Its been a fair while since my last post, I've been very busy! We finished and preformed the show last Thursday at Headly Park School and now I finally have time to go through all the material and stick it up here on the blog! I'll go through the development of the show since my last post and then write my thoughts on the performance itself. 

To follow on from the little cardboard model on my last blog post, here is how the rocky island for the long armed character, Gordon, developed.

 After I constructed a form from sheet MDF, Bee came and helped me out by covering it in paper mache.

Next I roughed out the base paints, I also put metal strips around the edges of the area the puppet preforms in. This allows the magnets built into his hands to 'stick' to the set. I also glued carpet to these areas to help give the puppet additional grip while performing. Behind the set I later built a small shelf for props.

This is the finished set, I added a fur fabric 'skirt' to allow greater flexibility in terms of how high the 'sea level' was by disguising the base of the set. I also added some mussels to give more life and texture to the set.

Next up is the island where the long-legged character, Steven,  lives.

 I began with a large silhouette of his house, which was scaled to the puppet to allow him to easily look out the window at the top. Tapered sides accentuate its tallness. The floor of the set was then layered up with old foam mattresses which I carved with a scalpel to create a sandy texture. 

 The foam sand on Steven's island is base coated in neon orange and drybrushed with yellow. This ended up being very bright and appealing complimented by the bright blue of the sea.

I added a hinged door to the house and a mechanism for opening and closing the window. The bottom block opens the window and the top block closes it.

The finished set for Stevens island. The house is finished with plant leaves and bamboo. Initially I planned to use flattened tin cans and other rubbish to dress the house, this wasn't getting me the results I wanted though. Luckily My dad was able to help me out with some bits for his garden and it turned out great! He also made some legs for each of the sets which saved me a lot of time and was really helpful.

The sea is made from about 100 strips of blue fabric that where each sprayed white at the selvedge edge to make them look like foamy waves. These where then stitched end to end into long strips and layered as in the top image, creating a false perspective. Initially I planned to attach the sea to a long belt stretched across the performance space. I was a bit worried about this in terms of being able to control the sea level, sagging, and the potential to damage the venue... so I had a rethink. The eventual solution was to suspend the sea between two tressel tables with bards attached to them at the correct height. There is also a post that attaches to the center of the sea to minimize sagging.

Here is the first incarnation of Steven, as a newspaper 'sketch', one of a number I made in order to work out the scale and proportions of the puppets.

Steven was then re-imagined in wood. His shins where bulked out with foam and the hands were a combination of leather, milk bottle plastic, wire, bandage tape and foam. Both puppets have magnets in their hands which attach to various parts of themselves, each other and the set. These magnets were useful but somewhat unreliable, not quite as strong as was needed, so we had to babysit them a bit when preforming.

The joints in the ankles and knees went through various iterations during this process, as I attempted to achieve natural balance and movement in the puppet. For a long time Steven had a heavy, droopy head which caused problems, particularly when solo-puppeteering the character. I solved this by attaching a jointed 'spine' into the neak that allowed the puppeteer to reposition the head and have it then hold its own weight in that position.

There was just enough wobble to then have the character appear to talk simply bu jiggling the body,  this really helped in terms of freeing up extra hands to control the rest of the puppet.
I also built a fun little mechanism for shooting water out of Stevens mouth. It shot well during the performances and went down a treat, although the plunger on the syringe has snapped and needs replacing..

Once he was built and padded with foam Steven was painted. I went with neon pink and a pale flesh tone drybrush. This resonates with the aesthetic of his island and makes him look like hes been sat out in the sun too long! I tried a few different eyes out before settling on the Fimo pair at the bottom. I got these from Bamba Beads on Gloucester Road, Bristol. That place is often worth a look for specialist bits and bobs. I put a bit of foam above the eyes to soften out his stare. They are still holding up fine even though I ended up just wedging them in there.

While I'm talking about Steven I'll also mention his hats. Four of these where made, constructed from plastic bottles and paper mache. The idea was to have each one increasingly full of fish. This allows Gordon to reach into the sea and appear to catch fish while he sits on Stevens back in a key section of the play. The fish themselves are made of old mattress foam. The primary hat prop has a thin plate of metal that attaches it to the magnets buried in the back of Stevens head. Sadly this solution didn't stand up to the rigors of live performance, with the hat tumbling off a few times during our two performances. The planned solution at the moment is to try a combination of using cloth hats instead and installing stronger magnets.

The initial idea with Stevens outfit was to have him wear a shirt and waistcoat, but this was switched for dungarees to save time and in response to the bits and bobs I had sourced to fabricate the costume. I think I actually prefer this outcome a lot more. Big thanks to my mum for helping with a lot of the costume sewing and also with the sea which was a chore and a half.

Gordon went through much the same process as Steven, but was a more basic puppet overall.

The foam head was a lot easier to work with, being lightweight the neck held it upright much better, although the wooden control loop i attached to the back of the head caused it to loose a little of this support by adding additional weight. I might switch out for something lighter at some stage. His hands were simple but interesting. I made a plastic 'skeleton' from milke bottle plastic and surrounded this with foam. This made the hands sit and flex really naturally. It also made them quite durable, able to withstand children tugging on them where this would usually have easily torn the foam.

Gordon was painted mint green and drybrushed yellow. This made his head look a bit like a lemon, appropriate enough, as the character is somewhat obsessed with lemons and arrives with a boxful as his sole source of food. I also added some crazy looking hair. When Gordon arrives on the scene he has just been shot from a cannon. The wild hair, I hope, supports this idea. In the top image you can see the two puppets attach together. This is done by having a hole in the rear of Gordon that accommodates Stevens control handle.

One of Gordon's important accessories is this goofy looking bottle of milk. It turns out its... a little out of date. I made the eyes by putting washers on top of green beads and then spraying the whole thing white and removing the washers. It seemed to work nicely so i might do more eyes like that in future. The teeth are sculpey.

His costume was made by Bee and comprises a striped shirt and black trousers. Here is the finished puppet talking with some children after the show.

The last puppet is a crab, this was fashioned from a cuddly toy with some improvised control rods. He also had a magnet on one arm to help him hold the foam banjo which he plays to close the play.

The performance itself was a mixed bag but ultimately successful I think.

We remembered and delivered all our lines well, and the audience followed prompts and seemed to really enjoy themselves. My favorite part of the experience was having the kids come up and 'meet the puppets' interacting with them and asking them questions, as well as answering questions about what they learned and what parts of the show they enjoyed.

There were a number of technical issues, one of the leather tendons in Stevens left knee broke during the second performance causing his legs to move strangely. The aforementioned magnetic hat fell of numerous times, and while we covered it  relatively smoothly I felt we lost the audience a bit when it happened repeatedly. This is a major area that needs fixing. I also had problems getting the crab's ukelele affixed properly and fish and the hats where a fiddle to manage and need more practice.

The overall level of the puppetry was of course lower than that of my favorite shows I've seen. But I expected a lot from myself and now that everything is built I can devote more time to rehearsing heavily to close this gap. Particular areas that need work I think are when Bee and I are both controlling Steven and the Steven/Gordon hybrid puppet. I also need to re-establish my control of Gordon's eyeline, since I put the hair on its now harder to tell from behind where he is looking when I operate him. I might try putting a stick between his eyes pointing forward as a reference point while i rehearse, removing it for performance. 

Oh I almost forgot! We also found a name for the piece: 'The Long and Short of It'