He's one of my favorite puppet character in Sesame Street, the well-known puppetshow for education in U.S. This little cute-furry-red monster is everybody's sweetheart. What makes him so loveable is of course his voice. Especially when he laughs and giggles...His face is funny too, with those two big-round eyes, showing his innocence, and his weird orange nose LOL.
Do you know the person behind ELMO? It's Kevin Clash. He did the performance of ELMO and also with ELMO's voice. Once you see Kevin, you won't believe that he is really the man behind ELMO. Kevin is probably one of Jim Henson's students. Right, Jim Henson was the big man behind the MuppetShow, back in 80's. No wonder Kevin could play ELMO's character very good indeed. Here's a video showing Kevin Clash being interviewed by Rove McManus on Rove Live.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Our first production...
On 2007, our church was selected to held a Children's Choir Festival, called PESPARAWI (Pesta Paduan Suara Gerejawi). It's a kind of Choir Festival for Sunday School children.
One day, me and my friend had an idea of making a special opening for the Festival. At the beginning, we didn't take the idea seriously, but later on, we decided to give it a try. We planned to make a short-movie with puppets for the opening. So we made a simple story for that. It didn't take too much in making the movie. Me and my friend played as the puppeteers, then 2 friends of mine took part as an "amateur" cameraman and a soundman. We used an ordinary HandyCam and a common microphone. As for the finishing, another friend helped us in editing the film, using Adobe Premiere. The film took place in our church's yard, so it's kinda easier for us, because we didn't have to find certain location.
Below is the un-edited version of the film, so forgive me if the video quality is not good enough. Next time I'll find the edited version to upload.
One day, me and my friend had an idea of making a special opening for the Festival. At the beginning, we didn't take the idea seriously, but later on, we decided to give it a try. We planned to make a short-movie with puppets for the opening. So we made a simple story for that. It didn't take too much in making the movie. Me and my friend played as the puppeteers, then 2 friends of mine took part as an "amateur" cameraman and a soundman. We used an ordinary HandyCam and a common microphone. As for the finishing, another friend helped us in editing the film, using Adobe Premiere. The film took place in our church's yard, so it's kinda easier for us, because we didn't have to find certain location.
Below is the un-edited version of the film, so forgive me if the video quality is not good enough. Next time I'll find the edited version to upload.
This was our first experience in making a puppet-movie. Before this, we always did the puppet show on a puppet-stage. So I guess we really learned a lot from it.
(Since 2004, me and my friends have been performing puppetshows in our church. Usually we performed on some special events , for example : Easter day, Christmas, etc.)
Meet the Ventriloquist...
Meet the Ventriloquist...
Another kind of puppeteer, who can manipulate his/her voice so that it appears that the voice is coming from elsewhere. The word "ventriloquist" is actually formed from the Latin word, "Ventral", which means, stomach or abdomen. And Ventriloquist literally means the "belly-speaker". The question is : does the voice really come from the Ventriloquist's stomach? Well, actually the answer is NO. So, where does this voice come from?
A Ventriloquist is a skilled person who can speak without moving his/her lips. Ventriloquists are also good with their hand in moving the puppet's mouth, synchronously with their own voice. So, what actually happens is that the audience hears the ventriloquists' voice, but sees only the puppet's mouth moving. It is a kind of illusion. And with an "extra-acting-skill", ventriloquists would easily convince the audience that the puppet itself is speaking.
Ventriloquists are different from the ordinary puppeteers. They always perform "visually" together with their puppet, so the audience can see both the ventriloquist and the puppet. As for the ordinary puppeteer, audience can only see their puppets. This what makes me call Ventriloquist, a "true-deceiver" to the audience :)
In addition, there's one difficulty faced by Ventriloquists, which is, they have to speak with their lips slightly separated. So they have to replace the bilabial sounds ("b", "p" and "m") with others. For example, with the dental sounds "v", "t", "d" and "n".
Ventriloquists usually perform in some stand-up comic shows. There are also ventriloquists who perform for kids show.
A Ventriloquist is a skilled person who can speak without moving his/her lips. Ventriloquists are also good with their hand in moving the puppet's mouth, synchronously with their own voice. So, what actually happens is that the audience hears the ventriloquists' voice, but sees only the puppet's mouth moving. It is a kind of illusion. And with an "extra-acting-skill", ventriloquists would easily convince the audience that the puppet itself is speaking.
Ventriloquists are different from the ordinary puppeteers. They always perform "visually" together with their puppet, so the audience can see both the ventriloquist and the puppet. As for the ordinary puppeteer, audience can only see their puppets. This what makes me call Ventriloquist, a "true-deceiver" to the audience :)
In addition, there's one difficulty faced by Ventriloquists, which is, they have to speak with their lips slightly separated. So they have to replace the bilabial sounds ("b", "p" and "m") with others. For example, with the dental sounds "v", "t", "d" and "n".
Ventriloquists usually perform in some stand-up comic shows. There are also ventriloquists who perform for kids show.
Best Position for Puppeteers...What do you think?
Puppet show? Yes... that's one of my favorite things to do. I like playing handpuppet so much. In fact, I played several performances for SundaySchool children in my church. I usually played with my friends and the performance usually took 3-4 people as puppeteers.
In playing puppet, we often found some difficulties. One of those is to set the best position to play with the puppet. We played with our hand-made-stage that resembled a box, large enough to be filled with 4-5 puppeteers. I will share about the stage later in the next post.
So, it has always been a problem for us to find the best position to play the puppet. We had try 2 different positions, i.e. : sitting and kneeling. There is another way to play it, which is to stand while playing the puppet, but we never try this one.
With the sitting-position, we found that puppeteers wouldn't get tired easily, as they could sit during the show. But in this position, the movement of the puppet was very limited, since they sit on a chair and couldn't move freely.
We tried to overcome this problem with the kneeling-position, so puppeteers could easily move the puppet from the left to the right or up and down. But this position also had a weakness. Puppeteers would get exhausted easily, since they had to kneel down during the show. Sometimes we put a mattress or a pad to support our knees. Yet, we had a problem with our arms. Yes, you can imagine how painful it would be to keep lifting your arm during the show. Anyway, we still try to find the best solution for those problems.
Standing-position could be an alternative in playing handpuppet. I found this method in "Sesame Street" and Jim Henson's "Muppetshow". They played the puppets this way.
You can see a clip below, showing the crew were doing rehearsals before the show. But may be it was different since they played it on TVrecording. That means they could set the camera so that the puppeters would not appear on the screen. They could also re-take the scenes or make a scene in several taking. This would save puppeteer's energy during the show.
In playing puppet, we often found some difficulties. One of those is to set the best position to play with the puppet. We played with our hand-made-stage that resembled a box, large enough to be filled with 4-5 puppeteers. I will share about the stage later in the next post.
So, it has always been a problem for us to find the best position to play the puppet. We had try 2 different positions, i.e. : sitting and kneeling. There is another way to play it, which is to stand while playing the puppet, but we never try this one.
With the sitting-position, we found that puppeteers wouldn't get tired easily, as they could sit during the show. But in this position, the movement of the puppet was very limited, since they sit on a chair and couldn't move freely.
We tried to overcome this problem with the kneeling-position, so puppeteers could easily move the puppet from the left to the right or up and down. But this position also had a weakness. Puppeteers would get exhausted easily, since they had to kneel down during the show. Sometimes we put a mattress or a pad to support our knees. Yet, we had a problem with our arms. Yes, you can imagine how painful it would be to keep lifting your arm during the show. Anyway, we still try to find the best solution for those problems.
Standing-position could be an alternative in playing handpuppet. I found this method in "Sesame Street" and Jim Henson's "Muppetshow". They played the puppets this way.
You can see a clip below, showing the crew were doing rehearsals before the show. But may be it was different since they played it on TVrecording. That means they could set the camera so that the puppeters would not appear on the screen. They could also re-take the scenes or make a scene in several taking. This would save puppeteer's energy during the show.
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