Category Archives: Music/Sound effects

Happy New Year…..Happy New “Hero Face” Puppets

Posted on by Collette Knowles
1

I have not been posting on the blog regularly for a while because I only have a limited amount of time each week to work on our Rough Magic Theatre projects.

We decided the time would be best spent actually making the puppets, as they are very time consuming. Trying to make the puppets and promote the project on social media at the same time was proving a bit much.

However, it is now a New Year and a bit of a progress report seems like a good idea and hopefully might cheer a few people up in these difficult times.

It feels very hard to motivate myself to keep going with this project (working in a vacuum as we are) but I do feel as if I have made good (if fairly slow) progress.

I have completed front and and profile view “hero face” puppets for Hugo Knox our main character (the crime solving librarian), his daughter/bodyguard Artura, the Prime Minister of the City and I have nearly finished a profile puppet for the Police Chief. So, we have a front face view to complete for him plus puppets for the President and the King of Junk Town.

After those are complete there will be a whole load of single-use puppets and sets to do to complete the first episode.

This video shows a practical experiment at how the front facing “hero faces” will work. We used the “Jabberwocky” poem from our shadow puppet suitcase show for this lip-synch experiment as it is something Tim and I already know off by heart. Tim is controlling the mouth movement and I am doing the eyes/eyebrows. This is not the voice or the words we will actually be using for the Artura character in the finished show. We saw from this that the design for this “hero face” does actually work and so forged ahead with making more for the other main characters that will need re-usable hero face puppets like this.

I also designed profile puppets with nodding head and working jaw for the Prime Minister and Hugo which I am happy with but have not come up with controls for them yet. We will have to experiment to see what sort of controls will be least visible for them.

The Prime Minister of the City (Profile view puppet)

People who would like to support the project can make a donation below:

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

£5.00
£10.00
£50.00
£3.00
£9.00
£60.00
£10.00
£20.00
£60.00

Or enter a custom amount

£

Thanks so much for contributing to our work! 😃👍

Thanks so much for contributing to our work! 😃👍

Thanks so much for contributing to our work! 😃👍

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Animation at National Media Museum, Bradford

Posted on by Collette Knowles
7

The photos above are some of the exhibits from the animation section at the National Media Museum in Bradford.  I had a quick look in before an artists networking meeting at Kala Sangam yesterday.  Obviously the quality of my photos is not that great but if you have never been before it is well worth a visit and can see the originals properly for yourselves.  It is an excellent resource, brilliant for kids and is free to get in.  There is also a picnic area if you want an extra cheap day out as well as the IMAX cinema if you want to splash out a bit.  For a trip down memory lane they have old computer/arcade games that you can play and also a section on TV and old TV adverts.

I used to go as a child when it was called the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and it has lost none of its charm.  In fact they constantly have new exhibitions, activities etc. and are a central part of the Bradford Animation Festival which showed Lotte Reiniger’s feature length silhouette animation film “The Adventure of Prince Achmed” with a specially commissioned live musical score back in 2014.  This film with live musical accompaniment is being shown again in July this year at the Horse + Bamboo Puppet Festival (CLICK HERE for more details).