This week’s question was:

What does the ‘three piece head’ method refer to?

Surprisingly there were no answers sent in to me this week, which is a pity because last week’s kind of leads into this one. If the ‘nip and tuck’ method mentioned last week referred to cutting and folding foam, the ‘three piece head’ method refers to carefully patterning and constructing foam heads using three pieces: each one forms a quarter of a sphere, with the fourth quarter being the hole where you fit your hand. A good diagram for this is Billy D Fuller’s on PuppetsandStuff.com. Note that the gap between quarters 1 and 3 is where you would put your hand; the gaps between quarters 2 and 3 is the mouth. See this diagram as well. (Billy has many other diagrams and patterns available to view in his gallery so do spend some time there!)

And just in case you were wondering: I am indeed working on a new pattern for the site. It won’t be ready for another couple of months though, so in the meantime, just enjoy the golden oldies for a bit longer; and of course the new podcasts/quizzes as they are posted.

He’s bringing Penny Plain, his most recent - not including the cabaret mentioned in the podcast - show. It’s on in August at the Vic Arts Centre. 

Normally I’m aware of his movements, but his own agent’s website does not list this performance. I’ll be booking some tickets, so if anyone is in Melbourne and wants to go together let me know asap and we can get a group booking.

Oh, one more thing: for those who get distressed at watching kids doing scary things.

This week’s question was:

What does the ‘nip and tuck’ method refer to?

And the winner with the sole, and correct, answer is… Whole Ideas!

They tweeted:

It is a method of foam puppet building featured in The Foam Book. You bunch the foam and then snip away what you don’t need.

This is almost exactly what I was going to write. The ‘nip and tuck’ method can also be considered the ‘cut and fold’ method. That is, you cut away foam where you don’t need it (like making darts in dressmaking), or folding the foam over on itself to create facial features. This is a way of making a puppet without using a pattern, as well as giving more detailed features than you might not otherwise get. Good visual examples of this technique are shown at A Puppet A Week, Sonny Vegas, and Jakarta Puppets.

Listen to the podcast above, or download it here. Subscribe on iTunes! Or subscribe to another podcast service. Transcipt is below… Submit yourself or someone else!

Hello, and welcome to the School of Puppetry podcast. Each month I talk to a puppeteer about their work, their insights and their techniques.

This month’s interview is pulled from the archives. Way back in 2009, I had the opportunity to interview Ronnie Burkett, a Canadian puppeteer, and since I have an interview with him and since he was mentioned in previous podcasts, I thought it would be a good idea to re-post the interview with him. 

This week’s question is:

What is the name used to refer to the handle on a marionette?

The updated post is here.

Ahaaha! Yes, that is right, I was just interviewed for a radio station. This marks the first time a journalist has contacted me about puppetry and hasn’t decided to interview someone else instead.

I was just on the air with Sydney’s 2UE station, on the ‘Nights with Murrary Wilton‘ program - with one exception and that is that Clive Robertson is actually covering the program this week. Fortunately I have recorded the relevant segment for you (I could have recorded the whole show but that would have been a four-hour long file and I was only on for a short time just after 8.30pm AEST. I did get a couple of his intros though but won’t post them as they’re so short).

Ahaaha! Yes, that is right, I was just interviewed for a radio station. This marks the first time a journalist has contacted me about puppetry and hasn’t decided to interview someone else instead.

I was just on the air with Sydney’s 2UE station, on the ‘Nights with Murrary Wilton‘ program - with one exception and that is that Clive Robertson is actually covering the program this week. Fortunately I have recorded the relevant segment for you (I could have recorded the whole show but that would have been a four-hour long file and I was only on for a short time just after 8.30pm AEST. I did get a couple of his intros though but won’t post them as they’re so short).

The producer for the show contacted me earlier in the evening about doing an interview at Robertson’s request after seeing my site, although not for any other reason but that they were looking to talk to someone involved in puppetry for general information reasons. (Though the interview ends up being totally not what I was geared up for based on the questions the producer asked me!)

Anyway, have a listen. Sorry about the quality of my voice: don’t know why it sounds so crap. Oh and there is a bit of a non-relevant bit of ramble from Robertson at the start of the file.

Cross posted to School of Puppetry.

I’m working on yet another potential commission submission/quote, and it occurs to me that people approach things back to front.

When you produce a normal show, you have a script or you write one, then you grab your actors together and from there work out ‘blocking’ - what person moves, in what way they move, where they move to and when they move - and rehearse said movements.

In puppetry, you get the script or you write one, then you decide on the blocking, then you get your performers, and only then do you rehearse.

Perhaps it’s this back-to-front process that has so many people contact me about commissions as if the puppets were an afterthought.

Last year when I posted about yet more plagiarism, I got an email from a reader who asked me why I complain. A lot of people I’ve talked to over the years can’t understand why it gets to me: imitation being a form of flattery to them, it never quite sinks in that copyright issues are important. I was quite stressed out at the time, and the original blog post was never published because I recognised I got a little too hot to explain it well - but the above thoughts have allowed me to tackle this in a far better, calmer and more obvious light:

I shall take this month as an example. A calculation of hours spent on my business, expenditure and income. If by the end of that you still can’t understand why I get annoyed, then you simply aren’t paying enough attention.

For the month of Feb 2013:

Hours spent working (ok, so this is for last week… I have trouble remembering what I do since I don’t keep track of it, so just times the amounts by 4)

20-24 hours transcribing, editing, uploading, trouble-shooting and generally fiddling around with the podcast for School of Puppetry

20-30 hours of working on the new site template for School of Puppetry, including fixing errors, copying files, adding/editing new code, deleting old templates, and so on. This includes a lot of discussion with Shawn, who runs Puppets and Stuff, as he’s helped me work out some ideas and problems that I’ve had.

2-3 hours of replying to emails, tweeting, following new people, checking facebook, and checking my web stats

1-2 hours of replying to answers on Yahoo, checking Puppets and Stuff, keeping active on various forums

5-6 hours of doing a weekly checklist which includes: checking addthis stats (notifications for who/what is shared on my sites), checking my spam folders, checking google webmaster for site errors, checking to make sure that customers have actually managed to download their files, making backups of site files and databases, scanning my computer for viruses, making backups of my computer.

20 min trying to debug my RSS feed

About 5 hours spent thinking about or researching solutions to a variety of problems, from commenting systems to building puppets, from presentation and marketing, to ideas for blog posts, to planning what to do next

2-3 hours trying to clean my work space and get rid of unused materials

(I’ll note that between all of this I’ve been writing articles freelance, reading blogs, sleeping, eating, etc)

Expenditure, not including labour, an average of my costs per month, prices in USD (most of my bills are in USD)

$50 for materials (assuming I spend $600 in total during the year - plastic for shadow puppets is about $200 per bulk order)

$10 for domain names (I have 10 at the moment, but the average per month works out to be $10)

$13 for web hosting

$18 for file hosting/processing pattern sales, including fees for sending out newsletters to customers

$2 for flickr membership

$16 for my PO box

$0 for books (I order using Amazon referral fees so it costs me nothing)

$116 for computer and computer repair (remember I’ve killed my computer twice in the past year)

$33 for marketing advice, graphics

$8.33 for modem extension

$19 for phone

$20 for extra: for the occasional help with coding problems, occasional ebay fees

Total per month: $305.33

Income for the same time period

$24.95 X 3, all puppet pattern sales, in one month = $74.85

In the red: -$230.48 …. and that’s not including per/hour wages, which as you can see, would be quite a lot…

(Oh and if you’re thinking “what about last month’s puppet commission?” I only have this to say: I’m not charging anywhere near what I would if I could get paid per hour. And because I had to do a bulk order of more materials, I’ve ended up spending any profits I would have had anyway. Don’t forget that you’re charging ‘what you spend on materials’ + ‘labour’ + ‘profit margin’, and all of it doesn’t add up to much if you don’t end up having the last two things covered)

The criticism comes that copyright infringement isn’t a big deal: that having someone like and credit your work should be taken as a compliment. That it means more publicity for you. This is a fair assessment if you ignore the following facts…

1. Copyright infringement is still illegal, no matter how many ways you try to spin it. Fair use is a pretty limited set of get-out clauses and most of what I see is not fair use.
2. It’s still a courtesy to ask first
3. People are usually stealing my stuff without credit, which means no publicity for me anyway
4. This is a business, not a charity. And it would be great to see people put their money where their mouth is when they ‘like’ my stuff.
5. Carrying on from that, let’s not forget that people usually don’t fact check the pages they view, which means they would rather read a freebie (with my unbeknownst-to-them stolen content on it), than pay for the real thing because… well, they just don’t want to pay. So it’s not publicity for me, it’s just publicity for the person who stole it. No one really cares who the originator is, so long as they get the information they want and get out. I mean, how many times have you been on a website and wondered whether or not the owner of the site created the photo themselves? How many times have you thought “I wonder if this paragraph has been copied from somewhere else?” Five bucks to anyone who emails me and tells me they do that…
6. To everyone else, this is a picture they look at for a few minutes and then forget about; or a pattern that cost them nothing (and is really $20 for a lifetime of use: how many things can you buy for that price these days that lasts as long as that?) and didn’t bother using; or content that intrigued them for half a day when it was tweeted to them. To me, this is months of work that I haven’t gotten paid for.

Because quite frankly, I often wonder why I bother doing it at all. Having everyone like my work but not enough to pay for it isn’t just annoying, it’s demeaning, and worse, demoralising.

People do not treat me as the professional I try to be, which is ironic given that if I walked into your business and took some papers lying around, you’d probably get annoyed too. You’d probably be even more annoyed to see me hand it over to your competitor, and watch as your client goes over to them because you don’t have the product they want: or you have it and they don’t care because theirs appears shinier and new. Wouldn’t you get annoyed to see your hard work end up in lost profits, lost hours, lost energy?

More to the point: imagine you get hired to do a job. The client comes up to you and says: “Can you spend every hour of your life making something brilliant, because we really love your work - but we’re not going to pay you. In fact, we think that your work is so good that we want more more more of it, and we’re going to share it with everyone we can find, without giving you credit, without payment, and by the way: you’re an artist, why are you expecting to be paid?”

Anyone who has this kind of attitude might find themselves posted on Not Always Right or Clients From Hell. No one expects to work for free, and if anyone thinks this has been a hobby project, they are either naive or new to my site/s. Longtime followers know better. But if I mention copyrights, somehow everyone gets in a tizzy and expects me to be flattered by it. It always surprises me that anyone likes my work; but I think that’s mostly because it’s a rare person indeed who thinks it worth spending their hard-earned money on.

I get jealous of other puppeteers: not because they are better known than me - I know I have no right to be jealous of that - but because they manage to do their work and pay their bills. This week, thinking about how much time I spend on it all and how much below the poverty line relying on this ‘business’ would make me… I’m really wondering why I bother.

Because reputation, having a well-known brand name, being ‘liked’… it’s just not paying my bills.

Note that I have posted more photos at the gallery page, including close-ups of the detail; including some of the puppets in use, with permission from Melanie Maslin.

The puppets

Using my very handy commission checklist, Melanie and I discussed what she needed. First, each puppet was an Australian animal. There was a kookaburra, a platypus, a kangaroo and a koala. All four were to be used during a 4-minute song in the show. There were three performers, but only two were going to operate the puppets. (The performers are also the singers)

Because of the lack of hands, we decided that puppets operated from below and with as simple a design as possible, would be the best. She was also concerned about size, and based on the floor plan and venue dimensions and my calculations that 70cm = visible-from-100-seats, we went with rather large puppets. The kookaburra and platypus are 60cm (tall and wide respectively) to give the impression that they are smaller than the other two; scaling the puppets in a ratio of 70cm tall to whatever they are in real life meant that the two smaller animals would have been tiny. The kangaroo and koala are 70cm (tall and wide respectively).

Cutting out the kangaroo was a bit scary. If only because it’s so huge up close. It literally took up all the desk space that I was using to cut it out. See pic below for scale, where I had it positioned over my desk in order to take the photos.

It was also decided that the kangaroo and koala should have baby versions visible, and I went with the simplest silhouette design with no attaching parts to any of the puppets. For the most part each puppet can be operated with one rod only. The platypus does have an ‘extra’ rod, a detachable brace to prevent too much wobbling due to the flexibility and weight of the sides of the puppet. I discovered before attaching it that the puppet actually has a really wonderful, natural and fluid movement without it; and so I left the rod as an ‘extra’ in case Melanie wanted to go without it. – Keep in mind that the performers are puppet novices, and so keeping things as stable as possible is of benefit, especially when rehearsal time is short.

In addition, the kangaroo and koala seem askew, and this is on purpose. The koala is because it’s quite an upright design, and the puppet is supposed to be sitting on a tree. We discussed the use of this design and decided to stick with it, but put the rod on an angle so it can be rotated from walking to climbing. It’s important with shadow puppets that even if the character remains static that it gives the impression of an active pose or mobility. For the kangaroo, it was more about keeping the puppet as upright as possible - the bigger the puppet is, the more the weight of the plastic curves downwards on itself - and making sure the rod didn’t overlap the cut-away areas.

In terms of colours, I went with what Melanie requested…

The scenery

We went with ‘the impression’ of a tree, and the same for the pond. At the last minute it was realised that the tree and pond were too small (relatively speaking) to completely cover the side of the 2.5 metre (1 yard) screen being provided by the venue. I created a tree trunk extension that fit to the top of the pond and the bottom of the tree. As it happens, the tree design was already as large as I could make it to fit onto one sheet of the polypropylene plastic… so if we wanted it taller, it would have required an extension piece anyway.

Note that the images of the scenery are not exactly ideal: stickers are visible on the puppets and the scenery mainly as a way of identifying things for the performers. Ie. for the puppets and rods everything is numbered so that each rod can be used with its corresponding puppet. For the scenery, stickers mark places for joints. – The pond and tree end up being 1 metre wide and over 1 metre tall, making it difficult to transport if attached permanently together. And the scenery was used via fishing line from the top, hence the pretty awkward photos on my wall at home.

Due to the fact that the tree extension was added last minute, there was no chance of taking proper photos of it all together; that and there’s no room in my house to hang a 2.5 metre tall piece of scenery!

There are lots of things to learn from this commission:

Measure twice, cut once

Actually, this morning (as I write this) I had the opportunity to see the show itself. I’ll tell you, it’s very awkward being a young adult at a children’s show where everyone else has a little kid along. Before I explain the heading, I’ll tell you a bit about the experience…

It was my first time in the ‘new’ Melbourne Recital Hall. It lies near VCA, otherwise known as our local state performing arts university campus. This little area has popped up with a number of new buildings, including the Melbourne Theatre Company and others. These places didn’t exist until long after I ‘dropped out’ of doing theatre work for other companies, and I’ve never had the money nor inclination to visit these places just to have a look. Having said that the MRH is an interesting place, with a number of small spaces. Aussie Babes was presented at the Salon, a small hall about 100 seats in size. (The pdf of the tech specs has a photo)

Melanie and her cast had set up a simple stage design - the shadow puppet screen on some rostra in the ’stage’ area, a small puppet ‘booth’ (really a kids’ finger puppet stage sold at toy shops) and some toys and odd things laying about. As the title of the show and her company name suggests, the performance was all about Australian music for young kids. In the Salon were a large number of mostly mothers and their kids, sitting on cushions on the floor.

I won’t go into the performance too much, except to say that despite my awkwardness I enjoyed the performance and it’s clear Melanie loves what she does - and does it well.

But getting back to the heading: as mentioned above, we realised the tree was too small and needed an extension. Well, it turned out too big… The tree extension also had issues because it needed a branch for the kookaburra to sit on (since the original one would be too high up now) but it too ended up too high. Many of the rods were too short - unfortunately, a case of having the puppets and then rehearsing, rather than knowing the blocking beforehand, combined with my literal shortsightedness. Some of the rods were as long as the dowel I could buy, but still, it would have been nice to keep hands out of shot.

Other than that I noticed a few minor problems with the puppets, which were for the most part down to ‘user error’, with a possibility that something I’d made wasn’t quite working right. The platypus’ nose, which is fairly floppy due to the cut out detail, looked a bit weird, but again, that could be less noticeable with more practice performing.

Oooooh

The kookaburra came on screen first and got a tiny reaction. The koala was second and got a big ‘oooooh’ as the audience appreciated the image. Melanie tells me that some of the audience have been complimenting her on the puppets, and being there to hear and see a reaction is wonderful. Despite the flaws - ones that could be corrected/fudged with more rehearsal or a smaller screen… or me fixing things - that little bit of praise said it was totally worth it. The koala is my favourite too, and it seems trying 3 times to get it right was time well spent.

I love polypropylene

Except for when it scratches, which it does fairly easily. Otherwise, I enjoy using it. I love being able to make big things, as compared to the limitations of working A4 size with laminated cardboard. It also looks better, is more durable, and the flexibility of the plastic is wonderful. I enjoy seeing the fluid movement that you can get from it, even if it’s not intentional. Although it’s not easy to combine multiple sheets together, it’s still worth it to get the lovely liquid colour from the translucent plastic.

Lastly, I discovered that - on ordering some more sheets - I wasn’t supposed to be able to buy sheets in such a small amount. I now have to buy in packs of 50, which means if I want 8 different colours, that’s a shirtload of sheets… On the other hand, it works out cheaper in the long run. Having said that, I will not be buying more plastic for some time, and will have to slowly build stock if I plan to continue with it.

The Hitchcock effect

Birds are harder to design than you’d think. I based all of my designs on images (creative commons and usually a combination of a few) of real animals, with a little artistic licence in order to make it look more realistic - and yes, that does make sense - but the bird was near impossible to design. Take a look at a kookaburra and then figure out what defines it, in profile, in silhouette, as compared to say, a robin. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

Luck favours the prepared (say it like ‘E’ in The Incredibles)

A few major things went wrong. First is that the koala design was hard to cut out. I love the polypropylene plastic, because it’s flexible but highly durable, washable, comes in translucent and opaque colours, allows me to make large shadow puppets, and is much cheaper than you’d think (a few dollars a sheet). But it is also easily scratched. If you don’t have a steady hand and a keen eye, you can easily screw up a puppet. Especially if you’re doing very small circular cut-away detail! I started two koalas, and thank goodness the third one was a success. In the end, I learned a few neat tricks about cutting away circles…. which I’ll be keeping to myself for the time being.

The second was the rods. At the last minute, Melanie wanted to paint the rods. It’s something I’ve decided to do now - leave the rods unpainted, which is cheaper, better for my health (and the environment due to using aerosols) and works better for my new PIM look. However, I know some people like the rods black, so I offered it as an option. Hence the last minute thing. Well, I needed more dowel anyway so I went to Bunnings and couldn’t find the brand/product I liked. It’s important to use the right paint, and after buying whatever paint was cheapest have discovered that some brands run out of paint quicker; some dry faster; some get clogged up; etc. I buy a particular brand because it’s the best one I’ve found so far. Not finding that one meant I picked up a completely untested brand… and it ruined 3 of my rods. (Test before use!!) I had to make new rods the night of the hand-off, and pulled an all-nighter in the hopes that the glue was dry enough and handpainted the rods with acrylic from a tube. How fortunate I was that I grabbed some spare dowel at Bunnings!

Time savers

I always always always… always… underestimate how long it will take me to make something. It’s getting worse as I try to do more things as perfect as possible. Don’t get me wrong, the detail needs to be right and I don’t obsess over things. I just mean that the more time you spend on the tiny teeny little details the better the puppet looks. The problem is that a simple design to cut out can take you say, 30 minutes; but then I go back around and just neaten up the nicks and cuts and before you know it, another few hours have passed.

I wish I had a time calculator. I think from now on I make a ratio. For every hour I think it will take me to do, I add on another 5 or 6. Just in case

Oldies but goodies

Going back to rods for a second, I discovered something new. Previously I’d been making a loop at the end of the wire tip on my rods. This loop hooks onto the puppet via elastic … loops… that go through the plastic. Anyway, the loop on the wire tip doesn’t hold well depending on how you hold the puppet. That is, gravity makes the wire tip unhook itself. What I discovered is that Richard Bradshaw’s technique - the one I learned first for shadow puppets - is to use a square hook, like so: П

This kind of structure is far far better. The long tip prevents the rod from unhooking itself, and the square shape in general allows the hook to sit stably within the elastic without moving too much. This design is the one I’ll stick with from now on.

I love me some portables

Ok, that sounds a bit strange… But by coincidence I’ve been doing some cleaning and rearranging of things at home. I’ve been going through various bags and tubs of old materials, hoping to ‘dump’ them at Reverse Art (they sell on other people’s scrap materials at a cheap price and take donations too). To do this I deconstructed a ‘desk’ I made using two stacks of tubs and a large piece of MDF that came from a collapsible bench for a puppet show. The MDF was the only thing big enough to fit a whole piece of the polypropylene plastic on, so I used it as a table.

And this is where the heading comes in. I didn’t use it as a table, but more of an all-purpose, portable desk. I worked all over the house. A stack of 3 tubs in my workshop area was tall enough that I could put the MDF on it and cut things out without bending very far down to use it. This was surprisingly the easiest I’ve ever been able to cut things out so I’ll rig something similar up for future use. During the day, I’d have the MDF resting on the back of my couch in my bedroom, with the majority of the wood resting across my lap. Lighting is shite in my room so whenever I could at night I’d take the MDF and lay it across my lap whilst watching TV in the lounge. Or I’d sit the wood on top of a small set of drawers in a hallway so I could keep an eye on drying materials whilst doing something else.

What was really handy about it was that I had my three staples - scissors, masking tape, scalpel - all resting on the MDF no matter where I was. I taped down the scissors and scalpel to prevent them from rolling around, and even on a diagonal across my couch it was all good. And because the wood isn’t used for anything I didn’t mind scratching it up a bit with my scalpel.

A giant, easy-to-set-up, portable, scratchable, laptop desk, complete with ways to keep your sharps out of the way while you work! This was a seriously good happenstance.

Actually this is just me catching up on long overdue updates to the site. I had wanted to reshoot the photos for my goddess puppet and have finally gotten around to doing so. The reason it took so long? Complicated lighting. Sort of.

I had wanted to shoot it with the blue sky behind it, with natural light. The trick is in figuring out how to (a) hold the puppet up, (b) have it on an angle so you can photograph the sky, (c ) have your hands free to use the camera, (d) keep the puppet still, (e) have a day that is clear skies, which is harder to achieve in cloudy-Melbourne than you’d think.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out, and in the end went for the stupidest and easiest set up I could come up with. Get sticky tape; tape puppet to home window; tape frosted polypropylene sheet over the top to ‘hide’ the dirt on the window; hope the whole thing doesn’t fall down on your head because you’ve also not taken into account the curtain which can’t easily be pushed aside; try not to fall off the stool because in order to get the sky in frame you need the puppet to be high up… etc.

Oh and if you’re wondering if this was taken at dusk/dawn… no. The frosted plastic had the added benefit of blurring out the next door neighbour’s roof, which is brick red. Works out well don’t you think?

As you can see from the gallery page though, I ended up using some of my old photos anyway, as they better capture the colours of the puppet.

As you might guess, Baby Love Music Fun is all about providing musical events and classes for children. Melanie Maslin, the founder of the company, asked me to make four puppets plus some scenery for an upcoming performance - this weekend! - at the Melbourne Recital Hall. If you’re in the area and are interested in going, the info can be found here.

Aussie Babes celebrates all things Australian with fun-filled interactive concerts for babies and toddlers by Baby Love Music Fun. Join opera singer Melanie Maslin and her team as she leads you and your baby or toddler through key musical and movement activities that babies find fun and stimulate their development. Incorporating well-known tunes and fun Australian themes, these concerts feature live singing, puppets, props, and facilitated movement to enhance you and your baby or toddler’s experience of music.

This concert runs for approximately 40 minutes without interval and is appropriate for babes up to 3 years of age.

I have completed 90% of the hand off (there was a last minute change), and though I won’t discuss the puppets in detail right now, I will be posting some photos in my gallery as usual; and perhaps blogging a bit about it though not with as many specifics as previous posts about builds.