I just logged on to update my blog and then saw that Kermit Love died last night.

From the NY Times obituary:

Although Mr. Love collaborated with luminaries of dance like George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Robert Joffrey, Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp, it was the 8-foot-2, yellow-feathered Big Bird and his 7-foot, woolly mammoth-like friend Mr. Snuffleupagus — both perennially 6 years old — that brought him global attention.

I only met him the one time but he was the nicest man. And genius. Oh, I am very sad. I feel like my best friend’s dad died, you know?

I had a conversation the other night with a man who’d been a puppeteer for years. In the course of the conversation he said that he’d never picked up marionettes because he thought they were too hard to learn. I’ve heard this before. I hear it a lot, in fact, that marionettes are too hard to learn for most people.

I don’t agree.

My feeling is that it’s just as hard and takes just as much time to master a marionette as it does to truly master a rod puppet. BUT in the beginning stages of learning, a marionette looks much worse than a rod puppet. To use a music analogy. Anyone can make sound on a piano the first time the touch it. Not everyone can make sound on, say, an oboe. That doesn’t mean that an oboe is takes longer to learn, it’s just that the piano is more forgiving to beginners.

I think puppets are the same way. Anyone can pick up a rod puppet and wiggle it, but to do it well takes the same time and attention as a marionette. People just give up faster because the beginning stages can be discouraging. And I don’t think that it’s really that they are more inept with marionettes, but that the mistakes are more obvious.

My parents have a recording of me at the age of five playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” on the violin. I was not good. A year later, they recorded me again. I was still not good. I wound up playing the violin for seventeen years and got better.

I’m thinking that just because it sounds or looks ugly the first time, doesn’t mean you should stop trying. Once I got past the beginning errors, marionettes became as easy as a rod puppet.

This is a post that I wrote over two years ago while working on the television show in Iceland. At the time, I held it because there was no way I could talk about this stuff without giving away that we were doing a circus episode. Well, the episode has been out long enough now that I can post.

So here you go, puppetry flashback.

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April 26, 2006

I did loads of stuff with one of the puppets on a highwire. We had one shot that was really fun to do because it was hard. The puppet had to hold on to one of those bars that tightrope walkers use to balance. I have no idea what they are really called, but we called it the stripey pole. So, normally, you’d tape the rod to his hands and either have someone outside the frame holding the end of it, or you’d put a rod on it. In this case, an actor needed to take it from the puppet in the shot. Which we would normally do with live hands, but the way it had to be framed, there was no way to do either of these and make it look good.

So, I put on a greenscreen top, and used the wrist-entry left arm. (Maybe I should stop and explain that with live hands I have a choice of entering the arm at the elbow or the wrist.) I pulled the green shirt sleeve over the entry sleeve and they keyed my arm out. This mean that everything in green was invisible on camera–it’s very cool. So, it just looked like the puppet was holding the stripey pole and then we could pass it to the actor.

Maybe you have to be a puppeteer to know that this was nifty.

After that, it was more stripey pole action, but I just held the end of the stripey pole out of frame.

We finished the day with a trashcan shot. I know. I thought I was finished with trash too, but no. I was the periscope which had too peek up from inside a trashcan. They painted the fiberglass trash can today and it was still degassing. Mmm…let’s sit inside the container of toxic fumes.

I don’t think so. I requested and given a respirator. Because there wasn’t room in there for me, the periscope and a monitor, I also had to use the VR goggles, all of which were oh-so-attractive. The shot itself was fairly simple. I had to make the periscope peek out of the trashcan, look around, and then an actor had to jump on me. Great fun.

—

And just so you can see what a trippy, trippy episode that was to work on. Here’s the music video and the closing number.

Stan Winston died last night.

Stan Winston, an Oscar-winning visual effects artist, has died at age 62.

Winston died at his Malibu home Sunday evening after a seven-year struggle with multiple myeloma, according to a rep from Stan Winston Studio.

I never met him, but I have a lot of friends who worked with him and always spoke of him highly. My relationship with him was through his work. The level of artistry and technique that he brought to puppetry was astounding. When Dad and I went to see Jurassic Park, I remember him leaning over to me to ask how the dinosaurs worked. At one point, I said, “They’re real dinosaurs.” I’d bought into the illusion thoroughly. Puppetry has lost an amazing talent.

Rolande Duprey documents the process of repairing an historic marionette. It’s fascinating and with beautiful photos.

Paul McPharlin, sometimes called “the Father of American Puppetry” built a marionette covered wagon with a team of two horses and a driver for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair “A Century of Progress”.

Many years later, the horses and driver were discovered at an elementary school in Michigan by Fern Zwicky, who recognized them as having been at the “transport” exhibit at the fair. She gave them to John Miller, who kept them in his collection as she had found them. In the 1970’s, one of the horses, that was in fairly good shape, was photographed by Time/Life for a book on puppetry.

The other horse was missing a foreleg and hoof. In the spring of 2008, John’s widow, Marilyn O’Connor Miller asked me to repair the horse’s leg. I brought it to the O’Neil Puppetry Conference, where Phillip Huber and Jim Rose could help give advice on how to go about the repair.

We did the benefit performance of Peter and the Wolf yesterday. I’d spent the week in rehearsals and intended to blog about them, but I kept dropping into bed instead. I know, I know. Picking sleep instead of you guys. Clearly, my priorities need work.

So, we’ll catch up today.

The puppeteer who played the narrator/Grandfather role could not be with us this time, so we substituted Jodi Eichelberger instead. Jodi and I have worked together for years, but haven’t performed opposite each other in ages. While I was looking forward to that, the thing that I loved was that we took the time to really work the scenes between Peter and the Grandfather, something that we’d not had time to do with the other puppeteer.

As a result, those scenes were clearly tied to the music and had a specificity that was lacking before. Funny what a little rehearsal will do, eh? It also helped that Jodi and I have performed so much together (years touring) that we can anticipate the other one.

I also got to see the video of the show for the first time. In the last performance, we had no mirror in the rehearsal room and so I had to rely on other people and what little I could see of the puppet myself. I mean, I could only really see the top of Peter’s head. Parts of the video made me happy, but great swathes of it made me go, “Gah! People were letting me get away with that?”

I think the first rehearsal that Jodi and I did largely focused on getting the puppets to walk without looking like they were being prodded with sharp sticks in the rear at every step.

The stage we were on was significantly smaller this time. So there were places where I simply didn’t have enough action and no amount of scenery chewing was going to fill it out. So I asked if they could speed that passage up. Lo! I still had to chew the scenery, but not as much.

Other than that, it was easy to pick the show back up again. I wish we did more than one performance though. As frustrating as the puppet is, I like the show a lot. Or maybe it’s just that I like the music and the live musicians. What a joy!

Lisa Mantchev posted this video of You Think You Can Dance and I clicked on it because usually Lisa is smart about these things.

At the 1:34 mark, the male dance did a move that I specifically teach new puppeteers to avoid because it is physically impossible. Let me repeat that. Physically impossible. He stands up, rolling over his toe, in a way that makes it look like he’s being pulled up and back by a string.

He does it three times during the course of the video — which also includes a fantastic dance and is worth watching on its own — each time, I backed the film up and watched it over and over.

Now, the thing is, that clearly, he’s a very strong man and that he’s getting a little boost from his partner, but STILL if I did that with a puppet I’d be accused of breaking every rule about Muscle and gravity in the books. Granted, there are times when we break the rules on purpose, but if one is aiming for realistic movement, what this man is doing would be avoided because it looks impossible.

The funny thing is, that it’s like fiction. There are all sorts of things that happen in real life I could never get away with in fiction because because it defies belief. It fascinates me that the issues involved in creating verisimilitude on the page and on the stage are same. It doesn’t matter if it’s true if it doesn’t look real.

New York – The Players Theatre will host Hands together: New York Artists Gather for China Earthquake Relief to Benefit UNICEF presented by Matrix Music Collaborators on June 14, 2008, 3pm, 115 MacDougal Street (between W3rd and Minetta Lane) in Greenwich Village, New York. Admission is $45 / Package of Four for $125. All proceeds will go to U.S. Fund for UNICEF. Tickets can be obtained through TheaterMania (www.theatermania.com) at (212) 352-3101. For individual donations, please visit www.unicefusa.org/ert for U.S Fund for UNICEF.

On May 12, 2008 the largest natural disaster in a generation struck Sichuan province in China.

According to date recently collected by UNICEF, more than 10,000 school buildings in Sichuan were badly damaged by the earthquake. Almost 7,000 schools were completely destroyed and many others suffered partial damage. UNICEF estimates that the number of school children affected is in the millions. Most of these children are now trying to continue their schooling in temporary shelters and tents. Precise figures are still very difficult to obtain. As the death toll from the earthquake exceeds 68,000, according to official estimates, the needs of survivors are growing daily. At least 300,000 people were injured and 5 million displaced. Now in the aftermath we can see that the scale of the humanitarian crises before us is truly staggering. Supplies are being rushed to the five million are literally without shelter. Like so many Americans we stand together with the people so deeply affected by this massive earthquake to find ways to help.

This special performance will feature an international line up of artists to include Min Xiao-Fen; Wu Na; Huang Ruo; members of the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre; Asian American Writers’ Workshop; the cast of puppeteers from Peter and the Wolf and Matrix Music Collaborators. It is geared for all ages.

Program:

Drunken Man by Jiu Kuang, based on a famous poet of the western Jin dynasty (265 -420)

Blue Pipa (inspired by Miles Davis) by Min Xiao-Fen

The North of Sunset by Thelonius Monk, arr. by Min Xiao-Fen

Mo (dedicated to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake) by Min Xiao Fen and Wu Na

Performed by Min Xiao-Fen, pipa / Wu Na, qin

Four Fragments for solo violin by Huang Ruo

Performed by Yoon Kwon, violin

Oblivion by Astor Piazzolla

Performed by Matrix Music Collaborators

Excerpts from The Joy Luck Club

a play by Susan Kim, adapted from the novel by Amy Tan with direction & musical staging by Tisa Chang

Performed by Pan Asian Repertory Theatre

“Super Cop World” video installation featuring mighty Mario and Jackie Chan

Designed by Eric Siu

Peter and the Wolf, Op. 57 by Sergei Prokofiev

Performed by puppeteers: Deborah Hertzberg; Serra Hirsch; Daniel Irizarry; Mary Robinette Kowal; Chris McLaughlin; Jessica Scott; Meghan Williams, and Jodi Eichelberger, directed by Jane Catherine Shaw and Terry O’Reilly with Matrix Music Collaborators under the direction of Sheryl Lee

Readings by published authors from Asian American Writers’ Workshop

Continue reading Downtown Artists Unite for China’s Earthquake Victims and UNICEF

Details will follow, but I want to give as much warning as possible. Saturday, June 14th we’re doing Peter and the Wolf as part of a festival called: Hands Together: New York Artists Gather for China Earthquake Relief. We are working with UNICEF and have some great guests coming in such as Pan Asian Rep.

This is a viral ad. Why am I showing it to you? It uses Brains, one of the characters from the Thunderbirds, and combines puppetry, CGI and motion capture to good effect. What I love about it is that, though are a few things that a marionette can’t do, ¹ it doesn’t violate the rules badly and it takes advantage of the fact that it’s puppet by doing things that a person simply can’t.

But what’s even better is the behind the scenes footage. It showcases the work of Ronnie LeDrew (who did the giant marionette Levi’s ad) as the head puppeteer on this one.

Spotted at PuppetVision.

1. The very fast spins, in particular, but otherwise, most of it is possible [↩]

Elizabeth Barrette asked, “How did you get into your cool practice of acquiring bizarre props and building puppets?”

This is one that comes up a lot and, strangely, I don’t think I’ve posted on it, so I’ll give the long answer.

I was one of those kids who wanted to do everything. My parents indulged me and so I took violin, art, theater classes, writing workshops and then, in high school, discovered puppetry. A friend of mine went to a church that had a puppet ministry program, which was the coolest thing ever. I started going to the church so I could be involved — maybe not the best reason to join a church. Anyway, I got very lucky because the leaders of the puppetry program worked very hard on teaching us good skills. A lot of puppet ministry programs have truly dreadful puppetry. I loved the puppetry. When our high school did Little Shop of Horrors, I was the plant.

Anyway, I did puppetry until I went to college. I majored in art education with a minor in theater, which was the closest I could come to combining everything that I loved to do.¹ My sophomore year, the college did Little Shop and I was the plant again.

Then a professional puppeteer came to see the show. Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that someone would actually get paid to do puppetry. I mean, sure, I’d seen Sesame Street, but that was on PBS and everyone knew that PBS was run by volunteers, right? Yeah… But this puppeteer, Dee Braxton, owned a house, only worked a couple of days a week and most importantly, was willing to train me. By the end of the first summer, she was handing me the gigs she couldn’t take. People were giving me money. To do puppets. I was making more money doing that than my part-time job.

Later, I realized that we lived in an area of the country with a very low cost of living and that we were the only puppeteers in a three county radius. It helps.

From there I went to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, GA for an internship. This shaped me as a puppeteer more than anything else. George Latshaw (like unto a god, in puppetry) was directing, and the cast was a dream team of puppeteers, Jon Ludwig, Jane Catherine Shaw, Bobby Box, and Peter Hart. Pete was in charge of the internship program and my mentor. If I tried to say enough good things about that program, I would bore you, so suffice to say that I can trace everything back to there.

After the internship, I just kept working. I’ve been at it for nineteen years now and, with the exception of a two-year break due to a wrist injury, have made my living as a puppeteer.

Until I came to NYC.

Now the irony here is that, before Iceland, I’d had several years where I worked three to five months out of the year here, as a puppeteer. I always felt as if I would work constantly if I lived here. And behold, that’s true. The odd thing is that almost all the work has been in the props department.

That’s something I stumbled into and I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I enjoy it and it’s honest work. On the other hand, it’s not why we came to NYC and is taking up so much time that I haven’t had a chance to really pursue puppetry and it’s cutting into my writing time.

Rob and I are talking about how to balance that, going forward. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

1. Later I learned about colleges, like the University of Connecticut, that had puppetry programs. [↩]

Thursday, Jodi and I shot a pilot episode. We were the only two puppeteers on the shoot, and as often happens, the only people in the room with prior puppetry experience. The puppets were charming but, to my eye, built by a stage puppeteer rather than a film and television puppeteer. How could I tell? Small details, like visible specks of glue. Now, for stage, this doesn’t matter¹ but for film work you have to be prepared for extreme closeups.

These were rod puppets and the necks were extremely thin, long and sproingy. ² Our slightest tremor translated into a giant head wiggle. On top of that, the mouth trigger would actually pull the whole head down with it. None of this violated the forty feet and a galloping horse rule, but boy howdy did it look funny in a closeup. We weren’t doing lipsync so much as headsync.

AND one of the puppets broke moments after we got there. I had a total MacGyver moment and repaired the puppet with a paperclip, gaffers tape and superglue. ³

The guys we were working for were supernice and thankfully understood the challenges pretty darn quickly. On the whole, they seemed pleased. Hopefully I’ll be able to show you some of it down the line.

1. We have a saying, “forty feet on a galloping horse” which means that if you won’t notice it while galloping on horseback forty feet away you won’t notice it on the stage either [↩]
2. Yes, that’s a technical term. [↩]
3. No, I can’t describe the repair in more detail because to do so would require explaining what the characters were which would blow the secrecy around the pilot. [↩]

There’s an interview with me up on J. M. McDermott’s blog, which you should check out if you’ve ever wanted to know how I got started in puppetry.

Remember when I was talking about working Peter? Deb Hertzberg, one of the other puppeteers on the show, took a short video backstage so you can see what I was talking about.