Having cleared enough space to get a shadow screen, a camera (actually a smart phone with a special tripod) and an O.H.P.(over-head projector for those not in the know) into our Rough Magic Theatre store cupboard we were ready to start experimenting.

We wanted to find out where to put these three things in relation to each other to get the pictures that we want.

We also were particularly keen to try out a shadow face on the flat-bed of the projector to see what size we would need to make all of the characters faces for what we are calling our “hero-face” puppets. These will be for creating close-up facial expression shots of our main characters and will hopefully have moving eyes, eyebrows and mouth to create a wide variety of expressions. This will hopefully save time on puppet making as we will not need to create a new puppet for each facial expression. We will have “hero-face” puppets for all of the main characters both “face on” and in profile.

Here is a picture of my earliest experiment creating a generic moving facial expression puppet (e.g. this was just a face and not intended to represent a particular character)

I made a start on making one based on my drawings for the bodyguard daughter of the main character and it is this partially complete puppet that we did several experiments with (checking the size and a few other things). You can see videos of this in the subscriber only content for this week (or perhaps I should say last week as we are a little late this time).

Unfortunately we have been having lots of trouble with our washing machine which has broken for the 3rd time since lock down so I have been having to take time out to go to the launderette. I have also been turning up trousers for my son who has started at the nursery attached to our local primary school this week where they wear the same uniform as the older primary school pupils and the smallest size is still a bit large on Anthony (bless him).

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