philip pullman

Fantastic new His Dark Materials puppets!

Posted by hil

snow-leopard-3

I noticed a flurry of searches on my blog recently for puppets from Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials but only realized that there was a new production by Blind Summit Theatre when I read on Stitches and Glue that Paul Vincett was one of the makers of the new puppets, along with the puppet designer Nick Barnes, and Billy Achilleos.

I’m really excited by the exquisite aesthetic of these puppets. Take a look at the showreel slide show or the album of stills. They suggest the essence of the creatures with the simplest of lines – just beautiful!

Blind Summit Theatre was founded in 1997 by Nick Barnes and Mark Down to make new plays with puppets for adult audiences. His Dark Materials is on at Birmingham Rep: 13th March – 18th April; and then at the West Yorkshire Playhouse : 28th May – 20th June.

There is some great puppet making information on the Blind Summit site, too, though not specifically for this kind of puppet.

His Dark Materials illustrations

Posted by hil

Pullman2

I’ve finished reading Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials now, and I thought it was wonderful. The ideas and characters are still floating round in my head. One of the charms of the trilogy is the little little symbolic illustrations at the beginning of each chapter, drawn in pen and ink by Pullman himself. They are simple, and black and white. Pullman has written about how he did them, and also features them on his site, though the ones for the last book are not up there yet:

View Northern Light illustrations
View The Subtle Knife illustrations

I love the way they pinpoint in a nutshell, the essense of each chapter. My impression is that this doesn’t happen so much in books anymore. We are used to icons and symbols in software, or maps, for example, but those are more to do with function. Trademarks and logos are different again, more about branding and identifying; perhaps, as Michael suggested, a modern version of heraldic design.

Rambling

Posted by hil

Orange and blue

Not sure why I thought of this photo this morning. It was taken about 18 months ago at Middleton in South Australia, and I love the washed out summer look with the orange and blue.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with fellow Canberra blogger Ampersand Duck a couple of days ago. I really enjoyed it — thanks, AD!

That day I also picked up a copy of Northern Lights, the first in Philip Pullman‘s trilogy His Dark Materials. I’ve been intending to read it since blogging about the theatrical production which featured puppetry daemons designed by Michael Curry, and now by the news that it’s being made into a film, The Golden Compass, which has a release date at the end of this year. I’ve already dived in, and I’m finding the story engrossing.

I wonder how the daemons will be done in the film?

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.