PuppetVision Blog » General

Slowing Down For the Summer

Andrew — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:05:00 +0000

Sorry for the lack of recent updates. I’ve recently been occupied by a family emergency and updates may be few and far between over the summer as a result. If you’re enrolled in the Puppet Building 101 course, it’s been placed on hold until July 13th, at which point it will resume.

I have no definite future plans right now, but things will probably return to normal sometime around late August or early September. Thanks for your understanding.

The Orlando Puppet Festival Starts Tomorrow

Andrew — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:00:00 +0000

The annual Orlando Puppet Festival runs November 7-9 in Orlando, Florida.

The Orlando Puppet Festival kicks off tomorrow and if you’re in, near or can get to Orlando, Florida you really need to be there. Orlando has a great puppetry community and the festival features a fantastic line-up that includes Leslie Carrara-Rudolph and Big Nazo along with puppet films, exhibits and puppet making workshops for kids with John Kennedy. A highlight of the festival is Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sesame Street with Fran Brill, who will be speaking about her work with Jim Henson and the Muppets at a special brunch on Sunday.

Go to www.orlandopuppetfestival.com for more information!

Update: If you want to attend the Sesame Street event with Fran Brill, call (407) 836-6751 today to RSVP. Tickets are $20-25 and today is apparently the last day they are available so act fast!

Off To Alberta

Andrew — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:38:00 +0000

I am off to Alberta, Canada for about a week. I am not sure how much internet access I will have while I am away, but I will do my best to update the blog when I can. Please keep sending in all the great puppet film and video links and information. Much of what has come in lately I haven’t had a chance to post, but I do plan to get to all of it when I return.

Happy Canada Day

Andrew — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 17:03:00 +0000

Canada Day today celebrates Canada’s 140th birthday.

To all of you reading PuppetVision who are in or from the Great White North, Happy Canada Day! And if you want to see how Canada celebrates its 140th birthday, the CBC web site is running a live video feed of Canada Day festivities from Parliament Hill in Ottawa today. I don’t know if there will be any puppetry featured or not, but Noreen Young has been involved in past celebrations.

Gone for a day or two

Andrew — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 02:21:00 +0000

I have to take a short trip up to the United States, but I’ll be back posting in a day or two.

Watch your step

Andrew — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 11:08:00 +0000

I upgraded to the new Blogger Beta over night and it, uh, broke my template. I’m not really loving the default templates Blogger has, but bare with me for a few days and things should be looking much better soon.

Bunraku

Andrew — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 19:09:00 +0000

A scene from a traditional Bunraku performance in Kyoto.

I’ve been a huge fan of Bunraku ever since I visited Japan in the late 1990s. I love the craftsmanship of the puppets and the elegant beauty of the performances, especially the way many traditional puppeteers put a heavy emphasis on intricate movement and realism. There’s an assortment of Bunraku videos on YouTube. My favourite is probably this video of a Bunraku performance in Kyoto.

You can find additional Bunraku video clips here at the Bunraku web site maintained by the Japan Arts Council.

Behind the curtain at the Lion King

Andrew — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 21:29:00 +0000

Portland’s KATU TV takes you behind the curtain of The Lion King in a recent TV special on YouTube.

The U.S. touring production of The Lion King came through Portland, OR earlier this year and to promote the show KATU TV in Portland aired a behind-the-scenes special about the show. The special includes interviews with the touring cast and crew as well as a visit to the studio of the show’s acclaimed designer Michael Curry.

The Lion King: Behind The Curtain is available on YouTube in two parts, here and here. The show is currently in Spokane, WA and travels next to San Diego and San Jose beginning in December.

Via Puppeteers Unite.

Learning from the Muppets

Andrew — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 10:32:00 +0000

Puppeteers can learn a lot studying old Muppet sketches like the classic Would You Like To Buy An O?

Puppeteer and brand new One Way Street owner Todd Liebenow has started up a series of articles on his blog called What I’ve Learned from the Muppets that studies puppetry by analyzing classic Muppet clips. The first one in the series explores the classic Would You Like To Buy An O? sketch, which can be found on the recent ‘Old School’ Sesame Street DVD.

Keeping checking back at Todd’s blog, more of these are promised soon.

Link via the new-but-already-fantastic PuppetryLab.com.

Giant marionette in Reykjavik explained

Andrew — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 09:41:00 +0000

The mystery of the giant Icelandic marionette (wearing Jeans!) seen in a series of videos on YouTube has been solved.

There is still a lot of interest in the “Giant Marionette in Reykjavik” viral videos that surfaced on YouTube back in September (see previous post). Most people have suspected that it was faked, but the question remained as to exactly how it was done and who did it. My first thought was that it was computer animation, but in fact it was just a regular, old-fashioned marionette built by Tony Sinnett and performed by Canadian-born UK puppeteer Ronnie LeDrew (I should mention that neither Tony nor Ronnie were my source for this information; this came from other people involved in the project).

The puppet – which was a fairly standard size marionette roughly a foot tall – was shot against green screen and composited in to background plates shot in Reykjavik with DV cameras. Strings, controllers and helicopters were added using computer graphics. The whole thing is the work of a London-based ad shop, although I haven’t been able to get the name.

There you have it, mystery solved!