Baleful
I finished the red bird creature today and started a yellow one. I keep on thinking of this look as baleful, but the dictionary definition has more of a connotation of menace than I’m reading into it.
Archive for the 'creatures' Category
A new creature
Not finished yet.
New adaptation of Shaun Tan’s The Arrival coming to the Sydney Festival
Red Leap Theatre from New Zealand will be bringing a new theatre adaptation of Shaun Tan’s book The Arrival to the Sydney Festival in January. I love the look of what I can see in this video of highlights, in particular the aesthetic feel and muted colours, the puppets and the imagery.
(photo credit: Robin Kerr)
(photo credit: John McDermott)
I saw the adaptation of The Arrival by Spare Parts Pupppet Theatre at the Unima 2008 Puppetry Festival in Fremantle. It has gone on to win a number of awards, and recently had a season at the World Puppetry Festival in Charleville Mezieres, France. I felt the strength of that production was in the projected animations and digital imagery, and that the story line and emotional content had been simplified for a very young audience. I hope Red Leap’s production will be able to tap further into the richness and drama that the book holds.
Previously: Shaun Tan
Apocalypse Bear
This is the first episode in a new on-line serial exploring the adventures of the enigmatic Apocalypse Bear. A stage version of Lally Katz’s Apocalypse Bear Trilogy by Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Company premiered recently at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.
Peter and the Wolf stopmotion animation
Suzie Templeton’s animated short of Peter and the Wolf has, among other things, the most gorgeous and engaging Indian Runner duck. My pet ducks are Runners, and I just love them. Be warned, though, Peter’s one doesn’t make it…
The other three parts follow at YouTube. The film won an Academy Award in 2008 for Best Animated Short Film and is based on the 1936 composition of Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev. I found a little bit info about the puppets at Pollystaffle.
(Via Espaço das Marionet@s)
Wow! King Kong for stage!
Photo credit: Simon Schluter, The Age
This spectacular 7-metre-tall animatronic puppet of King Kong is being built by the Creature Technology Company in Melbourne, the company that produced the amazing arena show Walking with Dinosaurs Live, which is currently touring the UK after extensive performances in the US.
The puppet is being built for King Kong on Stage, a stage adaptation for New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 2011.
According to an article in The Age,
The partially built King Kong is now a high-tech assemblage of steel, fibreglass, airbags and Lycra-encased polystyrene. When modelling is finished by late next year, he will be controlled by 70 cigarette pack-sized motors. His face alone will conceal 40 of the motors to communicate his emotions as he is transported from Skull Island to Manhattan, where he finds love with a young blonde and a precarious position on top of the Empire State Building.
King Kong Live on Stage will use up to five models of King Kong with each operated by three puppeteers using remote technology called a ”voodoo rig” from backstage.
Interestingly, in the light of the suspension of the puppetry course at the Victorian College of the Arts, Creative Technology has 32 full-time staff and 14 VCA graduates working in its puppet fabrication department, and expects to employ 60 people on the King Kong project by next year. They see the VCA puppetry course as a vital in training the type of skilled people they will be looking to employ in the future.
‘Melbourne is in the running to become the world centre for animatronic design and puppetry but it won’t happen if they remove the puppetry course,” said Mr Barcham (CTC general manager). ”Those people [making the decision] wouldn’t even know there’s a new genre of entertainment coming out of Melbourne.”
Previously:
Puppets for Canberra Youth Theatre’s TANK
I had a really enjoyable build recently, making a swag of zany puppets and props for Canberra Youth Theatre’s production TANK, which is playing now at Canberra’s spring flower extravagaza, Floriade. TANK is a rather Pythonesque look at our relationship to water, written by Adam Hadley, directed by Pip Buining, and designed by Imogen Keen. It’s told in six 6-minute stories, played to an audience of six per story. Performances are free and run at Floriade on 12,13, 19, 20, 26 and 27 September 2009. Later, on 23 – 28 November, it will play in Garema Place in Canberra CBD, at 11am and 12noon.
Here are some of the puppets and props; check my Flickr portfolio set for others.
The meercat and the meercat hat:
Yiying Lu in the meercat hat!
I got rather fond of the hat…
The pirate captain (finger puppet):
The rat (rod puppet):
Kevin, the polar bear (worn on shoulders):
Hans and Donaldine, or the other way around… (glove puppets):
The shark (worn on shoulders):
The amoebas (glove puppets):
The eggbeater time machine! Love this great design idea!
Two rockets:
The multiple eyes of Veruna, the water goddess. In motion.
Fantastic Mr. Fox trailer
The trailer for Fantastic Mr Fox. Hmmm. I wish the animals didn’t have such people-like figures.
Previously: Fantastic Mr. Fox movie: first glimpse of puppets.
Fantastic Mr. Fox movie: first pictures of puppets
Roald Dahl’s great story Fantastic Mr. Fox is being adapted for the big screen using stop-motion animation. Some early glimpses of the puppets have been released, and the trailer will be out at the end of the month. (Update: here it is). More details about the production at USA Today. As usual I am anxious about how it will be interpreted!
First glimpse of animation adaptation of Shaun Tan’s The Lost Thing
InFrame.tv has produced a great 5 minute documentary with Shaun Tan which offers an introductory glimpse at the work-in-progress on his short animated adaptation of The Lost Thing. It includes little (unfinished) animation clips, and aspects of designing and directing the work. On his website Shaun also writes about his involvement and includes some interesting new sketches and models. I noted the film in 2005, so it is exciting that it is expected to be finished this August!
The film, by Passion Pictures, will be 15 minutes long, and uses CGI with 2D handpainted elements. I’m interested in the comments about achieving rich textures, as they are so much part of the illustrations, and CGI is often so disappointingly smooth and shiny.
I’m happy to see a new book, too: Tales from Outer Suburbia.
I worked on the puppets for Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of The Lost Thing a few years ago, so you will find numerous related previous posts here:
Also: The Lost Thing website
