics here on the blog post, there’s a noticeable difference, but hopefully not too bad a one. (The merman and mermaid are actually a bit worse off than the others, due to the need to have a wider shot to get the whole puppet in. This shows more of the landscape and therefore more of the differences)

If you want to check out a cool pic, try the last photo on the starfish page. By coincidence I happened to stand just in the right spot for the light and hold the puppet in just the right way…

And of course, most of the photos are misleading. If you’re smart, you’ll already have figured it out from the merman shot at left…

I happened to pick one of the silliest spots to do this. I had planned on walking up to an actual waterfall, which I’d mapped out before heading to my secret meeting. But I also knew it would be a long walk, maybe 20-30 minutes. (Long being the definition of not immediately outside the meeting despite the park being literally across the road) But as it was lunch time and I hadn’t eaten, and it was fairly hot, I decided to call it quits after realising I had walked halfway in 20 minutes. I kept looking for good spots to stop even though I had planned to go the entire way - and well, this was as good as any.

But as you can see, the whole area was filled with small rocks. The river bank wasn’t so much of a bank as a steep cliff (practically 45 degrees) most of the way along the walk path. Take one short step off the side of the path and you could easily fall straight into the river. This section happened to be along a short less-steep bank, and so I chanced it and weaved my way through some bushes to what seemed like a perfect spot: a rushing river with a bit of white water.

Great idea right? Water, rocks… rocks… oh yes and more tiny bitty rocks! And did I mention that I had no forethought to bring a tripod? So yeah, my afternoon was spent in the heat and sun, trying to hold two puppet rods in one hand (far enough away from me to get a good shot) and holding my camera in the other, avoiding the wind which was coming from the direction I needed for light, half-tripping over rocks, and hoping that after all that my time was not wasted.

Fortunately it wasn’t. I particularly like the shot I got of the merman’s tail changing colour. The pictures are now a bit more professional and fitting with the others, and it’s half a task off my list! Next week I should be able to get back to my original super secret project and begin scale drawings of my designs so I can start building stuff.

Having worked through a majority of my storyboarding, and hitting a snag on my super-secret project, I thought I’d set about building a prototype of what I was planning. It turned out to be useful in an unusual way.

What I discovered is that most of my puppets are not going to be puppets, but landscape pieces. The scenery as you recall (see above link) was going to be sliding blocks or frames housing the pieces. However, I’ve come to the realisation that Kelvin was right. I had a small inkling that I might need to create backdrops that either slide up and down (not easily done) or ‘fly’ in and out. Initially I thought that it would be possible to make scenery pieces and then attach them to rods - one at the top and one at the bottom - hang the rods from the frame of the shadow puppet screen and then simply rotate the rods. Imagine it like those signboards on the street where the ads rotate on a loop.

However, when building my prototype - which I’ll get to in a moment - I discovered that there were two problems. One is of distance: trying various types of screen material I discovered my silk worked best for the effect. You can actually use other fabrics for screens and I thought I could simply use a sheet of white polypropylene instead of silk. However the polyprop is too opaque for the scenery to show through. The silk worked best, but if I moved the scenery a few millimetres away from it, the image completely disappeared. And with my numerous scenery pieces at various distances (fore, mid and background remember?), this method of rotation just makes things even more distant than necessary.

To solve this I discovered a few things: one is that the screen fabric needs to be on the inside of the frame. Normally I attach it to the outside, but it makes more sense to have it on the inside. This way the fabric is more taut, allowing for less distortion of the puppets. It may not seem like a big difference, but actually if you have the fabric on the inside you’re not concaving it as much when you push against it.

The second thing is in reference to what commenter Kelvin wrote, in that what I was describing in the last post sounded an awful lot like what we call ‘flys’ in theatre. ‘Fly’ being singular. Basically a fly is what you see in most big musicals; scenery hung from the rigging above the stage that is flown down onto the stage through the use of ropes and pulleys. Already having my idea for rotating scenery, I thought I had my method covered. But in order to reduce the distance between each scenery piece, it’s better to use a fly system than a looping system. So now I’m building more of a toy/model theatre than anything else

I also think that because of the nature of the moving landscape pieces, I’ll be working in ‘miniature’. That is, a screen of 50cm X 50cm. It’s not ideal and I’d wanted to do something bigger, but I think this size will be the best to get both the most out of the moving landscapes, and the easiest ability to move around all these different parts as a solo performer. I’ve been informed the space for the Summit clinic will be small and so having a screen that big shouldn’t be a problem.

The last is the discovering that I’ll probably not use a white silk screen after all. Playing again with my prototype and holding up a piece of scenery behind it, I noticed that unless the scenery is exactly against the fabric in all places, the image gets blurry in certain areas; which defeats my super-secret effect. Normally I’d combat this by tilting the screen downwards slightly, as you’re supposed to… but that doesn’t work when you’ve got fly systems to deal with. Instead I’ve decided the best way forward is to avoid a white screen altogether… and use a slightly opaque clear sheet of plastic instead. This will diffuse the light a bit, but maintain a good clear image of all the puppets and improve the likelihood the effect will work.

As for the prototype itself, I didn’t get very far. It helped me work out a lot of my ideas, but it turns out I didn’t really need to build or test anything major. My ‘prototype’ scenery was just an image printed from my computer. I didn’t need to do much else. And in fact, I’ll likely go from here to making the bigger things.

The prototype as you can see is my fairly ham-handed model. I started off building a frame for the screen, then attached a baseplate, wings and a top black piece; then added some ‘legs’ for easier viewing of the screen. It’s all made from scrap materials and pretty much pinned or taped together.

The good news is that from here I can really get started building things. I’ve worked out a lot of kinks in the script so I have enough hands free to grab a new puppet or move a piece of scenery. I’ve come up with a few nifty inventions that will allow me to put puppets down but still have them on screen. And I’ve come up with a very simple method of having twirling galaxies before the end of the song.

The biggest question I have now is: how the hell am I going to build this huge mess of stuff and also make it easy to set up and take down?