Take a look at Professor Litmus Lenticular III’s photoset of wonderful zany shadow puppet characters.
A little heffalump
I’m starting to get fond of the little elephant that I have been making over the last few days. That’s always a good sign.
He can do tricks! And now has cool trunk to look down modestly while trying to pretend he isn’t a Brave and Clever Elephant.
I have to set him aside to finish in March now, as I have to move on a couple of other projects that are vying for my time.
Warhorse: in pictures
Warhorse, showing at the National Theatre in London, has some absolutely stunning life-size horse puppets, designed and made by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler from the South African Handspring Puppet Company.
Made of cane and gauze, plywood and bicycle brake-cable, nylon cord and leather, they are moved from the inside by actors, who can clearly be seen through the horses’ skeletal bamboo frames; another human steers the head, so that the steeds nuzzle, twitch their ears, shiver with fear, rear in fright, roll their lustrous eyes; they also neigh and snicker. The actors are the inner lives of the beasts: when one horse dies, sinking to its knees and then lying, as a silvery grey skeleton, on its side, you see the puppeteers rolling out of the frame as if they were a band of souls leaving a body. After battle, the stage is covered in emptied carcasses, like dressmakers’ dummies. – Suzannah Clapp, review in The Guardian
The Guardian also has a gallery of images that tell the story, as well as providing the best photographs of the puppets that I have come across. Of course, much of the magic is in their movement: there is a glimpse of that in this ‘what the audience thinks’ video.
There are some other reviews at The Independent, Daily Telegraph, The Times, and the London Theatre Guide.
(via Puppetry News)
Previously:
FlickrFan for funerals?
These days images are often shown at funerals. It is usually grainy old family photos looping on a roll-down portable screen. Imagine, instead, the church having a HDTV, and that you can stream chosen image feeds to it from your computer. If family and friends wanted to, they could contribute feeds that would become part of the source material for the screen display. This is one great use I can see for Dave Winer’s new product, FlickrFan.
Used in a more private setting, its easy to see it being useful for family photo viewing and so on. I have reservations about it being used as a way to provide an ambience in one’s living room. I find image (and especially moving image) too arresting to treat as part of the background in a social situation, unless I’m inured to the footage. So it might either highjack conversation, or at the other extreme become like muzak. I also worry if it will be pitched by some as a great solution to having an acre of black flat screen in your lounge. I think those big flat screens chew up a lot of energy, and to have them running a screen saver all the time only increases the energy usage. As far as the planet is concerned we have to be learning to turn things off more, rather than keeping them on in the background.
Alarmed and alert
At the Chinese Gardens in Sydney.
Luca: La Raza’s giant boy puppet
Luca, a giant boy puppet supporting the La Raza soccer team seems likely to have been inspired by the Royal de Luxe ones, don’t you think?
Happy New Year
I’m getting a lot of pleasure from growing some veges this summer. The beautiful subtle colours in these red cos lettuces are amazing. The camera only captures some of them.
