Search Results for: royal de luxe

Royal de Luxe’s giants celebrate reunion in Berlin

Posted by hil

deepseadiver

(photo credit: Verieihnix, thank you)

Celebrations are taking place in Berlin this weekend for the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany. At the centre of the celebrations is a 4-day performance by Royal de Luxe‘s giant street theatre puppets, featuring their little giantess, and her giant uncle, the deep-sea diver.

Earlier this year in June the diver debuted in Nantes in La géante du Titanic et le scaphandrier, but in Berlin the back story, already one of separation and reunion, has been redrawn as an allegory for the divisions of Germany:

Berlin was once a swamp inhabited by giants.  One day, land and sea monsters tore the city in two and the Big Giant and Little Giantess were separated. The Little Giantess fell into a long sleep. When she awakes, she finds a large old mailbag containing letters between East and West Berlin, and sets out to deliver them.  After each searching the streets of the city, the two giants are reunited and symbolically return tens of thousands of letters once intercepted by former East Germany’s Stasi secret police to people watching their procession through the city.

Photos and videos are starting to appear at Flickr and YouTube, and many others will follow, but here are some links to items that have grabbed my attention so far:

I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and their influence on the genre of giant puppets over the last few years and you can search here to go to those posts.

Big Man Walking arrives!

Posted by hil

bigmanwalking

(photo credit: The Guardian)

Check out the Guardian’s interactive of the arrival of Big Man Walking!  He’s a giant puppet created in Scotland by a large team headed up by artistic director, Symon Macintyre. In coming weeks he will be walking through Bute, Kirkcaldy, Buckie, Invergordon, and Inverclyde where communities will celebrate in accordance with the myth of the giant.

Inspired by Royal de Luxe, Big Man Walking is 8 metres tall, and has a ‘unique internal structure like a bell tower’ that allows the puppeteers to pull wheels within him that make the arms and legs work. Webcams in his head will allow people to see online what he sees on his walks, and people will be able to text him. There are some cool making photos at Big Man Walking, which has been abuzz with preparations for some months. It’s also the place to go for information and the latest pictures and news.

Making of Allen’s giant doll puppet

Posted by hil

Remember Allen’s giant doll marionette that was walking the streets of Brisbane a few months ago? The Oscar-winning visual effects director John Cox, whose Creature Workshop created the puppet, has given a cool behind the scenes look at how it was made. Also, there are a few videos of her on YouTube now, including the Allen’s advertisement.

Campaign Brief has a little more background, and I was not surprised to see direct reference to Royal de Luxe‘s giantess:

‘Lam and Ross took Inspiration from a Mexican Festival puppet and a 7m French puppet.  The French puppet is believed to have cost $2M to build, yet this project didn’t have that kind of budget. The Cox created walking doll is generations ahead of the overseas inspiration in terms of her very advanced mechanics and instant physical appeal.

The Mexican puppet must be Luca. (I have some more information on Luca, but for another post). I think the  ‘generations ahead’ aspect in the case of Royal de Luxe is rather meaningless, and a bit of chest puffing. The fibreglass/plastic look versus the wood/steampunk look is an aesthetic choice, appropriate in each case;  and the movement of RdL’s giantess does not appear mechanically inferior, especially when you see the Allen’s doll’s feet kind of clap on the ground at each step in one of the videos,  and she seems to tilt backwards too much at times.

Giant doll marionette in Brisbane

Posted by hil

ellie-allens200-200x0

(Photo: Brisbane Times: Andrew Wight)

According to The Brisbane Times, this giant marionette doll, made by John Cox’s Creature Workshop, was being filmed on the streets of Brisbane for an advertisement for Allen’s Lollies. There is a short video by rockfotze at Flickr, as well as photos by zombietron, shonkathan and rockfotze, and a good close-up of her face.

(Influence of Royal de Luxe?)

Giant wire marionette in Vancouver

Posted by hil

vancouver

(photo credit: stephenccwu)

This huge wire marionette appeared at the opening of the new Vancouver Convention Centre last weekend; I gather it was associated with Cirque du Soleil. It was a performance by the Underground Circus, and the marionette was made by Peter Boulanger (who was kind enough to let me know in a comment below). It’s made of aluminium (I guess it’s really thick round wire?) , and at about 40 feet, billed as the tallest marionette in Northern America. The puppet moves to music and is operated by 5 puppeteers working pulleys. In this photo you can see it standing fully, supporting two acrobats: the one in the ball and one on the length of material. This is a great photo of it, too.

(influence of Royal de Luxe? Peter says not directly, though he knew of their work)

Nice Carnival’s huge dragon puppet

Posted by hil

dragonnice

(photo:  rafael rybczynski)

My interest was piqued by photo #32 in the Big Picture’s post about Carnival. It’s an impressive dragon puppet float that took to the streets in the Nice Carnival recently. I don’t know who made it, but there are resonances with Royal de Luxe’s giant puppets, for instance the carving of the head, elements of the construction and operation and the way it breathes smoke.

There are some photos at Flickr. In particular, Sparrowlight has a cool sequence of photos of the dragon, including a couple of short videos, here and here ; there is a shot of the puppeteers;  and debs-eye caught the dragon at rest (click to see enlarged):

dragonnice2

La Princesse

Posted by hil

475px-la_princesse1

This great spider is one of the newest creatures by the French company, La Machine (that I posted about a few days ago).  Known as la Princesse, her performance in the streets of Liverpool, England, last September was a highlight of  the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations there. She was commissioned by Artichoke, the company who brought Royal de Luxe‘s Sultan’s Elephant to London a few years ago.

A giant spider conjures up dramatic visions of Shelob, huge rearing fangs, giant trapdoors, buildings being webbed in, or the populace being picked off one by one and spun into food parcels, tasty morsels for later. But in one of the BBC videos, her creator, Francois Delaroziere, described the emotion he wanted to provoke as ‘sweet and in love’.

There are squillions of photos of la Princesse online now; here a few links as starters:

Flickr pool
La Machine’s webpage on the event
Main BBC webpage (portal) about the event
Revealed: The secrets of the 50ft robo-spider – ‘There is never a dull moment in Liverpool’ :)

The terracotta warrior and the girl

Posted by hil

This giant marionette performance was presented at the Beijing Olympics last year by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson.  It derives directly from Royal de Luxe’s giant puppets, but the story is about a Chinese girl and a butterfly awakening one of the terracotta warriors.  If you dig down in Johnson & Johnson’s site, you can see the trailer, the story board and some cool photos of how the puppets were made.  The tie to the theme of  J&J caring seems somewhat tenuous to me, but never mind!

The companies Poetic Kinetics and AiRealistic who were commissioned to design and develop the puppets and rig, both have interesting galleries of the process. And Bankai has a Flickr photoset.

Riding the giant elephant

Posted by hil

Elephant

I’ve been fascinated by the huge puppets instigated by Royal de Luxe for several years now, so while we were in France we went to Nantes to ride their huge sister elephant at Les Machines de I’ile, and to see all the other wonderful semi-fantasy creatures in their emerging menagerie. It was wonderful – if you get a chance, go!

Revitalizing the old shipyards on I’ile de Nantes, Les Machines de I’ile really is a glorious and grand folly in the best sense of the word, flights of fancy made real. We rounded the corner of the building and there was the elephant, absolutely enormous – it’s 12 metres high! – gently swinging its trunk and wafting its ears, and blinking, as it waited to take it’s next walk around the docklands.  From upstairs above the workshops, at the same level as the elephant’s head, we could see the construction and carving close up, and get some idea of the massive mechanics that make it able to move.

Head detail

Our ride boarded via airplane steps further along the route, and we climbed up to the balcony built into the elephants’ side. The doors into its tummy are decorated with curly turrets and carved animal heads. Inside there is a spiral staircase up to the platform on top, where passengers can look out in all directions, try to work out the mechs in the neck and ears, adopt Titanic-like poses at the front, and waggle the elephant’s tail at the back via a lever that pulls a cable connecting all the segments of the tail! Every now and then the elephant trumpets, and if you are lucky you can operate that from inside it’s belly. I rather suspect they like to keep how it is done a secret, but it’s hands-on and not hi-tech! More often the trunk whooshes steam and water.

The promenade is satisfyingly long – 45 minutes, and it didn’t matter at all to me that perambulating along at 1/4 km per hour you don’t actually cover much distance.

After our ride, we walked out along the steel pole and wood paneling branches that are a prototype for the enormous heron tree that is planned. Hanging along each branch are boxes of plants, the idea being that in time they will provide the greenery of the tree. Extensive research has gone into finding the right kinds of plants, since they have to survive on little water, and in quite an exposed position.

Prototype branch, Tree of Herons

The various models of the whole tree are amazing masses of wire and wood!

Tree of herons model

I’ve previously posted about the various ride-on creatures that are being built for the emerging Marine Worlds Gallery, and there are lots of photos of them now at Flickr. Since then the Giant Crab, the Bus of the Abyss, and the Storm Boat have been added, and there are some photos of those in my Flickr set.

The Giant Crab

Outside the workshops is a small carousel roundabout, also with wonderfully unusual creatures to ride – my favourite was a rearing stag beetle. I have lots of photos of these, too, but I think they can wait till another day.