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!

My last post on the new puppet designs I had discussed using upcycled old document folders. After making my seahorse experiment though, I felt extremely discouraged. The materials work fine, even though there are a few kinks to still work out (and I’ll get to that in a minute), but I was stuck with something else. The designs themselves.

All images are linked to larger versions for better viewing.

See, I’ve never been any good at drawing. All my characters come from images on the net; I find an image that has the rough outline that I want and then I transform it in a free paint program from picture to pattern. My sole artistic talent when it comes to making my own drawn art are highly detailed and abstract images made up of random inkings.

My first thought was to find an illustrator whose work I liked and to work in collaboration. But I know how that goes: I would not only have to convince an artist that I would be worth working with (something other people have trouble convincing me of; see my experience with commissions), figure out how to split the money or if I give them a fee, organise it all, and lastly, create designs with them that work on a puppet level and use characters that I decide upon. Sounds like too much work to me.

Thinking on the abstract, I had seen an image on the net of someone’s books. They were all triangles in colour and white circular eyes with black pupils. It made me think maybe I could do abstract after all. They were simple characters, and very appealing for a number of reasons. Talking with Bambi, she and another arts-minded person, sounded excited by the idea; especially in light of my plans to make wall artwork for the home. Abstract art is in, they said, and being able to rearrange the pieces on the wall got them interested. (Incidentally, I showed Bambi my new seahorse and she liked the new materials. A+ on that, even though the superglued fantasy film came off. Also the girl brooch she was happy with. Nice to get good feedback from someone in marketing and arts)

I came home and set about making an abstract shadow puppet version of the girl brooch. All triangles for the body, legs and arms, and kept the round head as it was. It looked good, but it was just missing something for me. Maybe abstract isn’t right anyway: the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t see a way of selling this to other puppeteers. If my target market is puppeteers, then are they really going to be keen on using abstract designs? Sure, some will go for it, but it’s a particular look that suits very particular shows/themes. It might sell in the art world, but it wouldn’t sell (or sell more than what I’m already selling) to puppeteers.

So I come back to what? Hiring an illustrator? Unconvinced of that, I tried one more thing. I printed out a copy of the girl design I had made, and made it as it was. I liked the idea of mixing up the colours (in fact, I had tried this first on the abstract version) and used purple for the body and ‘white’ for the rest. The head and arms are connected at the same joint, and the legs are also jointed - but technically, only the arms will move because those are attached to rods. From now on, all my puppets will be two-handers only (my turtle shadow puppet is four-handed) The puppet was still missing something, and because I couldn’t be bothered thinking about glues and fantasy film and patterned papers, I decided to go with just a tiny bit of detail: a small flower on the left side of the skirt.

I discovered however there are three problems: I’m still unsure of using brads for joints, but considering my other options it’s probably what I’m stuck with. Second is that I really need a better rod attachment, the plastic bra-strap and cotton thread don’t hold up to the new ‘professional’ look. Third, I used (what I thought was) white plastic and actually it’s more like clear frost. I thought the definition of the outline would be enough, but apparently not. Next time I use actual white plastic.

I quite like this design, and it’s not one thing or another. It’s not a silhouette cut-out (quite) because it mixes the colours together; but it kind of is because it’s a straight outline with minor detail cut out. It’s not ‘realistic’ nor is it abstract, but is recognisable as a character. It’s more minimalistic than what I have before and yet still feels like it’s complex. It’s not quite Chinese or Greek shadow puppetry either, with all colour and detail. It’s sort of a fusion, and it feels like it was made by me. It has my style. (Bambi actually said to me “take what you know about shadow puppetry and use it in a different way". This is kind of how it feels to me) It bends without breaking which means you get all sorts of great movement, and you can still reverse this character with a little trickery. (See video at bottom of post) Overall I’m very pleased with it.

And this is what I like about it most of all…

One thing I remarked to Bambi about is that I don’t want to do what people think about shadow puppets. That ‘traditional‘ French style (most people think of it as Victorian silhouette, but actually it’s French). One thing I love about making puppets is taking it further than expectations. On thinking about it later, I know what it actually is. It’s not only that need to avoid what everyone else is doing - every shadow puppet seller I’ve seen does plain silhouette cut outs, in one colour only - but it’s a need to avoid “yeah but I can make that myself".

I took me a while to articulate this, but it’s pretty obvious now. I was walking past some really beautiful framed origami butterflies that were on sale at an exhibition. Despite it being precise workmanship, visually pleasing, etc. all I could think of was “yeah but I could do that myself". Puppeteers generally don’t buy puppets unless they don’t have the skills necessary themselves to make an item. Of all the comments I’ve read about puppet purchases, by far the thing that rings out the most is that a puppeteer/puppet maker will buy a puppet from someone else if:

• the puppet is from a highly sought after puppet maker (ie. Henson or someone of similar historical interest)
• the puppet is a collectible (ie. a piece of history or from their favourite show)
• the puppet is from a location or culture different from their own (ie. a Westerner buying a bunraku puppet, and the puppet is always of the ‘traditional‘ style of that place/people)
• the puppet is unique and the character extremely well made
• the puppet is commissioned for a show (solo performers tend to buy puppets, but not so much companies or groups; unless it’s muppet-types which I don’t make) because the person can’t make it themselves - add the above note about uniqueness into the mix, the style must also suit their work

I am neither historically important nor with any special work on my CV to make me noticeable; I am not particularly from an area or culture usually of interest; I don’t get commissioned (because my work isn’t ‘unique’ enough). The only thing I can offer is extremely well made puppets of great characters. - Incidentally, solving the problem of how to sell to other puppet makers also ensures I am more likely to obtain sales in non-puppetry areas, such as those interested in art, or puppets-as-toys, and so on.

Thinking on this, I came back to where I started. I can avoid using an illustrator, my character designs are interesting enough to capture attention with some improvement and a change of style. A new set of materials will appeal more to buyers anyway, so that’s taken care of. All I have to do is make sure my designs are not something people can easily create themselves: which is exactly what a puppet made out of triangles and abstraction would be. I really can’t imagine someone buying a cut up bunch of shapes joined together with brads and thinking it’s worth $20-30 when they could easily make it themselves at home.

However, the design I tried above is a bit of everything. It’s not exactly something that you would call impossible to make on your own; but the character and style is what you’re paying for, not necessarily the construction. Even if you were to reverse-engineer it, you’re still left with time/effort vs cost/quality; what you make wouldn’t necessarily be better looking/working and cheaper than what I offer.

Toward that end I have worked out my problem. I will do brooch designs much like I had planned to do but with minor alterations; magnetic shadows will occur as planned (simple white outlines); the ‘actual’ puppets will be similar to the above (killing off any additional use of materials outside of the plastic outlines, but keeping the use of multiple colours). All of the above will have characters made by me but I will attempt to create designs which are ‘inspired by’ rather than ‘realistic’ representations; they will however remain based on real things with an aim towards a science-based/educational theme for magnetics and human/animal characters for performance in order to make them as appealing as possible to as many themes as possible.

The other new thing is what I’ve decided for the ‘wall art’ or home decoration. Instead of doing framed puppets in a lightbox; instead of doing rearrangable art in abstract… I will be returning to an idea that I have been reworking for years. It’s wall art (or desk/window sill), sort of watercolour for puppetry. I’m not going to let slip much, but I hope to have a working prototype done by next week. It’s actually fairly simple to make… but totally not something people will easily be able to reconstruct. It’s something where even if people had the inclination to figure out how to do, they would not bother. And that is exactly what I’m going for.

It also harps on a third idea sitting in my head: one of atmosphere. As an artist, I’ve always been unable to feel a connection to any anthropomorphised character. I’ve always had more of an affinity for the abstract, the non-verbal (hence my experiments above) and I thought perhaps it would be better to steer clear of characters and just do atmospheric scenery. This is totally back-asswards mainly because in puppetry atmosphere and scenery can only do so much in a very short amount of time. But the idea is worth merit, and so the “for home” stuff will combine atmosphere, scenery, puppetry, art, make more complicated creations (than say, ‘just silhouettes’) using my films and patterned papers… and avoid “I can make that myself” all in one fell swoop. It’s pretty cool and what’s great is that they will be exactly as planned: one of a kind items that I can sell for a higher price and that challenge my building skills.

On the corporate side of things I’ve not had any more thoughts: but the kits are slowly but surely developing into a fantastic idea that is something I’m sure no one currently does but isn’t too outside the box. Actually, it is outside of the box, but only in a literal sense. … Wait, no it’s outside, inside and the box itself. It’ll be awesome!

Now to the video test of my shadow puppet. I ended up doing something interesting. I worked out that the polyrop I bought works as a great screen! I just got my two wooden braces and temporarily taped them to the plastic. Very handy as a replacement table-top screen.

Well, after the weekend’s aftermath of nothing going right, I got extremely frustrated but didn’t want to give up. There were just too many other things to try in order to make my puppets ‘new and improved’. I’m not 100% sure what I’ve done since will work, but I’m confident enough in it to say: this is likely the way I will head.

Having given up on my polypropylene, I set about trying other things. By pure chance when I was testing how well polyprop glues to fabric, I discovered an interesting thing: the mod podge that I used to glue the fabric doesn’t actually stick to the plastic… but when you remove the fabric from the plastic, it (the fabric) has a nice soft sheen to it. And the fabric doesn’t fray. And there is no gluey moisture left on the plastic. Almost as if you never glued the two pieces together. This gave me an idea: I could use the plastic as a sort of silk screen, brush some glue on, ‘wallpaper’ it with fabric, wait for it to dry… and then cut out shapes from the fabric. Not too flimsy to be used for something, but still flexible enough for puppets.

Sadly, from there I haven’t had much progress. I cut out one design (as shown in the link above, only with fabric), but am not very happy with it. It looks nice and all, but the fabric is floppy enough to need a brooch backing from the top of the head, and the size of the pattern just didn’t work with the size of the backing. I’ll likely leave the idea of using fabric altogether, although don’t know how well the brooches will work with what I have actually discovered in the last few days….

This is my new prototype puppet. As you can see, I used the seahorse shadow puppet design. I’ve again used brads and masking tape for temporary attachments. (I’ve found brads to be the only thing that works; eyelets are just too stiff; string joints too breakable; wire joints too pointy-ended) Unfortunately lighting is crappy in my house today, but you get the idea. It’s purple plastic, translucent. You can’t really tell in the first image, but in the second you can see a little darker fin on the seahorse: it’s the same fantasy film that I use in the current design (see link above).

Cost to make this: about 20 cents or so. Not including labour of course. … Seriously. As you may be able to tell from the post’s title, this puppet was made mainly from upcycled things. The fantasy film was cut off from scraps from larger puppets; the brads are the only cost here. The plastic… this is roughly what I used.

I’d love to take the credit for the idea, but once again David Currell comes to the rescue. I knew there were some old document folders lying around in the house from school/uni days and I cut one up. I think I used about half of it for the A4-ish sized puppet.

The only annoying thing for me is that glues still don’t work: I resorted to super glue to attach the fantasy film. It works, and quite well, but I always worry that with a bit of time, the film will start to peel away at the edges. I’m hoping it will be ok, especially if the puppets are well taken care of. I know they’ll get a bit of wear and tear, but it’s all about getting people to remember to treat their puppets with respect (as well as fun).

As for cutting, it was a very easy job, about 30 minutes worth of work which is the norm for this particular design. I still have trouble cutting circles out of the plastic, but it was 10 times easier than with polyprop. Movement is easy enough too, although I did have to pivot the joints a number of times before I could get rid of the stiffness. I’m hoping if I implement a better joint system this will be eliminated altogether.

You can see how well the puppet works at the bottom, where I have a short video of me testing it out. (I did the video before attaching the fantasy film, so it won’t quite look like that) Not only can I get some reasonably fluid movements out of it, but the plastic is flexible enough to twist slightly; and of course, it can reverse (although not well in the video because of where I had placed one of the rods).

I’m actually pretty pleased with this, and I especially like the idea of upcycling plastic document holders. Upcycling is very big in the craft/designer markets… but also, I’ve always kind of been annoyed that I only contribute to the rubbish, as very little of what I used previously can be/was recyclable. It’s also, really cheap 

My thoughts so far is this: I don’t know what I will use for the wearable art; I’ll use this plastic in white for the magnetics, with fine details a la the mermaid; this same plastic in translucent colours for the ‘normal’ puppets, with fine details and/or small additions of patterned papers/fantasy film; for the framed puppets, I’d use only the patterned papers and/or watercolours; and likely a mix for the corporate puppets. (See previous blog entry for more info on these ideas) I’m trying as much as possible to have no more than two or three ’styles’ (ie. patterned papers vs plastic vs whatever) as I think it ends up looking messy. As they say in the restaurant biz, “it doesn’t know what it is” if you put too many ingredients in. In this way, I will have to think carefully about the designs and the way in which they will look as a collection. I’m also extremely keen to keep the more detailed designs (ie. the use of papers and/or films) because these details set my puppets apart from other shadow puppet makers. Most people do single colours or black & white, and if they do details it’s in the cut-away designs. (For which I think is rather dull actually)

I’ve also made another decision, which is to create ‘normal’ puppets soley as human or human-like characters. I think that there will be a problem with these, since they will be marketed as ‘for the performer’, but will likely attract only teachers and parents. I’m happy to sell to the latter of course, but my real aim is for the former. The problem with that is that pros want to buy something specific to their show, and they’re less likely to want generic characters that other people can buy too. Human characters will allow me to appeal to the broadest possible amount of professional puppeteers (since humans can be used in a greater number of ways/stories), whilst also appealing to the teacher/parent market, who would be more likely to buy something kids can identify with anyway. I’ll also make it clear that the designs are more along the lines of ’samples’, in the sense that if professionals want something more fitting with their show, they can commission it.

All in all, I’m fairly pleased with this prototype and think I will begin work on finding new joints and new rod attachments; and of course, figure out how to do the wearable art. I am finding myself less and less convinced of a good way to do it… it needs some thought.