Category Archives: Bunraku style

“The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance” v “The Dark Crystal” Movie (1982)

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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The Dark Crystal (1982) movie was one of the formative puppetry experiences of my youth. As I was born in 1982 I did not get to experience it at the cinema but rather watched it on the television in later years.

Sadly I do not remember exactly how old I was when I first saw it but, at a guess, I would say around 7 years old.

I remember it was frightening, or rather, had frightening bits but I was not distressed by it in the same way I had been by Moley in the Wild Wood (in Wind in the Willows by Cosgrove Hall). I used to make my Mum fast forward that bit on the video when I was 3 or 4 years old.

I think the worst bits were the collapsing face of the old emperor and the draining of the essence of the podling and then Kira, (though she did escape). The little detail of the tiny Podling child with her little doll when the Garthim raid the Podling village is also moving, (but I think adult parent of 2 small children me picked up on that more than child me did). However my main feelings about the film were that it was an exciting magical world. I did not even think of it as puppetry. The characters and the story were real creatures from another world that we just happened to have a window inside. I think I felt the same way about the characters from the Cosgrove Hall Wind in the Willows. As stop motion models/puppets everything was really real and was actually occupying real space rather than being a bunch of pixels in a computer.

I also found the Skeksis amusing rather than scary through much of the film. The disgusting way that they eat is so wonderfully tactile and filled me with the same childish glee that one gets from a Roald Dahl book such as “The Twits” or “George’s Marvellous Medicine”. The Chamberlain and his constant repetitious “whining” “mmmMMMMMmmm” was one of my particular, favourite bits of the film.

Re-watching the film with adult (and puppeteer’s) eyes sadly involves my analytical brain popping into gear. I can see the traditional puppetry style of the Jim Henson company in the way the Podlings and some of the other puppets move (the same style that we see animating Muppets and characters from Sesame Street). I was also a big fan of Sesame street growing up. I was too young for the Muppet Show and again, at the time did not think of the characters as puppets, (they were real).

I can also clearly see the multiple legs of the Garthim masking the real legs of the puppeteers (because I am looking for them) and that the Land-striders are the same shape as a person with stilts on arms and legs (because that’s what they are). What I am not sure about is whether I notice this because I am a puppeteer and puppet maker or because I am now an adult.

The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance has modern technology to help make the world as real as possible for an adult audience (they assume that fans of the original will be watching the prequel and are therefore now adults). In theory (as with the original) it is supposed to be for a family audience, but if so I would say it is definitely more suitable for older children. They have used green screen technology to remove puppeteers from shots and CGI to remove visible puppet rods. They have also used CGI for various special effects, backgrounds and the creatures that are in the place of wheels in the Skeksis’ carriages. From my research I have discovered that Jim Henson was not entirely happy with the puppet Gelfling as major protagonists as they did not have a lot of expression due to the small size of the heads and this is the reason they used human actors in the subsequent Froud/Henson collaboration film “Labyrinth“.

The Gelfling head animatronics in AOR is an improvement on the original heads with movable eyebrows allowing for a range of expressions though the jaw/mouth is rigid and simply opens and closes. The heads have also been augmented with CGI for certain shots (adding in eye blinks etc.).

The Director says that his aim was to make people forget that they are watching puppets and I’d say that the Gelflings and Podlings are the most problematic when it comes to that, (the Podlings are definitely a bit “Muppety” but very fun to watch). On my first watch through of the series (I binge watched it) I definitely found the rigid mouths of the Gelfling puppets a little off putting and found the expressions they were capable of a bit limited at first, but as the story progressed I found I became more absorbed by the story and less conscious of the Gelfling puppets’ limitations. They are undoubtedly beautiful puppets and I found Deet the most engaging of the main, Gelfling, characters. Her colouring (particularly her lustrous amber eyes) is very beautiful and she has a wistful, poignant expression that fits with the character’s eventual tragic ending (I say “ending” as with the series being cancelled we are sadly never going to find out what eventually happens to Deet).

On subsequent re-watchings of the series, I found, (as I often do) that as I already knew what was going to happen in the story, that my brain, (once again) started to focus on how everything was done technically.

I loved the very knowing and amusing reference to the artform of puppetry in the “puppet show within a puppet show” episode. The miniature puppets were wonderful and there was no pretence that these were anything other than puppets telling a story. The Dark Crystal film was criticised by some for not having enough humour in it (hence the change of tack in “Labyrinth”) but this episode of AOR was packed with humour from the very eccentric “Heretic” and “The Wanderer” and the interplay between the two.

I have read that the decline in popularity of the Bunraku theatre in Japan was possibly due to the fact that the puppets were too realistic and that once a puppet reaches a certain level of realism then it prompts the question: Why use puppets at all when an actor can portray so much more expression? The obvious answer to this in relation to the puppet Gelfling is that they are not human, merely human-like. I don’t know how much better a human with make-up/prosthetics would look compared to a realistic puppet, but I suppose the obvious comparison here would be Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films. The Hobbits and Elves are wonderfully expressive because they are human actors and of course they pioneered the motion capture suit technology for the character of Gollum, (which one could argue is another form of puppetry).

However, I have seen the screen test footage that “The Jim Henson Company” created using a puppet Skeksis and a CGI Gelfling and even though (in my opinion) the Gelfling was a bit basic CGI wise compared to Gollum, the Skeksis and Gelfling do not match up together in terms of the way real objects catch the light etc. The puppet Skeksis in my opinion would not be better as human actors because they are not human-like and, therefore, they play to the strengths of the puppet; which is to do things that a human actor cannot do and to be things that human actors cannot be. There is no room for improvement with the Skeksis in terms of their appearance or performance in my opinion. They recreated the brilliance of the Skeksis in the original film and gave us more of what we liked in the first place and developed it and took it further, with a little CGI augmentation here and there (tongue movements for example).

The combination of Warwick Brownlow-Pike as puppeteer and Simon Pegg as the voice actor did a fantastic job of bringing the character I loved so much from the original film back to life and recreating and building on that original performance by Frank Oz and Barry Dennen. I would say that Warwick should take the greater credit for the acting performance of The Chamberlain when you consider that the voice-actors were matching their performance to the visual performance that the puppeteers had already created.

So if we agree that the Skeksis need no improvement and that they don’t match visually with CGI Gelfling then we are back to the decision to make the Gelfling puppets with little “pops” of CGI like the AOR did in fact use.

I think the problem is that the quality and realism of everything in the series is so high (with nearly everything physically there and lovingly handcrafted by experts at the top of their game) that very small flaws stick out rather more than they would otherwise do.

This series is, and will remain, an example of a crowning achievement of what is possible with puppetry; breaking new ground and inventing new ways of doing puppetry for TV that have simply never been done before. The puppets have been pushed to the absolute limits of what is possible and the Director, Louis Leterrier, pioneered the use of multiple hand held steady-cams to shoot the puppets which particularly pays off in the epic sequence where Rian is rescued from The Chamberlain’s carriage.

Performers of TV/film puppetry are used to being in complete control of what the camera sees by using monitors to view their performance as they do it. But, obviously with this approach (even with a split screen monitor) the puppeteer is not in quite so much control of the shots and I imagine they would have to approach the performance more like a human actor would. Leterrier directed all of the 10 one hour long episodes (a huge commitment which gives the series a unified overall vision) and he brought his experience of directing action fantasy films such as the 2008 The Incredible Hulk film to the project.

This is such a rich source of material to discuss one could write whole books about it (and indeed many people have). I am aware that I have only covered a fraction of what there is to talk about with both the original film and the Netflix series, (including the contentious issue of the cancellation of the series) but I have to draw a line somewhere.

To those at Netflix who think that the series is too expensive to make versus the amount of new subscribers they gained who wanted to watch this series; I would say that I would recommend anybody to subscribe to Netflix* just to get to watch this show (if you haven’t already seen it). If you haven’t already seen the original 1982 film or want to re-watch it; you can’t get this on Netflix. I downloaded the film via *YouTube Movies but perhaps it is available from other places too? Please mention in the comments section if you know of other places you can get hold of the film.

On a non-puppetry note if you are a similar age to me and remember “She-Ra” and “He-man” from your youth with affection there is an original Netflix series “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power” (which is a Manga style animation). It is aimed at people of our age who remember the series from our youth and the characters/plots/writing are sophisticated with lots of emotional depth. It is, in short, immensely superior to the original which was created solely to sell toys. So if you do decide to subscribe to Netflix I would recommend this as well (I have also enjoyed/am enjoying their series of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective agency”).

I welcome comments and would be particularly interested to hear from anyone who was involved in the making of “The Dark Crystal” or “The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance”. 🙂

*Please note I have not been paid anything by Netflix or Youtube to mention them and am wholly impartial.

Beverley Puppet Festival and Upfront Puppet Theatre’s “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

Posted on by Collette Knowles
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We optimistically purchased tickets to see Drew Colby’s “My Shadow & Me” (Shadowgraphy) some time prior to the Beverley Puppet festival and checked whether we would be ok to bring a 1 year old child with us.  We thought that with a showing of 2pm we stood a good chance of being able to get Anthony ready and travel over 100 miles east across Yorkshire in time.

Then we found out that there would be a Puppeteers UK meeting there as well at 10am and I thought to myself if we do REALLY well we might even get there for the meeting too!

We did NOT get there for the meeting too.  We didn’t even get there for 2pm.  We only managed to leave the house by around 10.30am and of course we had to stop for lunch and in the end only just got to the festival in time to see anything at all!

We caught most of the “Tiniest Cellist” act by Ettenoiram (of Hungary).  Clive Chandler’s Punch & Judy was nearly over when arrived so we just had a little chat with him after his show.  We also saw Lady Lucinda Harrington-Carrington by Noisy Oyster (of Frome) heading by (whom we had encountered at Beverley when we performed there previously) and also saw Professor Ambrose Merryweather & His Fabulous Fossils by
Vivify (of Scarborough) in the distance.

We had been thinking disappointingly that in order to be back in reasonable time to put Anthony to bed we would have to set off home again but when Mark Whitaker appeared for a 4pm performance of A Bird in the Hand Theatre’s “Special Delivery”, we thought we couldn’t really pass up an opportunity to actually see a full show.

Ironically, the main two acts I had caught at Skipton Puppet Festival the previous year (when Anthony was a very tiny fellow all wrapped up in his pram from the rain) had been Mark Whitaker’s “Special Delivery” and Clive’s Punch & Judy.  We had unfortunately not been able to watch all of Clive’s show as at that age he had found it too loud and started crying.  Anthony was able to watch and appreciate properly Mark’s show this time and my husband and Rough Magic Theatre co-performer had not seen it before, either.

It is a lovely little street theatre show – very adaptable (somewhat like my shadow puppet suitcase shows) in that the whole staging is mounted on a bicycle which is wheeled into the space by Mark and then remains there, freestanding, (using the kick-stand).  This leaves Mark free to perform around it and use more of the space (coming close up to the audience for various bits of action etc.

The show includes a whole range of different types of puppetry and story-telling techniques including a “crankie” and Kamishibai style “storyboards” and various small “table-top” type puppets.  These show the interior of various people’s houses who are receiving parcels, which are themselves in little puppet theatre boxes designed to look like paper packages on the bicycle.  This is in addition to some lovely wordless slapstick character work by Mark, (in the character of hapless postman) involving sandwiches and self-raining umbrellas (a joke that worked much better in Beverley in the sunshine than in Skipton, where mother nature was already providing plenty of rain!).  Altogether a very charming and magical show (the finale with the hot air balloon is particularly lovely).  It is, however, definitely a show for an intimately sized audience as the puppets are very small scale.

 

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As I explained in my previous post, John & Elaine Parkinson of Upfront Puppet Theatre were kind enough to invite us to see their new improved version of their production of the Pied Piper of Hamelin based on the Michael Morpurgo version of the story.

We were not sure how well Anthony would cope with an indoor marionette show of this length but he seemed to stay pretty happy for a good long stretch before needing a bit of a break for a drink.  When we tried him again after the interval he once again seemed to get frustrated that he could not get close and play with the puppets, (making distressed noises when characters disappeared from view).  This unfortunately meant Tim did not get to see all of the show as he took Anthony out when he was getting too noisy.

The Michael Morpurgo version of the story has (as you would probably expect) a bit of a moral and political agenda compared to the traditional tale.  The town of Hamelin has a sharp divide between rich and poor – with the poor street children at the bottom of the heap and kept outside the town walls scavenging on the rubbish tip.  Because of their unwillingness to share with or even encounter the street children (who are forced to steal to survive) the townspeople begin to foul the streets with rubbish to avoid having to take it to the tip.

The rats migrate from the rubbish tip into the town (and so do the children in their search for something to eat).

The Mayor of the town is the villain of the piece being greedy and not using the people’s taxes to benefit the townspeople (by dealing with the rubbish properly for example).  He of course refuses to pay the Piper properly and in this version of the story the Piper promises to return the children of the town when the town is made a fit and proper place for all the children with food and housing and education etc. catered for.

I particularly liked the Mayor puppet who has a good strong caricatured shape to his body and clothes.  I thought the movements of the puppet fitted his character and the meaning of the words and action he was expressing in various different scenes very well.

There were also various very ingenious and quite effective techniques for moving large amounts of puppet rats about the stage.  UV lighting was used to good effect to light up the eyes of the rats and give them the sinister and evil appearance required by the story.  The most impressive effect involved a large number of rats moving across the stage on a gauze curtain and then somehow diving off the curtain rail into the “river”.  Though there were also some cartwheeling rats diving into the river that were very effective too.  I think the fact that a variety of different techniques were used to control the rats made it a lot more interesting dramatically.  I think some of the rats being pulled on strings across the stage snagged at one point, but as there were other rats still being moved with various other techniques it did not detract from the action and I doubt if the majority of the audience realised anything had gone wrong.

There was a very nice effect for the magical opening of the cave which I won’t describe so as not to spoil the surprise and the turntable stage and various other set changes were slick and effective.

To meet the the technical challenge of the large number of children heading in and out of the cave large numbers of children were grouped on 4 multiple controllers that in turn were slid across the stage on an overhead rail/pulley system.

The music was particularly good, (I hear via John’s article in the BPMTG newsletter that it was composed by a folk duo and roped in children from the local school for chorus songs).  It really helped to set the scene and keep the story moving along during set changes as well as providing necessary sound effects for the action.

I think it is a very ambitious production for the number of puppeteers (4) and uses a lot of complicated mechanisms to portray the action, (but I guess that is probably the nature of marionette productions and I cannot claim to have seen a great many traditional marionette shows).  In my experience, the more complicated the mechanisms in a production the greater the chance of something going wrong and as we were fairly early in the run I think things were not quite as slick as they doubtless will be towards the middle and end of the run.

Overall the show was very entertaining and told the story well and the puppets and sets are all beautifully made.

It was very interesting to hear from John at the end in the Q&A time about the lengths they had gone to to ensure that the production was a good match for the original book.  For example, specially printing up fabric patterns for the puppet costumes directly from the illustrations and having the puppets inspected by the illustrator to ensure they were a good match.  I think John did a good job translating the 2D images into 3D puppet heads, which cannot have been easy.

It was also wonderful for the children (and indeed the adults) to be allowed to come up close at the end and take photos and ask the puppeteers questions about the puppets.  This is also a great idea because it discourages people from taking surreptitious photos during the show and distracting the performers and other audience members.