Today I spent a lot of time just focusing on getting some stuff done for the School of Puppetry classes, in between chasing up a couple of web designers who I’m interested in hiring… But due to a week-long headache, I’ve spent the majority of the afternoon and evening trying to come up with an idea of what to build for the school.

You see, I’m going to be building alongside the students, and I have been struggling to find a character worth building. I realised that just doing an ‘average’ moppet design isn’t enough for me: I find doing a monster, or a human entirely dull. Especially as I’ve just come off a (year) long build for my latest moppet pattern. 

For me, the challenge in puppetry is taking the design to the next level: looking at Jarrod Boutcher’s work for example reminds me of how I view the Melbourne Theatre Company’s work. The MTC, whose home used to be the Victorian Arts Centre, is pretty much the big name theatre company in my town. When I was at school, they were held up as the pinnacle of acting - and it was. But as I saw more theatre - more fringe theatre - in smaller venues, I realised something. The MTC was a technically excellent piece of work. Technically, the acting was spot on, the vocal work excellent, the staging and design brilliant. But it was heartless. It had no passion, no fire, no rawness - and that’s what the fringe had in spades. I would walk out of an MTC show and think it was good, but half an hour later, forget I’d even saw it. Whereas less technically proficient shows I’d walk out and nitpick a little, but still be thinking about them weeks, months or even years later. Indeed, the best shows I’ve ever seen - since then, or before - have been ones that were both technically excellent and soulful. 

Getting back to Jarrod’s work (and although I hate to harp on him specifically, especially as he’s an Aussie; I just refer to him because I was looking at his work today and is in relation to my thought process on my own design), I always feel like I’m looking at a technically good puppet. His designs are simple, understated, but well executed. His characters are interesting, but also generic enough that you’d want to buy one. But for me, it’s just too… technical. 

And this is where we come back to my design: I just don’t like doing the simple, the average, the overall character that has nothing interesting to ’say’ other than what’s written on its face. (With shadow puppets it’s slightly different, because you create an interesting design based on the way you piece it together; which parts move; how it moves) So I’ve been thinking of a few different designs which will have features added to them that are a little bit of a ’surprise’. On two of them I have functions that are both simple to execute and intricate in appearance; both of which are unexpected - I suppose one could consider them mechs - features that are hidden from the immediate view. The other is a design which, while not having any additional functionality, is quite wacky but if executed correctly will still appeal to the audience. 

I have no idea which design to use yet: the first requires a mechanism which is all about gravity and magnets, and I’m not sure how I can pull it off yet; the second is more a matter that I need to stick to the patterns used in the classes (since it’s a build-along) and this requires a slight variation on the pattern; and the third is more about figuring out what materials to use and how to execute it without going overboard or creating a mess.

I think the saddest thing in puppetry is that there are so many people who do just enough, and never really push the envelope. It’s also interesting to discover - since I’ve never really been a fan of Henson, nor knowledgeable on his work - that so many people don’t realise that Henson himself liked the fact that other puppeteers steered away from copying. I think perhaps if more people realised this, maybe there wouldn’t be so many replica makers out there. (To be clear: I’m not conflating Jarrod’s work with replication. But I am for others)

Yesterday I finished the majority of the front-end of the new UNIMA Australia site; there are still some tweaks to be done, but this means a lot of the site has been finished. More needs to be done of course, with a lot of the backend for members needing some design tweaks, but for the most part it should be finished in a couple of days - at which point it will all get transferred over for sandbox testing.

Of course, I’m still far behind on other things: progress has been made on my second moppet pattern, with just the hands and some text to do. I hit a snag on the weekend, discovering that floral wire is not good to use inside hands, so I had to scrounge up my old jewellery wire… I’m hoping that the pattern will be completed before the week is up, so I can move on to my next thing: getting ready for the market in November, which I think I’ll be panicking to be prepared in time; and getting ready to promote my moppet classes, for which I’ve booked in some time in Jan/Feb.

For the latter, I went and checked out my venue last week, and was very happy with it. Previously I’ve been trying to use the Richmond Library, because they’re pretty cheap and about 15 minutes drive from my house. But I think the staff are getting sick of me (well, getting annoyed because last two times I had to cancel my booking last minute), and getting into the room means going up a tight flight of stairs with little ease of access. In my hunt for other spaces, I came across a wonderful fact: other libraries offer meeting rooms for much less than Richmond, and the one I’ve got booked in - Northcote - ends up being $200 cheaper. (The added benefit of booking a library over another space is that they only ask a small deposit to be made before picking up the keys the day before using the room… which means no outlay of funds before I collect money from participants )

Norhcote offers a lot more too - easier access to the room, with predominantly wheelchair-friendly walkways. A sink right in the room, with bathrooms next door. All day parking behind and across the street from the library (on Saturdays, which is the day I’ve booked in), three modes of public transport only a few minutes walk away, it’s not too far out from the city centre either, it’s a 20 minute drive from me; plus shops and cafes nearby. All in all, a good place to be. So now that I’ve got the venue sorted, I’m itching to get the promotional stuff written and start selling spots.

Yesterday I had my final class with Reach Out, and it was time for table-top puppets. I did slightly better than last week in that I had one more participant (making three in total, with staff helper Betty as the fourth). (All names changed to preserve anonymity) Tony came again (yay! I think I have a puppetry convert!), plus Ann from last week, and one more woman.

The plan was to make one of these puppets - the whole reason I made them in the first place was to create something we could do in this class - but unfortunately Betty hadn’t gathered the boxes, and since the organisation was to provide all the materials, I had nothing of use with me. However, I was smart enough to bring another option with me (so glad I did), which is the other puppet. Since I was bringing handouts anyway, it was nothing to copy and paste the info from my website and put it into Word. So I did. 

There was enough boxes scavaged from around the arts centre that one or two of the recycled box puppets could have been made, so I left it as a choice who would do what. Tony opted for the ‘harder’ option of doing the print-fold-cut-glue puppet, and Betty and Kate (? I forget her name… geez, I’m always terrible with names) followed suit. Ann opted to sit out for a while, as she couldn’t decide what to do. I think she found the whole thing intimidating, and she left about 20 minutes later without having started anything.

The rest of us powered through however, and despite being scary at first, I walked through each step of the pattern bit by bit. I would generally cut out part of the pattern, explain the folding, and then let them do the part whilst I cut out the next pattern so I could explain that. Working at roughly the same pace, I built the puppet with them so they could see everything come together (I found actually that explaining it whilst doing it is so much more sensible and practical than just having it written down) It worked quite well, and considering I’ve never actually seen anyone use this table-top puppet pattern before, it was nice to see other people get it without too much confusion. Tony again was a bit reticent at his building skills, but he did fine: the pattern is quite fiddly after all, but with a bit of practice he’d make perfect ones every time. In fact, once mine came together, I noticed that the arms had been attached differently and looked lopsided. 

Betty it seems takes to this stuff like a duck to water. Her sock puppet came out amazing, her shadow puppet fish looked good enough to eat (well… to play with at least ), and this time, inspired by my green version of the puppet, she made a gold version! She overlaid the pattern with some gold wrapping paper, cut it out and put the whole thing together. It was a table-top 3CPO! It was pretty awesome… unfortunately for me, I forgot my camera, so I’m going to try and track down a photo from Betty at some point. 

Kate also enjoyed it, so much so she managed to barely finish her puppet in time for a meeting. She really had fun, even though there were a couple of easily-fixed mistakes in building hers (my fault entirely, because she missed some of the explanation of the attachment of the arms and legs, and I didn’t notice her mucking it up… but we caught it in time and fixed it).

It also turns out that you need roughly 2.5-3 hours to do this puppet properly, and so I’m going to have to double-check my Courses page where this version of the puppet is on offer as a class.

I’m so disappointed that this is my last class with them. Reach Out is a great organisation to work with: the atmosphere is always relaxed and friendly, the participants (even with one!) are mostly enthusiastic and ready to get stuck in, there’s support for me as a teacher, and everyone enjoys themselves. I really want to thank Jude for initially inviting me to run the classes, and to Casey and Betty for their enthusiasm and assistance.  And fingers crossed that we can do more classes in the future! I loved every minute of it

Ok, my fingers are feeling much better now… So yesterday I had my shadow puppetry class with Reach Out (one more class left, next week). I had eight patterns, all of roughly different levels of skill and all of different design. There was: a (vampire) bat, a spider, two dogs (more explanation on that later), the tiger that’s available in my shop, a simpler version of the fish that’s available in my shop, a frog, a dancing woman, and a running man. I also brought with me my large screen and a light, so we could test out the puppets once we made them; oh, and some pre-made rods.

Last time you’ll recall, I had one participant for the class. This time I was promised five. I got two.  Never mind; we happily rolled on. Tony (all names changed to preserve anonymity), the sole participant last class, came again; I’m so glad he did, not only because he didn’t like doing the sock puppets, but also because it turns out he liked the shadow puppets better!

Anyway, so while we were waiting for other people to turn up, he and the helper, Betty read my handouts. Just as they were finishing reading, the second participant turned up, Ann. She sat down and immediately wanted to make a cat, she drew one and asked if she could make it. I said sure, but showed her the tiger pattern anyway, and suggested that she try that first, since it was already drawn up. She really wanted to make the cat she drew, so between the two of us Betty and I made up a pattern based on the drawing. Betty drew the main pieces, and I created a more detailed face based on the drawing. Actually, we pretty much made the puppet for Ann - she needed extra help - and covered the back of the facial features with red cellophane. She left early, and we didn’t get a chance to take a photo of the puppet (really wish I had, it turned out quite well). I also need to learn basic drawing skills; I feel like an idiot saying, "sure, we can make this puppet, but by the way, I can’t draw it for you". 

Anyway, Betty took on the task of making a fish for herself, and even though I simplified it down from the original pattern, it was still complicated enough that it took her most of the class to do. She even added some detail where I had left it off; and used the blue and red cellophane on the bottom fin to create a purple colour. She took to the shadow puppet making really well.

Tony first made a bat, as that looked the easiest to him to do. Good choice actually. This one has no parts to it: just one piece of cardboard, folded in half to make a flapping movement. There’s some detail to cut out, and he backed it with some red cellophane. He also made my spooky spider - it’s a free tutorial on my Learn Online page - which he quite liked. Only one problem and that was the brads that Betty had gotten were somewhat big, and I really should have resized the spider too. Nevertheless, both came out well, and Tony went away much happier with his building skills, and his puppets. (He named his sock puppet "Captain Unco" in honour of him thinking he’s uncoordinated)

The hardest part of the class for me was actually explaining how to attach the rods; to get them on a right angle to the cardboard, you have to attach them a certain way, and I think perhaps I need a better explanation than what I had. Nevertheless, first time teaching shadow puppets (haha, I’ve been doing shadow puppets for an entire year now, and only had one 3-hour class learning how to do them myself! Pretty neat!) and it went really well. I think perhaps that shadow puppets suit me in more ways than one.

I made some puppets too: the dancing woman and the frog. Most of these patterns I hadn’t tested, and I’m glad to say that the frog and woman worked exactly as planned.  Next week I have my final class with Reach Out and we’ll be doing table-top puppets.

The dog patterns by the way, will be made available here for free once I have a video tutorial done. The other new patterns will be available to buy in the future.

(I’m also testing the tags/related posts generator with this post. Will it work…?)