Touring to schools is different from touring to venues in one major way. The performers set up the show in schools. In venues, you frequently have stagehands. School tours also often have to set up and tear down the same show at two different locations in a day. Here’s what I’m thinking about when I […]
School tour set design goals Read More »
I just found out that George Latshaw passed away. When I was in college, I got an internship at the Center for Puppetry Arts. To add to my good fortune, I was assigned to the cast of Wizard of Oz, directed by George Latshaw. I had already read his book, The Complete Book of Puppetry,
Avid UK has a number of small documentaries about Lazytown on their website. You get to see behind the scenes footage, including me! My face isn’t visible, since it’s pressed into one of the puppet’s backsides, but you can see the operating position that we work in. I was able to grab a screen shot
Lazy Town: From Director’s Vision to Commercial Reality Read More »
I’ve spent most of the last two days trying to solve the issues with ventilation in ways that don’t make it really unpleasant for the actors. The thing about testing to see if the fogging still occurring is that really the only way to do it is to put the head on and start a
We took Hringur to visit the children at the hospital for the first time. As far as the kids were concerned, it was a successful visit. Unfortunately the fogging was still happening. Aðalbjörk, the actress inside, said she couldn’t see anything after about five minutes. That’s no good. But. I had them over today, and
Hringur bear visits the hospital Read More »
The jaw is creating two problems; it’s contributing to the ventilation issue, because it’s solid fiberglass, so is providing a shelf that the actor’s breath bounces against, shooting it up against the eyes. It’s also not fitting one of the actors well. This bear needs to be able to fit multiple people which provides challenges,
Mental note: Do not try to eat an unpeeled kiwi in an area with floating polar bear fur. The two are dynamically attracted to each other.
We’ve discovered that the bear has ventilation issues. I was worried about the heat buildup in the mask before I left, but it turns out that is only part of the problem. We have more of an issue with fogging in the eyes. If you’ll recall, the eyes are made of sunglasses and the mask,
Last year, I designed the set of Arabian Nights for McCarter theater’s touring production. They have re-imagined the show, eliminating the frame story and making other changes significant enough that the existing set doesn’t make sense any more. At the same time, there are scenes within the show that they did like and want to
Arabian Nights revisited Read More »
Andrew at PuppetVision has a great post on the giant marionette that was supposedly in Reykjavik which has some cool behind the scenes photos of the standard sized marionette on a greenscreen.
PuppetVision Blog: More on the Giant Marionette Read More »
Jodi and I went to the fabric store where the bear’s fur came from and bought enough to do two more bears. It’s now on its way to Iceland via U.S. Post. Initially they said that shipping would cost $238.50 (at the cheap end. The high end was $700) because the fur was too big
Well, mostly finished. I’m dropping him off at the seamstress’s tomorrow. She’ll make the doctor’s jacket for him as well as doing some finish work that I am much happier to delegate. Meanwhile, I will be getting on a plane and flying back to the States. I stopped by Gummi Þor’s to show him the
One of my co-workers was in today with his kid. She’s just started walking and is pre-verbal…not sure how old that makes her. Anyway, I fast-forwarded the latest video to the point where the bear dances. She sat there and made us play that section over and over by pointing at the screen and grunting
A wee bairn and the bear Read More »
I’m posting while I try to gather my wits. I’d opened the mouth as I planned to insert the scrim. While I had the head open, I peeled back the black fabric on the roof of his mouth to drillout some more holes for the actor to breath more easily. On the second hole, as
I met with the seamstress today and she’s confident that making the jacket will be easy. We talked about the need for the pockets to be gigantic to allow the bear’s paws inside. I’ll drop the bear’s body off with her on Saturday so she can make the pattern for the jacket. Here’s a video