Lucy’s USA adventure: Day 17 & 18

Lucy’s USA adventure: Day 17 & 18

Day 17: Wednesday June 15, 2016
Today was our last day in America and we spent it at the happiest place on Earth- Disneyland! 2 years ago, Miss Hannaford and I visited Disney World in Orlando Florida, but this is our first visit to Disneyland in Anaheim, California.

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Our first impression of Disneyland was that it was much smaller than Disney World but it was also backwards. The Town Hall is on the opposite side of the town square than in Disney World. While we were in the Town Square we had the chance to meet Mickey Mouse himself!

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Then we caught the horse drawn tram up to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle and had photos taken in front of the castle.

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After our visit to the castle, our next stop was to visit Miss Hannaford’s favourite attraction from Disney World- The Haunted Mansion! The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland is slightly different especially on the outside and at the beginning of the ride but otherwise it was just as fantastic as the one in Disney World!

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After the haunted Mansion, we had lunch at the Three Bears, followed by a climb of Tarzan’s tree and a visit to the Enchanted Tiki Room- this was Miss Hannaford’s favourite place in the park because of all the great animatronic puppets that were even the columns that held up the roof!

On our walk back to the entrance of the park, we visited the attraction called Great Moments with Mr Lincoln- an audio animatronic presentation about Abraham Lincoln.

For the afternoon, Miss Hannaford and I went to California Adventure which is opposite the entrance to Disneyland. This park feels more like Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida. The ride we both wanted to go on was the Ferris Wheel. The Ferris Wheel has two kinds of cars- stationary cars and swinging cars. Miss Hannaford didn’t want to get sick, so we went on the stationary cars.

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We wandered around the many shops looking for Muppet merchandise for Miss Hannaford’s collection. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any but it did fill in some time while Miss Hannaford was waiting to meet up with one of her American friends, Steve Swanson from the Muppetcast. The Muppetcast is a podcast about the Muppets and Miss Hannaford has been listening to it for 9 years. Steve is the host of the Muppetcast and he wanted to interview Miss Hannaford for the podcast about her experiences last week at Beyond the Sock.

They met at Carthay Circle Lounge in California Adventure and the interview took 2.5 hours! Steve thought I was really pretty, told me I look like a real Muppet with my golden triangle facial features and he got to hold my new friend Professor McCluckagall! After the interview, Steve and Miss Hannaford went to watch the fireworks in Disneyland and we all went on the Haunted Mansion ride together followed by visiting the inside of Sleeping Beauty’s castle!

You can listen to Miss Hannaford’s interview on the Muppetcast here: http://muppetcast.com/show-285/

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Day 18: Thursday June 16, 2016
Today we flew home to Australia after our amazing 3 week trip in America. Miss Hannaford and I were so tired that we slept for about 8 hours of the 14 hour flight home to Sydney. We will be arriving in Sydney on Saturday, because we are going to be flying over the international date line. I am looking forward to seeing all my classmates in Macquarie Blue, Green and Gold when I go back to school next week.

Lucy and Miss Hannaford

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure: Day 16

Day 16: Tuesday June 14, 2016

Today Miss Hannaford had the incredible opportunity not only to meet, but have lunch with Matt Winston, co-founder of the Stan Winston School of Character Arts. Miss Hannaford has attended many of the classes in creature and puppet making as well as in special effects that the Stan Winston School offers. Some of those classes were live and held in the middle of the Australian night and some of the classes, Miss Hannaford watched the library of recorded videos that she could watch anytime she liked.

After lunch, Matt took Miss Hannaford on a very special tour of Legacy Effects to see how they make costumes, creatures and props for upcoming movies! Legacy Effects is also where many of the Stan Winston School Lessons are filmed, so the various workshop spaces felt very familiar to Miss Hannaford. Here is a video of what Legacy Effects makes for movies since Miss Hannaford did not take any pictures to protect and respect the confidentiality of the movies currently being prepared by all the amazing artists and craftspeople Miss Hannaford had the honour to meet.

Tomorrow is the last day of this amazing puppet adventure across the United States of America!

Lucy and Miss H

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure: Day 15

Day 15: Monday 13th June 2016
Today was our first full day in Los Angeles, California and the day Miss Hannaford and I spent at Universal Studios, Hollywood!

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Universal Studios Hollywood is both a theme park but it is also a working film and tv studio. Miss Hannaford booked a VIP Experience for us to go on for the whole day so that we could go behind the scenes, walk on real tv and movie sets as well as enjoy the theme park. The VIP guests wait in a very comfy lounge above the entrance to Universal Studios until their guide joins them.

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Then we walked through the park to a special bus that drove us into the movie studio.

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The first actual movie and to set we got to walk onto was New York/ Chicago Street. All the buildings are fake- some are completely flat but this street is used a lot in movies and tv shows especially when things like cars and buildings need to be set on fire or blown up!

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Some of the buildings the bus drove into turned into special effects spaces where the bus was put on hydraulic platforms that shook and bumped the bus. We even got a little bit wet when we drove into a special effects room that had a subway set around us flood with water!

The next set we visited was the Bates Motel from the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho

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Then the tour moved to one of the largest standing sets on the Universal Lot- the devastated suburban street from the Tom Cruise film War of the Worlds. There is a real, wrecked 747 plane! Everyone on the tour had the chance to get off the bus and walk through the set and we got to have our photo taken in front of the plane!

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The last place we got to tour was the prop warehouse. This building is like a huge library where set dressers and production designers can borrow props and set dressing for tv shows and movies. Everything is barcoded just like library books!

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After touring the sets and stages, the tour returned to the theme park where the tour went on several rides. Miss Hannaford doesn’t like scary rides so the only ride we went on was Jurassic Park- that was scary enough with the big drop over the waterfall at the end!

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After a very yummy lunch in the VIP dining room, our next stop on the tour was to see the Waterworld Stunt Show attraction that uses many of the special effects that we had seen on the tour.

The last stop on the tour for Miss Hannaford was the village of Hogsmeade! This is when her new puppet, Professor McCluckagall made her official debut outside Hogwarts Castle and the Hogwarts Express train experience!

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It was a very interesting day seeing how movies and to shows are made!

Lucy and Miss Hannaford

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure: Day 13 & 14

Day 13: Saturday 11th June 2016
Today was the last day of Beyond the Sock 2016!
During performance class, students had the opportunity to get feedback on the Yes, and… Improvisation performances we that were filmed the day before. This was followed by a rehearsal of the group song and an opportunity to workshop scenes with the two puppetry teachers for the final show that night.

Miss Hannaford’s teacher Noel, helped her create a scene where her puppet Professor McCluckagall was giving a magic demonstration that starts to go wrong! Miss Hannaford got to work with 3 of her classmates as well as Noel and his personal puppet Dawg! Having a chance to puppeteer with Noel and Dawg was a highlight of the week as Dawg is a very famous Dig and goes everywhere Noel goes!

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Towards the end of the class, Miss Hannaford’s group was joined by the other group to rehearse the group song for the first time as one really big group. The whole group means 30 puppeteers and 30 puppets in one very small space in front of the main television camera until it was time to go to Lunch.

After lunch, during the final construction session, students attached the foam skull of the puppet to the head skin and turned the whole puppet the right way out for the first time. Once the body foam had been inserted, it was time to start applying the facial features of the puppet by gluing the eyelid colour onto the eyes with contact cement. Miss Hannaford decided to cover the eyelids of her chicken with a skin tone fabric to represent Dame Maggie Smith who’s brilliant portrayal of Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, made the character Miss Hannaford’s favourite character from the Harry Potter series.

The class also constructed and attached the wings to their puppet. It was a very different way of constructing the bones for the wings of the puppet. Normally wooden dowel is used to make arm bones in puppets, but they can be very heavy. Miss Hannaford’s building teacher, Pasha invented a different method that used rigid plastic tubes threaded with nylon cord. The tubes are normally used as sticks for holding up balloons.

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Once the wings were attached, it was time to finish costuming the character. Miss Hannaford managed to finish making the costume the night before and now it was a matter of stitching it to the body of the costume and pinning on the Professor McGonagall brooch.

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The most challenging facial feature Miss Hannaford had to deal with was the red wattle that bends across the face, over the nose. It is made inside out and had to be turned right way around through a very tiny hole cut on the backside. When Miss Hannaford try to turn it through that hole, one whole side got stuck! In the end, Pasha showed Miss Hannaford a trick in turning the wattle where he pushed the fabric from the large end through the hole! It was so much easier than what Miss Hannaford was trying to do.

That night, it was time for the final show in front of a small studio audience. Miss Hannaford got to perform supporting puppet characters in 2 student performances including Commander Splock in a parody of Star Trek. The other performance was as a baby chick in a parody of the film Labyrinth song Dance Magic Dance called Dance Chicken Dance.

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The group song was the big finale of the night!

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After the show, everyone went back the theatre for a big group photo and to say goodbye each other. Miss Hannaford was really excited to get a picture with her teachers Noel, Martin and Pasha with her chicken puppets.

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Day 14: Sunday 12th June 2016
After such an exciting week, today was the sad in that we had to say a final goodbye to all our new friends and fly to our next destination, Los Angeles. We got to the airport in plenty of time for the flight but as soon as we got on the plane for the flight to Houston, everyone had to get off the plane and be moved to different flights because a really big storm was delaying all fights in Houston which meant we would miss our connecting flight to Los Angeles.

Once we changed our flights and got on a new plane direct to LA, but that was at the same time as Dallas airport was hit by an enormous storm that caused even more delays. Eventually we were able to fly to Los Angeles for the last stop of this big puppet adventure.

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure: Day 11 & 12

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure: Day 11 & 12

Day 11: Thursday June 9, 2016
Today’s workshop schedule was the same as yesterday’s. Classes started at 8:30 with puppetry but this time in the television studio! It was the first time we got to see the amazing new set for this year’s final performance- it was a spaceship! Miss Hannaford and the other Australian puppeteer in the group, Brett Hansen from Larrikin Puppets were first onto the set to take this great picture!

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Today’s lesson focussed on using arm rods, sharing the tv frame with other characters including making bigger entrances and very small exits by utilising the whole frame as well as the space in front of the television cameras.

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Miss Hannaford is performing my sister Molly Fino who also travelled with us to America.

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Martin Robinson from Sesame Street giving performance notes to Miss Hannaford and Brett Hansen

After performance class, Miss Hannaford attended the next construction class and today’s lesson focussed on sewing together the fur face of the chicken and using the baseball stitch to sew the beak fabric together and the locking whip stitch to sew the beak fleece to the fur head.

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Photo credit: Rudy Cervantez

Day 12: Friday June 10, 2016
Much like the last few days, today was the same routine Puppetry class in the morning followed by construction class in the afternoon. Today’s puppetry class focussed on developing character in the puppets through movement. We learnt how to create the illusion that the puppet sits down in a chair or uses a double take for comedic effect. We also learnt how to make it look like the puppet is sleeping or trips and falls over. It was also really exciting because the class got to hear the group song that we were going to perform on the last night in front of an audience! Miss Hannaford became really excited when she was told that she had one of the lead roles in the song! It is her first ever puppetry role!

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