I have been thinking about the audio for my piece. I want something quite eery, something that evokes an uneasy feeling, stirring some childhood fear from the depths of your memory.
I remember a friend of my parents' had this box on their mantle piece with a glass front to it. Behind the frame was a jointed clown puppet (jigging puppet). Beneath the frame was a little drawer and when you pulled the drawer out, tinny, tinkly music played and the clown sprang to life and danced and danced until you closed the draw again. I had a morbid fascination with it; it freaked me out yet I couldn't stop opening that drawer.
I find music box tunes incredibly uncomfortable. I know it's probably a massive cliche so thats why I've been editing some.
.... Cleaning Skulls....
Mmmm, what a delightful morning I've had. I got up early and ate breakfast, watched silent witness. waited a couple of hours until I knew my food was going to stay where it should and then I took my box of maggots and skulls up to the snowy downs and emptied it.....
Luckily the cold weather had killed the maggots before they turned into flies. But them dying in with what little rotting flesh was left on the skulls created an almighty 'perfume'. Now I know what medieval towns smelled like.
I sat in the snow with some vinyl gloves on, wiping away the soil and clusters of maggots. Molly came to keep me company but didn't last very long. She threw up behind a snowman. I'm stronger stomached than her. As I lay out the semi-clean skulls out I heard a caw above my head and looked up to see a crow staring down at me form the tree branches. I left the big pile of maggots for his dinner.
Back home i rinsed the skulls and gently scrubbed the dirt away with an old toothbrush. I haven;t got anything to bleach them with yet as I don't want to use anything too strong. At the moment I've left them to soak in a tube of vinegar and bicarb. It should hopefully harden them.
I've changed my idea for The Barker. Instead of the rat like creature I've designed a tabletop/rod puppet that is inspired by the Ukari monkeys and wind up toys.
So, over Christmas, I finally plucked up the courage to de-flesh the crow heads! And boy was it fun....not.
I put them in a metal pot filled with boiling water and left them outside, but because ot was so cold it didn't do much. Thankfully my parents aren't squeamish so they let me put the heads i the pot with a lid on in the bottom oven of the ago to slow cook.
Like a Crow Head Casserole...
It smelled so odd. The heads weren't rotting as they'd been frozen but the smell was indescribable. Not over powering just lingering like a musty room. It did smell like death.
Then I spent a morning with a tea towel wrapped round my face and vinyl gloves on, picking away at the flesh and feathers. Mum even helped too. I think she enjoyed it more than me. So much so that she took over while I wrote my dissertation.
A few days later I went to the fishing tackle shop in Penzance and brought some fine looking blue bottle maggots.
£2 a pint, cheaper than the pub!
I put the skulls in a tub covered with soil and emptied the maggots on top. They had to be kept warm-ish so they would be lively and eat the flesh. I put them on the mantle piece but took them down after a day and night as I didn't want them to cook.
Now they are sat behind the loo in my house in Bristol. They have probably died of cold now seeing as it's been snowing the last few days. I just want to wait a bit more before I empty them, somewhere on the Downs in a wide open space. I checked on them a few times but it smells so awful.
Here is a show reel of animation tests for the set, and prototype puppets of the bird twins and the mermaid.... I only had 1 hour to animate as the testing booths were heavily sought after so the tests are not as good as I'd like them to be. But it gives an idea of what they move like...
After showing the tests and story board in my presentation, people said I should cut the hand opening the door.
For the set I originally wanted a thrust stage with red curtains but that was too generic.
Initial sketch
It also meant I would have to make a few versions of the set in different sizes to look in proportion with the various characters as the puppets won't all be the same size.
Sketch of how I'd operate the rod puppets on stage
After my tutorial I began thinking of other alternatives. As I'm interested in childhood and fears and some of the characters resemble them I thought I could house them in a toy box of sorts with a little door to each of their acts. The box would spin round and stop on a door painted with a character and open to reveal that character.
Sketch for toy box set.
Coloured in photoshop. Antique colour palette.
Next I made a cardboard maquette that i could do a quick animation test with. Using the magic of animation i can make the box spin with out actually having to worry about making a fully working axis (I hope).
It was harder than I thought to make the pyramid roof. I need to make a really good template for the real thing.
I finished off the puppet. The second head, I made form Miliput as I wanted to see which was better to sculpt in. I think I prefer Sculpy for sculpting in as it is easier to manage and I'm not having to race against the clock as it doesn't air dry. It is also cheaper. However, Miliput has a better finish which i can sand, drill, paint etc. Sculpting the bird heads is only a back up as I'm still hoping I can get some skulls.
I have brought 3 crow heads off ebay (oh, the stuff you can get on there...!) and I'm planning on taking them back to my parents in Cornwall so I can boil them up in the yard without offending anyone. Last year I pissed off all my housemates by boiling up fish heads to try and gets the bones. To be fair it wasn't that bad.... but then I do work in a sea food restaurant...
To get the skulls I need to macerate them (boil them slowly) and then make a rot box with soil and live maggots to eat the remaining flesh and get the brain out. Yum.
Any way, I also had a tutorial with Mary about my project and thank god I did. She helped me think about the overall feel of the piece, that its not a show reel but more a short film of vignettes. She also made me scrap my idea of the theatre stage as it was too generic. Will post the set stuff later....
She looked at my designs and said that the accordion I'd drawn was too 70's looking and if I want my film to have that Victorian toy-box creepy feel I should opt for something more like a squeeze box. This would be easier to make and easier to animate being played.
The squeeze box is made form neoprene and aluminium wire.
During workshops with Mary Murphy, I began to make a prototype puppet of the Bird Twins. We had to make a scale drawing and work from that. I didn't think I'd like to work from a scale drawing but actually it was really helpful and i want to make some some really well drawn scale drawings to display as part of my degree show. I think I need to improve on my technical drawing.
And (as luck would have it, not....) I can't find my scale drawing to put on here. But its all ok as I will be re-drawing it for the final puppet any way.
Referring back to the scale drawing
I made a wire armature using the scale drawing as a size guide. Then I made the 'bones' with polymorph.
Polymorph strip cut to 3x width of wire
The chest is made from neoprene foam (yoga blocks) that I cut to shape. I glued this in two halves over a miliput core. The foam is very dense so it means there is a hard surface to hold whilst animating, meaning there will be no 'travelling' of skin, clothing etc. To make the flexible form for the body I used wadding that I pulled into strips and wrapped around the armature. Using spray mount to glue it down and stitching to create shape. I prefer carving in foam, although this method is quicker. But foam carving gives more detail, in my opinion.
The head needs to be as light weight as possible. I used Lightweight Sculpy for the core and then made the rest of the head in normal Sculpy over the cooked core. K & S is used for easy attachment of heads, hands etc. This is inserted into the raw core before it is cooked and the head built around it. To make a moveable jaw wire is also inserted into the lightweight core as are eyes (if they don't need to move).
Diagram form my notebook on how to make the lightweight core.
I used miliput to make the feet and a tie-down in the bum of my puppet as I want it to be able to sit. To make the tie-downs in the feet i simply made several holes with a pin and stretched them out as miliput shrinks as it dries. The tie-down in the bum was made with a screw so it is more sturdy.
The orange chest is the neoprene foam, cut to shape.
Tie-down in bum.
After much wrapping of wadding. The tie-down is just visible, nicely hidden!
Prototype head made from Lightweight Sculpy, Sculpy and K&S
Prototype head no1.
Once the flexible body had been made I then added clothing. This was done by retro-fitting fabric to the puppet. I used old tights as the weave is small enough not to look out of proportion and the nylon stretches two ways and sticks well to copydex (used in very small amounts to make hems). I had to sew very carefully to make neat seams that were the right proportion and that weren't too visible.
I used real feathers as a ruff.
Need to make the second head before doing animation tests....
This character is one I'm continuing from my final project last year. She is a stop motion puppet. I want to use after effects to make her setting an underwater one- algae, murky tank.
Initial concept drawing
Clay marquette
Fins for marquette and prototype: wire, masking tape and latex
