Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts

Also, I'm going to Atlanta with my chum next weekend. Now you may not have known that Atlanta has their very own Center for Puppetry Arts. How awesome is that? Unfortunately the only thing they've got going on next week is this "House at Pooh Corner" -- yeeah.. uhh no thank you. But they've got all these schnazzy shows lined-up from Nov. 19th onwards to the next year. One thing that stands out for me is Xperimental Puppet Theater
Interesting no? Anyways, just a heads up.

Everday = another productive day. So get to class on time! That's preaching for my own ears. La dee dah.

Some of us worked on gessoing, sanding, and getting those bird puppets to a real smooth start for the painting task. Others (myself) worked on little set furniture pieces-i.e. painting the table. Still others worked on the shadow puppet and the need to resolve mechanisms, how it would look flying horizonally across vs. flying away at a further distance.

This thing is far from finished. We realized today that perhaps we need to cut out the back (slits mayhaps?) to manuever the puppets better. We found that manipulating them from the bottom wasn't quite the easiness. And in order to get better control, the back would probably work out better. I've provided a little sketch to show what I'm talking about. We could 1) cut out the back entirely and separate it from the stage at a slight gap (so we can move it) - but still keep the back scenery and the window and the mother bird all intact OR 2) slits - little cutouts along the back so we don't have to cut out the entire back, and camouflage it with some set decor

Does it sound confusing? Check out the sketch. AND if still confusing well... then... I can't help you. just kidding. Hmm... and lastly.

The script. DOom doom doom. So unfortunately all of us are bad at writing. Well we are art students and not professed writers. So excused. BUT... our story relies heavily on dialogue and unless we are fantastic improvisators (is that a word?) then we need a script. Script I say! So I will attempt the feat of writing the script. Matt I see says he is willing to lend a hand to this. Thanks. Anyone else in the meantime decides for a yes as well, Well, let me know. Anyways, catch el birdio group on Sunday then. (seriously I'm not this "gay")

I lost my USB cable for my camera. So I can't upload images here tonight. On Tuesday we gesso'ed the bird puppets and then used a hard molding paste for the beak to give it a smooth touch. We found that fingers were the best technique to use for smoothing. Tomorrow we are probably going to finish that gesso process and begin painting the bird characters. These updates are getting shorter and shorter huh?

Im sorry about last week. yes very sorry. i brought in some hay bale for the set stage and some red curtains for the front.... maybe we should paint the box instead of covering it entirely in fabric. anyways, to the bird group, i apologize. so now about the script. is there someone that wants to help me write it? who likes writing stories and developing character plots? am i being too quiet about this whole thing? anyways, anyone willing hit me back on the post.

We worked on the puppets some more. I have to remind myself to stop missing class due to oversleeping - but the alarm (that didn't go off on Tues) has been fixed. So this shouldn't be happening anymore. Anyways, we were working on the bird puppets. Actually I spent about the first hour and half to figure out some more of the script and write it down (again, not very successful). Farrell worked on the mother bird and got some pretty good mechanics going on there, with the bird beak and the movement for the eyes using wires. On the latter half of the class period I worked on getting the bird son's body molded and plastered. Unfortunately I forgot to bring a camera to class, so currently I have no pictures to show. Arturo also suggested that we not actually show the mother bird regurgitating her food, but rather have her mouth move and the children birds catch the food in their mouth. And use sound to emphasize her actions. I think sound would be very necessary and would also help facilitate the scenes.

But with the script I think maybe some of us need to get together or correspond via e-mail and get a script going. We were reminded again of the 4 or so weeks left till the final showing. I was wondering if maybe for some of the script we could use a narrative voiceover to cover some of the actions. Hopefully I can get some more written this weekend.

scriptwriting

Just to get a feel for scriptwriting/coming up with a dialogue etc, i printed out one of The Family guy's episodes. The show is just so hilarious and you know that their hilarity is based off their strong script. But it plays a lot on each of the characters on the set. I mean you expect each of them to say something that is in line with the personality of the character. And also, a lot of random humor. Sometimes reeaally random humor. You could say our vomiting cue is a really random bit, humorous? hmm... well it might play off just fine.

Anyways, what we have today was more of the general idea. We do have direction.

Kids arrive home from school. Dad is on the couch, Mom is the kitchen window. So the kid son has been suspended from school for flying. Dad warns the kid about the dangers of flying [ brother died flying into window bit]
[more chirping chatter]

[argument]

TV with natural disaster [what - hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, industrialization, wildfires ??]

dad doesn't want to leave - but family convinces dad to evacuate

---ending ---

screen with shadow puppets indicating their flight away.

--- also egg cracks on the nest couch ---

--- dim lights---

---the end---

and we all know that because our scenes are basically the family setting. our dialogue needs to be really strong and drawn out - but not dragged out.

So here are some of the components of sitcoms:

There's:
1) act (sitcoms are usually broken into 3 acts)
2) scenes - could be one long scene or several short scenes
3) A & B stories - main plot (A) and also possible subplots (B)
4) climax - usually in a sitcom there are two climaxes - the first at the end of ACT 1 and ACT 2 another climax- this one is usually the worst "I would never want to be in that situation"
5) lastly is the resolution, ACT 3.

some more points to remember about creating a story... (for writing a comedy script--advice from BBC New Writing Initiative)

1. REMAIN TRUE TO THE CHARACTERS. the characters should sound like the characters and act like the characters.
2. CHARACTERS SHOULD BE ACTIVE. not necessarily "active" meaning that they should continually be moving, but that the characters should not be passive and reactive. Make situations arise out of stuff the characters do instead of stuff that happens to them.
Generally, the BEST STORIES ARE CHARACTER-DRIVEN. There's a funny situation, but the situation should be especially uncomfortable for the main character. An instructor says: "If it's a situation you wouldn't want to be in, it's worth writing"
One way is to generate storiesby MAKING A LIST OF THE CHARACTERS AND THEIR FLAWS.

Now this is for comedy sitcoms and generally they run for 25-30 min or so. However, I think this can be helpful for our development. I don't think we're straying away from any of these points anyways. Plus, our characters are birds. Personified? yes, but people? not entirely.

At some point, I will bring in a microcassette so we can record our written script or storyboard and see how long it actually is, who's voice should go to what, etc etc.

Have a good weekend folks.

general things to remember

We continued to build sets today.
The main stage is made out of cardboard and we have wood for the frame stability and the top part for the shadow puppetry. (the flying away at the end)
Also built some furniture pieces - couch and beginnings of chair and lamp (little details)
I guess what i mean to say is that we don't have a storyboard yet.
Cecilia suggested we watch a sitcom and really get all the details and jokes whatnot from it. -Take notes.
We should at least hit for 5min at a minimum and probably 20 min maximum. (for the entire show)
I will post more for things I've found applicable to our project.
Also I am bringing some paints, hay, and other bird useable things (like sticks and leaves) for Thurs.

so Tuesday we worked on making the bird puppets out of clay and using plaster bandages, make plaster puppets. The bird puppets are a cross between the zebra finch and the gouldian finch, with a leaning toward the gouldian ;)

our storyboard is still the same. ah the anti-fly birds.

Short Outing in St. Augustine

I tried to locate everyone who went, but had no success. Maybe folks went earlier in the morning? Anyways, I went to the beach and then went to the field next to Castillo de San Marcos. I don't know how the actual pictures taken while the kite was in flight will come out, but I took some (not very good) pictures of the place and the kite flying from where I was standing. I will attempt this again in the future!

... the Ghost Delta in the air!



here's Koura the Corgi waiting patiently...



it's way up there



at one point, my dog got distracted and ran somewhere in my attempt to go and fetch her, the kite got away, leaving the camera cradle in a vulnerable position, this is what happened to it.



looks like a prime place to kite fly huh



But alas, I did not have everything working out to my advantage. So folks that is the end of my adventure. Not much, only nerdy pictures to tell.

the kite aerial camera project

I received the kite on Friday like planned. However, there is no kite reel or kite string, and of course I forgot about that. Yes that's perfect. And the kite is gigantic. I knew that one though. I flew it a little bit with some spider line today. Works I guess, for now. Too bad Coastal Kites is out of town until the 26th, so looks like my line won't get in until 2 weeks from now. But I can see myself flying this kite in the near future for fun.

Anyways, I have pictures of the camera rig.






parts, parts, parts. I got parts.













we're getting closer...

























and voila! we are at the end of the kite aerial camera rig. There's a cradle involved. I did not snap photos. You like those bit crumbs on our small coffee table, for added effect.

The work of Kara Walker reminds me a bit of shadow puppetry. Though it is not manipulation of the puppet through conventional means, her work acts on the silhouettes which under overhead projections seem to animate the images. Her new exhibition "Song of the South" includes an installation of film (and 16mm!), experiments with projection and shadows, live performances, animation, and a shadow puppet performance. It also features a premiere of the film 8 Possible Beginnings: or the Creation of African-America. A Moving Picture by the young, self-taught, Genius of the South K.E. Walker. Her shadow dramas depict acts of sex, birth, dismemberment and play coupled with dominance and desire, fantasy and fear.



It is currently on display at the Redcat in L.A.
Sept. 3-Oct. 23, 2005
There will be a performance of the artist at 7PM on Oct 23 - with what the gallery says a Live Shadow Puppet Performance.

yeah i'm a bit behind as well. but it's going to be done by tomorrow (the camera rig) for the aerial kite tomorrow! That's what I'm planning on. Also I bought a kite! woo-wee! It's the ghost delta bought from Coastal Kites. The instructions stated for a kite that holds a line of at least 100lb. So thus a more costly kite I chose.

i've been checking out shadow puppetry. Shadow images of very elaborate and handcrafted puppets are projected onto a screen. It originates from India and Egypt, and traveled to Turkey, Greece, China, Thailand, Camboia, and in Indonesia.
There's a shadow puppeteering company called Shadowlight Productions founded by a pioneer of modern shadow puppetry, Larry Reed.

Reed is drawn to Native American mythology and storytelling. His contemporary interpretations of Native American tales are told in a format borrowed from the tradition of Indonesian shadow theatre. He also uses digital technology to produce shadows of the actors and stage sets, which are projected onto a giant screen that spans the entire width of stage.

robots

so i have this book, absolute beginner's guide to building robots(Que Publishing 2004. i bought it when i took Pappenheimer's Machine Sculpture class 3 semesters or so ago, and thought i'd use it. well, it turned out to be a little bit more complicated and time-consuming,plus we were focusing on projects dealing with feedback and surveillance rather than straight robotics. anyways, needless to say i didn't use it. but it's pretty cool because it teaches you step by step these projects. one is a coat hanger walker, another actually involves using a computer mouse, and still others. and it's got a decent guide to robot resources. but you know you could always use these projects as stepping stones for puppetry.

they also list some robot research centers like:


Biorobotics lab at Case Western University - they study the mechanics of nature to see what can be engineered into robo-critters i.e. cockroach, ants, crickets, and other creepy crawler types.

Biorobotics Lab


Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute - Lots of labs working on various robotic research and projects.

Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute



Humanoid Robotics Group- It's MIT. need i say more?

Humanoid Robotics Group



JPL Robotics - Developments in space robotics research.

JPL Robotics



Jouhou System Kougaku Lab- the JSK Lab @ the University of Tokyo (mostly in Japanese though)

Jouhou System Kougaku Lab



Robotics Research in Japan- A list of all universities and research centers in Japan devoted to robotics.

Robotics Research in Japan



Poly- PEDAL lab -- the lab @ Berkeley, also studying robotics based on the nature of insects. The poly- refers to "many-footed" animals, while the PEDAL = Performance, Energetics, and Dynamics of Animal Locomotion.

Poly-PEDAL lab



happy research.