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Click on the pictures to enlarge
Using foam, fur, paint and a little creativity, our crew was able to make
the entire cast (except for the human guests) for this holiday production. Using voice talent, not unlike that of animated
films, we pre-recorded the dialog and musical numbers in the studio then later our crew went to work adding the life to the
puppets "lip syncing" to the playback. It was great fun.
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| Max and Amy sing about Christmas |
Max (bear) was a great character to bring to life but very difficult
to keep upright for a long period of time. Comparing his size to other standard puppets, he was larger than most which
meant all that foam and fur added weight. Frequent "rest stops" were required between each take.
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| Max contemplates Christmas |
(Below)
The fire (which was real) had to be built on a platform that
was raised four feet into the air to give the puppeteers a place below to operate the characters. The set was built
coming out of the side of a hill so that Brad (the only real person) was able to sit and look as if he were in the middle
of the woods next to the fire while he interacted with the animals.
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| Ollie running things from his office |
(Below)
During the Hawaiian number, there were seven puppeteers working
the characters in a very small space. The buzzard in the back playing the drums was operated by two puppeteers who had
to literally wrap themselves around each other to make it all work. Luckily the couple operating the puppet were married
to each other and didn't have a problem with the confined space.
(Below)
To make it snow in Georgia, we used a snow machine that blew
out soap flakes snow. Pretty to look at but somewhat of a sticky mess to get out of your hair. Luckily we had pre-recorded
the song Brad was singing because the sound of the blower on the machine over powered the natural sound.
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| A white Christmas in Georgia? |
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| Who ordered the pizza with fish? |
(Below)
The "Santa Baby" number was shot using a full
sized body puppet interacting with Miss Amy Chaffin. We decided the day before shooting to use a body puppet instead of the
hand puppets but had yet to create it. It was created in less than eight hours. We used a female puppeteer inside
the costume since she was able to move with grace but she was unable to see. The spring-loaded mouth of the puppet was
her viewing port but kept closing during each take. We finally choreographed the whole number where she had to feel
her way around the set and hope she hit her mark. She did a great job.
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| Hurry down the chimney tonight |
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