I’ve always really liked the lo-fi Steve The Vampire shorts by Elwood Productions, so it would be remiss of me not to mention their latest, Steve The Vampire Goes to A Role-Playing Game.

Enjoy!

Remember Erin Glaser’s Sock Zombies? Well, Kathy Danley went and made a short film with one of them! You can watch Sock Zombie “doing the dating thing” on YouTube.

Frankie Cordero (see previous post) is directing and series of four web shorts for a company called 14 Hands. They incorporate a variety of puppetry styles and the first just became available to watch online here. I don’t know what this is called, but I like it and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of Frankie’s new films.

Öko is a short Québécois film directed by Alain Fournier about an unusual encounter between a squatter girl and her mysterious neighbor. Set in a “post-apocalyptic world hanging by a string”, the film was produced using marionettes created by Mathieu René. The film will be touring the festival circuit beginning this year and a wonderfully moody and absolutely beautiful Öko trailer is available to watch online.

The Monster’s Birthday Party is a short film by Phillip Einfeld that’s in the same vein as Spook House Dave and Transylvania TV (me thinks me does detect a trend here). The puppetry in it is sometimes a little stiff, but the level of detail and work that went in to this film is really, really impressive. I hadn’t seen Phillip’s work before so this was a nice treat. The film is available to watch on YouTube in two parts, here and here.

Space Losers is a new puppet video on YouTube that made by a bunch roommates who live together in Seattle. Personally, I think the two-part video relies on too many lame YouTube puppet video clichés like drug references and swearing (as I’ve said many times before, profanity isn’t humour), but it’s obvious that a lot of time was put in to this. It’s really imaginative and whatever you opinion of the content is, there’s no question that the creators deserve props for the way they’ve created a whole world for their characters inhabit.

John Kennedy has teamed up with Heather Henson’s company IBEX on a new project for kids called The Sure Sheep, an original short film for Handmade Puppet Dreams for Kids. John’s developed a couple of really innovative-sounding techniques for the film; a method for computer animating a puppet’s legs and what he describes as “a new puppet skin technique which enables foam sculptors to paint and detail a flexible latex skin directly on a finished foam puppet head.”

A really talented crew that consisted of some of the best puppeteers in Florida worked on this, including John himself (who also served as director), Jamie and James Donmoyer, Scott and James Silson, Scotty Shoemaker, Tracie Mick-Shoemaker, Rob Lott, Tony Whitten and several others. You can read more about The Sure Sheep at the link above and also check out the film’s storyboards.

The Sure Sheep will be screened at the Smithsonian’s Discovery Theater next weekend on October 3rd and 4th as part of Heather Henson’s Handmade Puppet Dreams For Kids. After the October 4th screening John will be giving a special puppet workshop teaching how to make the “Sweatshirt Sheep” seen in the film. Plus, it’s also the final weekend of the Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit that’s currently on display at the Smithsonian so if you’re in or near Washington D.C. next weekend (especially with kids) don’t miss it.

Enjoy Old Mother Hubbard by the always-outstanding Puppet Heap (see previous post). Subscribe to their new Heapcast to get updated whenever they post new videos.

Simple. Kinda clever. Watch it here.

Following up on Friday’s post about Jungle Fever 2, most of the original “48 Hour film” can be found in three parts on YouTube. It doesn’t look quite as polished as the new series, but it still has a nice cinematic feel to it (click “Read More” to check out the film in three parts below)…