Initial Research and ideas

The Puppet Project

Brief

For this module you must examine a scene from one of the following and respond using the broad platform of Puppetry to recreate a scene from: 

Any current news, TV, film, media event eg.

BAFTA Awards

Current News Events

The Walking Dead

Game of Thrones

Period Drama - Downton Abbey / Selfridges / Call the Midwife

It is important that you spend time getting to know your media context and scene and research into the original text if appropriate, examine textures, language, sound, movement, film etc.

Pay close attention to the activity of the characters, the role of the surrounding scenery, interactions, external influences, mechanisms, animal / human mannerisms.

Following this research you must design and make a professionally constructed puppet, or a group of puppets that represent the text and/or scene.

Your puppet does not have to have human form. It could be animal or abstract. Your research could be about the structural mechanisms and alternative aspects as well as direct links to films / series.

My initial thoughts of puppets lead me straight to thinking about the muppets. I took inspiration from this and began to think more about styles and materials. I knew that I didn't want to make 2D puppets as I have done something similar in a previous project using stop frame animation and wanted to challenge myself further than something I already know how to do.

After mind mapping my ideas I thought that the most interesting was something much different to the ideas everyone else had mentioned. To re-create a scene from one of David Attenborough's wildlife programmes which I secretly love. 

David Attenborough is an English broadcaster and Naturalist. He is best known for writing and presenting the nine life series, in conjunction with the BBC, which collectively form a comprehensive survey of all life on the planet. He is widely considered a national treasure in Britain, although he himself doesn't like the term.

I really like the idea of a scene containing a close up encounter with an animal. I would like to use the sound of the original footage and not an imitation of his voice. David Attenborough's voice is so easily recognisable and I don't feel that any imitation of his voice would do him justice. He has a soft, calming tone that people relate strongly to, he entices his audience and maintains their engagement purely through the passion in his voice.

I picked out Davids significant features. I know that my puppet will need to have these to be recognisable. He is has a very characterful face and specific aged lines and features. He has pronounced cheek bones and a square shaped head that will all need to be accurate in my recreation of him.

I picked out a few scenes which I thought I could simplify and recreate. My favourite is with the orang-utan and the passion and interest you can see David has. I really enjoy watching him talk about an animal whilst in his presence, you can see it really brings him to life. 
I'm struggling to find a scene which has fully relevant content as I want to use his voice. The scenes are fantastic but what he is saying in these scenes would be hard to make relevant in a short production. I may have to use some editing software to make this a success if I can't find a scene that I feel strongly about.

Looking for further information and inspiration I read this book by Laura Ross. It contains simple instructions and clear diagrams of a variety of puppets. It also contained special information for dressing and handling puppets and ways of setting up various types of stages to produce shows. I gained some valuable information from the book and learnt a lot about puppetry. It shows fantastic ways to create puppets using paper bags and small stages for shadow puppetry. It even has tutorials of how to position a puppets head and how to hold your wrist whilst activating puppets. It has inspired me to create a glove puppet. Hopefully the techniques it teaches will help me in creating my scene.

I collated all sorts of images of puppets that I like the style of and different angles of David Attenboroughs face so that I could be as accurate as possible when trying to accentuate his features. I took particular interest in the spitting image puppets and the likeness they had with their intended character. I watched various episodes of spitting image puppets to really analyse the features that had been accentuated and the mannerisms which the puppeteers created.

I want my puppet to be recognisable and to resemble David Attenborough, I hope to use similar ways to do this as the spitting image creators have. I may not exaggerate the features as much as they have as I would like them to be more subtle, as his personality is. 

This clip of Margaret Thatcher shows the preciseness and detail that the makers went to to create the likeness and personality in their characters.

Now I knew that I wanted to create a puppet more lifelike as opposed to abstract. After researching I discovered the best way to do this was by using foam or latex.

I researched both of these methods and found that latex was very time consuming and also expensive although the final results look successful. It includes initially making a full clay mould, followed by a plaster cast, followed by the latex. The downfall I found with latex was that once the final latex mould was finished it would be flexible but I would be unable to move parts or features or activate the mouth to open and close for instance.

 Unfortunately due to the time consuming process it meant that I wouldn't have as much time as I would want to focus on the other components such as animals that I may want to include in my scene to make them accurate.

After researching into foam puppetry I found that this would be more successful and can be altered until my desired results are achieved. I also like the softer look of the foam puppets and opportunity to work with fabric which I've rarely done before.

I did a lot of research into how to make my puppet properly using the correct techniques. I found step by step tutorials and lots of help on youtube. Although these tutorials are not exactly the shape of Davids face they give me an insight into basic patterns and techniques. I have bought the correct foam, 1/2 an inch and some foam adhesive to secure the foam once made. I have also bought flesh coloured felt and a grey wig to use.

I researched more into various types of imagery used on Television. I watched various adverts as there are so many varied techniques used. I really like these puppets enhanced with CGI. The style may not suit exactly what I am trying to create due to the softness of the puppets and pastel colours however they do show me different ways to add texture to skin and the success of not using typical beige and skin tones to create desired outcomes. I may subtly also use stitching to add detail as I really like this simple yet effective technique.

Finally I watched a programme on the BBC which gave an insight into how the life series was made. I was amazed that many scenes were superimposed and David was not actually there with the animals on some occasions as this was just too hard to film. He actually spent some time in front of a green screen. During the making of my scene I will keep this in mind as it may be relevant to some kind of content I would like to create and I may be able to use a similar technique.

Initial tutorial feedback

• To select an exact scene
• Create a storyboard
• Take better quality images to use on Blog
• Make some prototypes
• Upload to Youtube once the final video is complete and see how many hits I receive 
• Make sure you not only assess features but also mannerisms and specific movements
• How many puppets do you want to make?

This feedback helped me realise what it was that I needed to do next and how to prioritise my workload. I have spent a long time researching and need to begin making so that I have time to overcome any difficulties I may face.

Proposed Idea

After watching and analysing various episodes and clips of David Attenborough I came across this interview/campaign. I really like this clip as it gives me the opportunity to assess his movements and mannerisms in detail and also to make some animals I can animate to create the story.

This Campaign supported by David Attenborough was inspired by the 2012 Movie 'Chimpanzee' about a young chimpanzee Oscar all alone in the wild who becomes adopted by another family of chimps. Before the filming began they had no idea that this would be the outcome and were there just to gather more research and information about Chimpanzees in the wild. David Attenborough always emphasises his love for chimpanzees as one of his favourite animals and you can see the passion he has for them in this clip. Conservation and protection of endangered species is something I also have a strong passion for which is another reason why I chose this clip and feel that it would be a success.

I wanted to research more into the movement and personality of chimpanzees. In this interview with him the images of Chimpanzees shown are still. If possible I would also like to create a chimpanzee puppet and create some alternative moving scenes to incorporate into the recreation of this clip.

Here is the trailer for the film Chimpanzee in which David is supporting the chimpanzee foundation which helped to develop my ideas. I watched the full movie to totally understand the story and watch the chimps in their natural environment.

This video is quite long but I found it absolutely fascinating. Because I would like my puppet of David to resemble him I am also going to aim for this to be done with my Chimpanzee.
I wanted to see some animal puppets and study how they were made and activated. The video has studied the cats mannerisms in so much depth and is absolutely amazing how realistic it looks. Although you can see the puppeteers the attention is detracted away from them due to the successfulness of the activation of the cat.

 I created a short storyboard to analyse the number of scenes I would have. The scene is over 5 minutes long and mostly explains aspects of the film and previous experiences of Davids. I am hoping that there is enough relevant content to be able to create a campaign purely based on promoting the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation and what they do, without having to introduce the film and losing the emphasis on the foundation. I will use editing software to shorten the audio and make a short film. I will still use Oscar as inspiration for my Chimpanzee puppet as his story is true.

I will use similar introductions and credits as this clip does however I feel that I wouldn't gain anything from copying it exactly so I will make decisions where needed to fit my campaign.

I took more inspiration from the Wonga advert. These are more like the look I will aim to achieve with my puppet. The features are only slightly accentuated but are very visable and the heads are slightly larger in proportion to the body which is also what I aim to achieve with my puppet in the style of a caricature.

David's latest TV programme Natural History Museum ALIVE made me think about his personality and also his interaction with animals in more depth. The scenes throughout this are very clever as they seem realistic as though the animals are in the room however they are in fact extinct and computer generated. This made me think more about the digital programmes I could use to enhance my scene further and also gave me more scenes to reference afterwards to explain the outcome I want.

Making

Following further feedback from Jo we found ourselves having to scroll and scroll through the blog to see all of the pictures as I am unable to put them into a montage style using Blogger. I will consider this in further blogs and possibly look for a programme I feel is more suitable.

To overcome this I have made some step by step videos which hopefully are more interactive and interesting to look at than scrolling image by image.

The video below shows the steps I took to make my David Attenborough puppet.

Next I began to plan how I was going to create my chimpanzee. After searching online I couldn't find anywhere with instructions of how to create a chimpanzee puppet or a pattern of how to make anything similar at all so I had to start from scratch and create my own.

                                                                   

Having gained inspiration from various sources I feel all of these have contributed to the outcome of my final puppets. I have used stitching inspired by the CGI puppets on davids face to create character and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and also on the Chimps ears to add detail in a different way.

As I was using a voiceover that already existed I decided to play the initial video as we filmed. I placed a monitor so that my puppeteers could see it and hear it and directed them to try and mimic the actions of Davids in the video. I directed throughout the video and attempted to make my puppeteers exaggerate the movements of both puppets as initially they were worried about how to move them. In the first few takes we operated Davids arms using my puppeteers but I just felt that it was too distracting from my puppet himself so we decided to use fishing wire attached to his wrists, this way he could be activated with the puppeteer out of shot.

I set up the filming at my house, this proved very difficult especially getting the lighting right. I used the most similar chair I had to that of the one in the original footage. As the original footage was also dark with a spotlight on David I wanted to create the same effect. I Blacked out all of my windows and bought some spotlights to shine on each of my characters. Unfortunately the spotlights didn't work as I thought and gave off too much light surrounding the characters. I tried moving them closer but they just weren't successful like the ones in the studio may have been. I also found that this problem lead to lots of shadowing which detracted attention from the puppets themselves during filming.

To try and rectify the problem with shadowing I used as much natural lighting as possible. This was more successful but I do still feel like it just looks like i'm filming in my house and this really isn't the outcome I want to achieve. It may be that the best way to change this is with editing software afterwards.

After a day of filming and analysing the footage I had, I still didn't feel totally happy with the outcome. I found it difficult to be 'bossy' and direct my puppeteers to do what I wanted them to. As the day went on I did feel that I gained more confidence in how to direct however they still weren't as successful as I imagined them to be. I was happy with the movement of my David Attenborough puppet but unfortunately my chimpanzee doesn't do much other than nodd his head and move his arm and I just envisaged him to be more interactive but struggled to portray this to my puppeteer. I didn't want to take over myself as I felt bad, but in hindsight I should have done to get the outcome I desired. 

With the footage I already had, I wanted to see what the possibilities were of editing it to look more like I wanted using Adobe Premier.

I used a spotlight tool to enhance my characters and black out the background and felt a lot happier with this as it looked a lot less like it was filmed in my house.

Although I was far happier once I had spent the day editing my video I still wasn't happy with the activation of the Chimpanzee so I decided to try and do something about it. As I previously mentioned I wanted to have some moving images of him in the video. Taking inspiration from the original still shots in the video I wanted to film in what looked like the Chimpanzees natural environment. Eventually after driving around for the day to search for the right environment I decided on a forest just outside Lichfield, Staffordshire. There were large ferns and leafy forest floors which I felt was as close as I would get in this country to resembling some type of rainforest. I set the camera up with the Chimpanzee in 3 different positions and activated him myself as I knew in my head what I wanted and had previously found it hard to portray that. I also felt I would persevere more on my own to get the outcome I wanted.

Now I had some footage of my Chimpanzee I wanted to try and use the same effect as I had already in Premiere to edit it into my video so that both my puppets could be seen at the same time.

Unfortunately Premier doesn't have the tool to enable me to layer more than one video. With help from Boris I discovered that I would have to get the sound right and have the footage of David on his own in a spotlight exactly how I wanted it in Premier and to incorporate my Chimpanzee into it aswell I would have to use Adobe After Effects. I imported my video into After Effects, I then imported my other 3 films of my Chimpanzee and split all 3 layers. This enabled me to see through all 3 layers and choose the parts of the scenes I wanted to include. I used the pen tool to draw a circle around the parts I wanted and then cut them down to short scenes. I used the feathering tool to feather the edges of my circles to resemble a spotlight similar to what I had done to David so that they tied in together. I then rendered my finished film and exported it.

Final Video

Here is my final video which I have published on YouTube and also can be found in the BA Art and Design group on Vimeo.

Conclusion and Evaluation

I'm even happier with the final result than I would have been if my initial idea had been successful. I'm glad that I re-filmed outdoors and had some varied scenes of my Chimpanzee. This could have been even more successful if I had realised earlier and I could have filmed a few more takes and perfected the movement of him.

I also could have used parts of various clips where the puppeteer is invisible. In the final video the puppeteer is visible on a few occasions which distracts the viewer slightly, however I wanted the scene to flow throughout and didn't want to keep cutting it up even if it meant the puppeteer wasn't seen. To make this less obvious the puppeteer could have been wearing white, this would have made them less obvious and distracting in the final film.

I'm really glad that I chose something I feel so strongly for. I love David Attenborough and could watch any programme he narrates with ease. I find him fascinating and his life truly inspiring. Along side enjoying his life series I have a passion for nature and strongly believe in conservation and protection of endangered species which is another reason why the final film I chose to make was so perfect.

I'm glad I spent so long analysing his mannerisms and characteristics as I feel this is what lead to the success and detail of my final puppet. I have mastered the use of my sewing machine which I hadn't before and would definitely like to do a textiles based project again.

After making a video for a previous project and feeling disappointed at the result I was nervous about filming again as I didn't feel that it's a strength of mine, however now I feel a lot more confident about filming and very confident with the use of editing software afterwards which I have learnt can make a huge difference.

Throughout this project I have set myself mini deadlines which has helped me to complete my work comfortably in the allotted time, however in future I will allow myself slightly more time just in case I encounter problems or things that i'm not happy with so that I feel like final piece is perfect.

 Overall I have learnt some valuable lessons in doing this project and mostly enjoyed the construction of the puppets themselves which I have never had an opportunity to do before.

Now my video is on YouTube I am keen to get some feedback of what people think of it and to see how many views I get.