Video Puppetry Workshop in L.A.

I just got word that puppeteer Michael Earl will be offering some video puppetry workshops in the Los Angles Area. As a past student of his, I would highly recommend this workshop to any puppeteer interested in video puppetry. Working with Michael eventually led to my involvement with Jim Henson's Puppet Up!, and greatly improved my video puppetry skills. Many of today's top film and video puppeteers have studied with Michael. Anytime I perform a puppet in front of a camera, I am using the techniques I learned from his classes.

Michael Earl has performed in many Muppet and non-Muppet productions, most notably as the original Mr. Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street. He joined the Muppets in 1978 at the age of 19. After three years under contract, he freelanced with the Muppets for the next twelve years on several projects. After leaving the Muppets, he went on to become a four-time Emmy Award-winning puppeteer and writer/lyricist.

For more information about his classes visit his web site and click on contact.

Frog Dissection

I occasionally get e-mail from readers of my blog. Most people ask about specific puppet building questions. Some people send me photos of their puppets, or works in progress. The other day I received this photo from a sender that asked to remain anonymous. Yes, they have actually deconstructed the Kermit the Frog photo puppet from Master Replicas.

Comic-Con 2007

I've just posted all of my Comic-Con photos on my Flickr site. Enjoy!

James Wojtal Interview, Part 14

James Wojtal is a talented puppet designer and builder. During his career he has worked on projects like Avenue Q, Bear in the Big Blue House, Crank Yankers, Saturday Night Live, Sesame Street (the American and various internationl versions), Mop-a-Top’s Shop, Kermit’s Swamp Years, Animal Jam, and more. In this interview I asked him to share his thoughts about puppet building.



SJ: During your time with The Jim Henson Company you did refurbishing as well as building from scratch. What sort of damage did the puppets have, and how did you go about refurbishing them?

JW: It varied a lot from just worn out fur spots, to complete and total foam break down. The really old puppets would naturally have turned to "toast". We would pull them out of a box, take off the plastic bag, and be showered with bits of decayed foam rubber.



Sometimes it was just glue giving out, so you would have to re-glue a mouth plate, or replace some feathers. Often the challenge was trying to find enough material in the boxes to do the repairs, since a lot of the puppets were from dye lots, and fabric stock that may not exist anymore.

James Wojtal Interview, Part 11

James Wojtal is a talented puppet designer and builder. During his career he has worked on projects like Avenue Q, Bear in the Big Blue House, Crank Yankers, Saturday Night Live, Sesame Street (the American and various internationl versions), Mop-a-Top's Shop, Kermit's Swamp Years, Animal Jam, and more. In this interview I asked him to share his thoughts about puppet building.



SJ: Rebuilding familiar characters like Bear for Bear in the Big Blue House or Camilla for A Very Merry Muppet Christmas seem to have built in difficulties. How do you go about reconstructing a puppet so that it looks identical to the original.

JW: To start with, you want to get the puppet in front of you as much as possible. See where the wear and tear has really had an effect. Get good photos form the archives, and get the patterns, if possible. Talk to one of the other builders who may have worked on that puppet, and see what they remember. There is so much stuff that just does not get written down, weird little processes that a builder learns to do that become second nature, but can not really be described - it has to be shown, or taught to you.

Also, many puppet patterns evolve. As they do, they will end up with weird bits and pieces that were changed, or added to. You may come across something without a marking on it - it happens since a lot of time you're under a tight deadline to get something done. When you are finished you may not have time to get back and archive all the different parts of a pattern, or it may be a pattern from the first version that is no longer valid in a puppet that has been rebuilt or added to as its character has evolved. A running joke we would often run into is finding a pattern piece with "Totally useless old pattern, do not use, DO NOT THROW AWAY" written on it.

James Wojtal Interview, Part 10

James Wojtal is a talented puppet designer and builder. During his career he has worked on projects like Avenue Q, Bear in the Big Blue House, Crank Yankers, Saturday Night Live, Sesame Street (the American and various internationl versions), Mop-a-Top's Shop, Kermit's Swamp Years, Animal Jam, and more. In this interview I asked him to share his thoughts about puppet building.



SJ: You mention on your web site that the most challenging and rewarding job while at The Jim Henson Company was rebuilding Bear. Can you tell me about the challenges you faced?

JW: Perhaps the biggest challenge when rebuilding a puppet is capturing the character that people have come to expect. it's more than just a pattern when you rebuild an older established puppet. Now you have to capture all the wear and tear that the puppet has gotten because it has become part of what the puppet is. You have to distress the fur a bit, you have to trim it to the right length, match the number of hairs in the eyebrows, etc.

When you get new fur its all fluffy - but take a good look at an old stuffed animal, or doll, and you will see all the wear playing with it has caused. If you look closely at Bear from his first show of the season to Bear at the end of the second season you will see the wear start to show. That's the puppet you are really matching - not the brand new clean original, but the well worn Bear (I really hope that all made sense).