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Puppetry Daemons in ‘His Dark Materials’

Posted by hil

By all accounts the two-part 6 hour stage adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials is absolutely stunning. I think it has had two seasons at the National Theatre in London: one in 2003, and a second that finished earlier this month.

The daemons, physical manifestations of the human soul in the shape of animals that reflect a person’s character, are puppets. They were designed by Michael Curry, who is perhaps best known for the puppets in The Lion King. Stagework has an extensive website on the adaptation, and its possible to see a few of the initial designs there, and glimpses of the puppetry in some of the video clips:

Operating the golden monkey
Lyra meets Mrs Coulter
Cittagazee performance
Captured by bears
Lyra and Iorek (scene in rehearsal)

In both these and the puppets in ‘The Lion King’, I think the magic lies in how the overall shape and actions of the creatures are suggested. Often the puppeteers are built into the shape in unexpected ways, and they use their whole bodies to make the animal move. In ‘The Lion King’, for instance, the puppeteers playing the hyenas held the hyena heads low down and at arms length, while their own heads provided the high shoulder line that is so distinctive in a hyena’s overall shape. Likewise, the polar bears in ‘His Dark Materials’, are defined by a puppeteer holding a head mask in one hand and a great clawed paw in the other, with just the suggestion of great shoulders in what looks like a flexible curved line between the two, and a powerful lumbering gait.

Bridge to the stars, which looks as if its the natural online home for ‘His Dark Materials’ fans, has a section on the stage adaptation, including a guide to the Stagework site, images and reviews.

Instant grab spray adhesive for polystyrene

Posted by hil

I’ve found a spray adhesive that sticks polystyrene with an instant grab – this is worth shouting about! Its in the 3M range, and is called Multi-Purpose Spray Adhesive. I’m amused by this graphic on the US site:

Botticelli because there is a humourous appreciation there of the beauty and godsend of finding the right glue for the job, but also because it reminds me of my Darcy Venus from Pemberley days.

Just about all glues eat polystyrene. White PVA glue and epoxy resins like Araldite are the exceptions, but they take time to dry, and the work has to be clamped meanwhile. One or two of the liquid-nails-type adhesives can be used, depending on the job, but they melt polystyrene to a certain extent, and are lumpy.

The can of Multi-Purpose Spray Adhesive that I bought here in Canberra doesn’t have the ‘Super 77’ tag on it, and is half-green-half-black rather than red. I’m assuming that its just different packaging, and the content is the same, but it might be worth checking. It’s a 467g can, boasts 6 times more coverage than any other competitor, and is expensive: AU$29.95. But its worth it.

Interior grip design for foam puppet mouths

Posted by hil

At Transformed Puppet, puppeteer and artist Ronald Binion has an excellent page about issues to do with making the interior of a foam puppet mouth both comfortable and effective in manipulation. He illustrates the kind of hand grips that he prefers.

Grip

As he notes, the interior is just as important as the exterior aesthetics in terms of using the puppet expressively; and as there is a propensity for puppeteers to suffer from repetitive strain injuries in the long run, it is also an occupational health issue that puppet makers have to keep in mind. Binion is also right in suggesting that there are many solutions to the problem. One of the joys of puppet making is that it is about problem solving, and individual approaches are valuable and part of the art. I particularly like the look of the thumb tube that is ‘connected to the mouth plate at only one point, allowing the thumb tube to act as a lever, and not force the thumb to conform to the angle of the mouth plate’. It’s also vital that the hinge of the mouth fits snugly into the hinge of your hand, between your thumb and fingers.

Take a tour around the Transformed Puppet (updated link 2015); there are some interesting puppet pictures and productions there. (Via PuppetVision Blog)

 

My White Rabbit for February’s Month of Softies

Posted by hil

What a scramble – I forgot February was so short! But here is my White Rabbit for Loobylu’s Month of Softies, which this month was on the theme of Alice in Wonderland. He stands about 40 cm (15 in) tall, and is covered in a very soft kind of fluffy material, (I’m not sure what – its not fleece or
terry towelling). He was going to have a blue jacket and be holding a
pocket watch, but I ran out of time to make those today.

rabbitc

The rabbit is actually a very simple glove puppet, as he fits on your hand and you can turn his head with a rod inside his body. He is very cuddly, and its fun to cradle him your arms (without it being obvious that one arm is inside) and make him come alive.

rabbitd

Update: Here are some pictures of him now he is finished:

White Rabbit puppet

Lord of the Rings Exhibition at the Powerhouse

Posted by hil

The Powerhouse Museum in Sydney is hosting a great exhibition to do with how Lord of the Rings Motion Picture Trilogy was created. Its been running since late December, and will close on April 3rd.

There is a lot to see: props, jewellery, weaponry, armour, costumes, models, artefacts, design drawings and paintings, marquettes, moulds, the Ring itself, and prosthetics. There is also a swag of video coverage about how the digital effects, special effects and make-up were achieved, and video interviews with cast and crew, though a lot of that already appears on the extended DVD.

I’m not a great fan of Lord of the Rings. Its unrelentingly male, and I’ve always appreciated the joke that Shelob is the most convincing female character. But there was lots to enjoy about the films, and this exhibition. My overwhelming impression was how wonderfully detailed everything was, and how much thought and care had been given to its making.

Gandalf’s grey robe is made of a beautiful rough mixture of natural fibres, (linen, hemp and silk, if I remember correctly) woven locally in NZ. I got a buzz out of seeing his wonderful bent felt hat (after John Howe’s great illustrations) , as well as all his ancient tomes. And lying among them, the charming surprise of his toffee bag, a small drawstring leather pouch!

Gdf2

Gandalf the Grey (courtesy www.john-howe.com – cool site!) Despite being a real Cate Blanchett fan, I had been disappointed with how Galadriel’s character was written in the film. But her dress was stunningly beautiful, white and luminescent. In contrast, the vacant dark Ring Wraith’s costume had a real sense of foreboding about it.The jewellery, weapons and objects like sword sheaths and straps were beautifully crafted and decorated. It was fun to see Frodo’s mithril coat of mail, and actually handle samples of the chain mail that was painstakingly made for Gimli’s and other characters’ costumes.

There were reproduction models (specially made for the exhibition) of Treebeard’s head, the cave troll and a goblin, which were cool. I loved seeing the marquette of Shelob’s head, and finding out that she was modelled on a tunnel web spider that the Kiwi designer Christian Rivers found in his garden. Of the building or scene models, I particularly liked the ruined Hobbiton Mill.

From a maker’s point of view it would have been good to find out in more detail the exact process of how some of these things were made, and the materials that were used, but I guess that would be catering to too specialist an interest. I haven’t read The Making of the Lord of the Rings, but I doubt that would go to that level of detail either.

I hoped to be able to buy a postcard of Galadriel’s dress to send to a friend’s daughter, but the merchandise in the inevitable shop at the end was boring, just the usual stuff that has been around in shops anyway. You would think that it would have been worthwhile for both sellers and buyers to have some merchandise available that actually reflected the finer focus of the exhibition.

You are meant to book for the exhibition if you are not a member, though the crowds had dropped off when I saw it a few weeks ago, and it was easy to get in. If you decide to go, its worth considering a membership to the Powerhouse. We qualified for a ‘rural family’ membership which cost $2 more than entrance to the exhibition, and gives us other perks for the year ahead not only at the Powerhouse, but places like the National Gallery of Australia and Questacon.

A tentacle mechanism

Posted by hil

When I was making puppets for ‘The Lost Thing’ a few months ago we had to come up with a simply-made tentacle that could start out straight, and then reach about a metre or more, and curl around to some extent at the tip. Here is the drawing I made of the mechanism I invented, in case its useful to other makers:

Tentacle
(click to enlarge)
The tentacle shape is made of a very soft foam, and has two tracks of heavy duty fishing line running up each side, though small sections of plastic tubing. The kind of tubing I found good was antenna housing that model-car hobbyists use, because it is strong and rigid.When the fishing line is pulled the tentacle curls, and when it is released the foam itself acts as a kind of spring, returning the tentacle to an at-rest straight position. I did have to put some additional spring and rigidity in the core of the foam, though. It was an experimental mixture of different lengths of spring wire, boning and strip plastic, with the idea being to incrementally decrease the rigidity towards the tip. You have to balance aspects like having the foam soft enough to compress easily, and the core springy enough to return but not too rigid to bend easily, and so on.The tentacle was covered: a very thin layer of dacron batting to make it all smooth, and then lycra.

The curls in simple tentacles usually only work in two directions. They are mechanically similar to those intriguing flexible wooden snakes and fish whose bodies are sliced into lots of cross-sections, and then constructed again with a leather or canvass strip running up the middle of the body:

Snakecurl
A tentacle made like this moves from side to side, not up and down, or with any twisting. The thing that excited me about the foam tentacle was that by pulling on both lines with varying pressures, it would twist around in a very sinuous way. It was not a feature that could be used much in the play, as the puppeteer only had one hand free to operate the tentacle, but it was an interesting discovery. It would also be worth experimenting with trying three or four operating strings, if the base of the tentacle was in a firm housing rather than being hand-held.

Don’t miss Jigsaw’s ‘The Lost Thing’ at the Sydney Festival…

Posted by hil

If you are in Sydney, don’t miss Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of ‘The Lost Thing’ this week. Its part of the Sydney Festival, and is playing at the Parramatta Riverside Theatre, from Jan 18 – 22. Its great news that the play will also be being presented by the Canberra Theatre Centre in March.

In December at the the annual Canberra Critics Circle Awards, Jigsaw’s artistic director, Greg Lissaman, won the The Canberra Times Artist of the Year award, and the company also picked up a theatre award for ‘the excellence, impact and theatrical creativity of Arborio‘. ‘Arborio’ is going up to the Sydney Opera House later in 2005. All cool news!

More ‘Lost Thing’ puppet pictures

Posted by hil

Here are some more photos of the puppet build for Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of ‘The lost thing’. The making crew were Imogen Keen and Hilary Talbot, with help from Catherine Prosser and Marie-Martine Ferrari, and designs by Richard Jeziorny based on Shaun Tan’s book ‘The Lost Thing’.

The cat :: carved out of foam, and made to sit on a beanie that one of the puppeteers wears
The janitor :: about 70cm tall
The small version of the lost thing :: about 70cm tall
The booth lady
The parents :: about 80cm tall on their sofa
The seagulls
The tram :: about 40cm long. It has interchangeable cut-outs of the people inside
The tram :: top detail
The boys :: Pete and Shaun are 35cm tall, and the little version Shaun is 25cm
Shaping the utopia lost things out of polystyrene, and painting them in the sunshine :: Imogen Keen, Catherine Prosser & Hilary Talbot
The utopia lost things carved but not finished :: they range in size from about 40cm across (the rower) to 150cm tall (the eye)
The utopia lost things

The Lost Thing plays at the National Gallery of Australia this coming week, 6-9th Oct.

Making the puppets for ‘The Lost Thing’

Posted by hil

As promised below, here are some pictures of the build of Jigsaw Theatre Company’s production of The Lost Thing. Imogen Keen and I have been making the puppets for the production.

The aluminium structure of the Lost Thing itself was made by Brian Sudding, who also constructed the set. We then covered and detailed it, adding tentacles, claws, and eye mechanisms. The designer, Richard Jeziorny, added further painted detail. The whole framework is made to be suspended on another frame, so that the Lost Thing is about 3 metres tall.

Imogen Keen covering the basic shape of the Lost Thing with foam.
Marie-Martine Ferrari (co-founder of the original Skylark Puppet and Mask Theatre) and I covering the foam shell with muslin.
From above, showing some of the aluminium framework inside.
After the first coat of paint.
The boy’s parents on their sofa under construction.
The mysterious janitor, in an early stage of being made.

The photographs were taken by Tim Raupach. I should have some more in a few days time.