Lucy Green – Page 3 – Musings of a Teacher Librarian and Puppet Builder

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure: Day 13 & 14

misshannaford Uncategorized July 3, 2016July 4, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

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!

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.

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.

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.

The group song was the big finale of the night!

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.

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

misshannaford Uncategorized July 3, 2016July 4, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

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!

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.

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

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.

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!

Lucy’s USA Puppet adventure Day 9 & 10

misshannaford Uncategorized June 17, 2016July 4, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

Day 9: Tuesday June 7, 2016
Today was the first day of the Beyond the Sock workshop!
The workshop started with everyone registering but everyone brought puppets with them so I had the opportunity make many new friends as well as catch up with friends I met last year at Beyond the Sock.

Once introductions were completed, we moved to the design studio where we started designing our chicken puppets by drawing and colouring versions of the puppet Miss Hannaford was going to make. Miss Hannaford has known for many weeks what type of chicken she wanted to make so she already had a few sketches finished before the course.

After designing the character, the students cut out their puppet pattern pieces

After class there was an informal get together of all the students, teachers and staff at the group hotel. Miss Hannaford not only invited me to join her at the party but she also brought another puppet she had made- my friend ‘Fire’- a carved African Mask puppet based on a famous puppet from the Harry Belafonte episode of the Muppet Show

Fire was not only very popular with all the students but he was also enormously popular with Miss Hannaford’s puppetry teacher Noel MacNeal! Mr MacNeal took these photos of my friend Fire-

I also got to mingle with all the other puppets in the room while Fire was being admired.

Day 10: Wednesday June 8, 2016
Today was the first full day for Miss Hannaford learning puppetry and starting to make her chicken puppet. Classes started at 8:30am and her morning class was held in a room with a long mirror along a wall so the new puppeteers could practise their hand movements. The thing that Miss Hannaford found challenging was redeveloping her lip sync techniques and keeping her hand still so that the lower jaw of the puppet is the only thing that is moving. The class practiced counting the numbers 1 to 20 many times while the two puppetry teachers, Martin Robinson and Noel MacNeal went along the line assisting each of the students. Other activities we did was learning to centre the puppet on the screen, following a ball around a screen to create the illusion of that the puppet is looking at things in the area.

After lunch, Miss Hannaford went over to the construction workshop to start building her chicken puppet. The process started by cutting out all the fur pieces so they could be sent to the sewing room where the volunteers see the pieces together. Nice all the fur was cut out, the next process was to cut out the pieces of foam that made up the head structure and glue them together.

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure Day 7 & 8

misshannaford Uncategorized June 17, 2016July 6, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

Day 7: Sunday June 5, 2016
Today was another travel day. Our next stop was Texas for the week long Beyond the Sock puppetry workshop! Since Miss Hannaford and I had a 6am flight to Texas, we had to leave the hotel by 3:30am!

We arrived in Dallas Fort Worth Texas and caught a shuttle bus to our hotel in Denton Texas. Miss Hannaford was really excited to meet one of the other students from the workshop who had also come from Australia that day! We ended up having an early night since we had been travelling since the very early hours.

Day 8: Monday June 6, 2016
One of Miss Hannaford’s favourite activities before the Beyond the Sock workshop is to visit all the places where people can buy puppet making supplies such as hardware stores, art supply stores, and dollar stores that are similar to the variety stores we have in Australia. The difference between these stores and Australian stores are their really big size and the quantity of different kinds of products they sell. The best thing about these stores is that they are all in walking distance from the hotel where we are staying.

After our shopping expedition, Miss Hannaford had dinner with some of the other workshop students who had arrived during the day at a local restaurant.

Tomorrow the workshop begins and we are so excited!

Lucy and Miss Hannaford

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure Day 5 & 6

misshannaford Uncategorized June 8, 2016July 4, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

Day 5: Friday June 3rd 2016
After 2 years, Miss Hannaford and I are finally back at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta Georgia, the largest museum in the world dedicated to all forms of puppetry.

In those 2 years, the Center has changed a great deal- with a new museum wing being built on the front of the old school building.

Top photo- how the Center looked in 2014, bottom photo how the Center looks now.

My visit began by sitting with Miss Hannaford on the replica Goblin Throne from the Jim Henson movie Labyrinth.

We then went to see the current resident puppet show called a the Swan- an Ugly Duckling Tale.

This show is from a French -Canadian puppet theatre so the puppeteer spoke to us first in French until he realised that his audience didn’t understand what hew was saying and he repeated himself in English.

After the show, Miss Hannaford and I went on a behind the scenes tour of the whole building. We got to see the storeroom where the puppets not on display are kept, the new library and research space, the education faculty where people can make their own puppets to take home or attend courses and lectures on puppetry. The next stop on the tour was the conservation laboratory where Miss Hannaford had lots of questions about how they preserve historical puppets that are made of foam. The conservators where very generous and gave Miss Hannaford samples of the Nufoam they use take home and find the Australian version.

After our visit to the conservation lab, Miss Hannaford and I got to have lunch with the resident puppet builders followed by a longer visit to the research library where Miss Hannaford got to look inside the archive box for Australian Puppetry. Inside that box were articles and information about Australian puppeteers and puppetry companies from the mid 1960’s to the early 1990’s. Normally researchers have to make a special application to be allowed to open the archive boxes but since Miss Hannaford was a special guest, she was given special permission to open a box of her choice and to take notes.

After Miss Hannaford finished in the archive, it was time to go back to the hotel after such a long, fun filled day.

Day 6: Saturday June 4th, 2016
Today was our second day at the Center for Puppetry Arts. Our first activity was to have a longer tour through the global collection and the Jim Henson wing of the new museum. We got to have our pictures taken with so many famous puppets and characters!

Since Miss Hannaford is a huge fan of the Muppets and makes lots of foam puppets, she took these photos so that she could see up close how these famous puppets were made.

After visiting the Jim Henson wing, Miss Hannaford and I toured the Global Collection which displays puppets from all over the world. Miss Hannaford’s favourite was the Gumby and Pokey claymation puppets. Miss Hannaford was really surprised at how small the puppets are. Gumby is only 15cm high and is much smaller than the other kinds of claymation puppets on display.

After touring the Worlds of Puppetry exhibit, Miss Hannaford’s next stop was the Build A Puppet workshop where people get to make a little puppet that they can take home. The puppet Miss Hannaford got to make was a little Cygnet- a baby swan using cardboard, paddle pop sticks and split pins.

Miss Hannaford and I had such a a wonderful time in Atlanta that we can’t wait to come back again but tomorrow we are off on the most exciting part of the trip- Beyond the Sock in Texas!!!

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure Day 3 & 4

misshannaford Uncategorized June 6, 2016June 8, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

Day 3: Wednesday June 1, 2016
Today Miss Hannaford and I explored a few of the great sites of Chicago!
First place we visited was the Harold Washington Library which is an amazing public library. On the ground floor, is a space called Youmedia which is a space for teenagers to be creative with all the resources they need including computers, music equipment and 3D printers.

On the 3rd floor of the building is the Makerlab which has 3D printers, lazer cutter, cnc routers, vinyl cutters. Anyone is allowed to go in there and make anything they want or learn how to use the technology. Unfortunately, while Miss Hannaford and I were there, the workshop was closed but there were a few of the objects made in the lab on display in a case outside the doors.

One of the big differences between American Libraries and Australian libraries is that the books are organised by the Library of Congress classification system instead of the Dewey Decimal system. The Library of Congress system is very different in that all spine labels start with a 2 letter code. For example books on Puppetry start with the classification PN which refers to Language and Literature- General Miss Hannaford found that there were 3 shelves of books on Puppetry and anyone is allowed to take books from the shelf to read at the reading tables.

After visiting the library, Miss Hannaford and I went to find a Lego store. There are currently no Lego stores in Australia, and since Miss Hannaford loves playing with Lego- it was a wonderful, fun place to visit. The shop even has trays of Lego out for people to play with.

Next door to the Lego Store building is one of the tallest buildings in Chicago- the John Hancock Tower. The building is 100 stories tall and has an observation platform at the top which has great views of the city and Lake Michigan. Miss Hannaford and I spent a lovely hour at the top taking photos of the city just like we did in New York in 2014.

Day 4: Thursday 2nd June 2014
Today Miss Hannaford and I flew from Chicago to Atlanta Georgia. The trip took all day and fortunately Miss Hannaford used the airline app on her phone because the gate for the plane at Chicago airport changed four times and our bags arrived in Atlanta before we did. The app let us know each time circumstances changed so we weren’t too anxious.

Lucy’s USA Puppet Adventure Day 1 & 2

misshannaford Uncategorized June 3, 2016June 8, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, Puppetry, UNIMA Scholarship, USA Adventure 0 Comment

Once again, Miss Hannaford and I are off on another Puppet adventure. This time it is a three week puppet adventure through the United States of America. Miss Hannaford won the UNIMA Australia Lorrie Gardner Scholarship to study puppetry at Beyond the Sock Workshop in Texas, but both of us are taking the opportunity to visit new puppet places either side of the workshop.

Day 1: Monday May 30, 2016
Our first stop on this adventure is Chicago a major city of state of Illinois in USA. To get there, it took two plane flights- 13 hours from Sydney to Los Angeles, then we had to change planes to catch another 4 hour flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Chicago has a wonderful train system so we caught the train from O’Hare airport into the city because the station we got off at was not very far from the hotel.

When we arrived in Chicago, the city was very quiet because it was Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a public holiday and very similar to the Australian ANZAC Day where Americans honour the memory of those who died serving in the military.

Miss Hannaford was very tired after the long 24+ journey from Sydney, so we both had an early night.

Day 2: Tuesday May 31, 2016
The reason why Miss Hannaford and I travelled to Chicago was to meet up with a young American puppeteer and puppet maker Connor Asher. Connor owns and runs his own creature creation studio called Creventive and so when we arrived at his studio, we were given a tour of all the different puppets, creatures, molds and equipment Connor has. Connor is a special effects artist and he uses materials like foam latex, resin as well as the foam similar to what Miss Hannaford uses to make movie creatures as well as puppets. He is also a professional puppeteer and so he had invited Miss Hannaford to come and practice her puppetry skills with him. I even got to meet, sing and dance with Connor’s main character Jeremy J Giggles!

Connor asked Miss Hannaford to collaborate and build a puppet with him. Since we only had one day at the studio, it was decided to keep the design of the puppet really simple and on his ideas wall, Connor had a picture of some musical note puppets someone had made and that he had always wanted to try. Miss Hannaford showed Connor how she makes puppets as her method is different to how he makes puppets. The musical note puppets were made using the Project Puppet Roly puppet head pattern and the stem of the note was designed by Connor and made in L200 foam.

Miss Hannaford wants to experiment more with the shape of the musical note puppets to try and make their heads rounder especially under the chin but it was really fun to work together on creating a character so quickly!

Towards the end of the night, Connor had a surprise for Miss Hannaford. He owns replica puppets of Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear from the Muppets! My new puppet friend Molly who is travelling with Miss Hannaford and I, even got to sing with Kermit! Miss Hannaford was so excited to actually get her picture taken with these replica puppets!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=zSet3nVCQDA

Can’t wait to get started on Day 3!

Lucy and Miss Hannaford

Lucy in Texas: Day 6 & 7

misshannaford Uncategorized May 29, 2015June 8, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, muppets, Project Puppet, Puppet, Puppet building, Puppet making, Puppetry, Texas 0 Comment

Day 6: Friday, May 22 2015

The timetable for today’s workshops is the same as the last 2 days which made knowing where to be and what to do much easier! During the morning session puppet making workshop, Miss Hannaford learnt a new way of attaching arm rods to the hands of the puppet. This method involving gluing the metal arm rod onto a piece of plastic called Sintra, then gluing the plastic between the 2 foam pieces of the hand. The rest of the workshop was devoted to sewing all the pieces of fur together to finish the skin of the monkey! There are many pieces of fur so some of the students chose to send the sewing to the other room where there were volunteers with sewing machines but Miss Hannaford chose to bring the pieces back to the hotel and put them together by hand stitching for homework.

After lunch with all the other students, it was time for the performance workshop!

Today’s lesson focussed on using the Camera’s depth of field. This meant that the puppet started at the very back corner of the set and walked diagonally across the screen. The trickiest part was that the puppeteer has to not only stop moving when the puppet is at the middle and make the puppet look at the camera and say hi before walking off the screen at the last possible moment but the further away from the camera the puppet is the more the puppeteer has to bend their body out of the camera shot!

After a few more small group exercises in telling stories and making the puppets look at the puppet who is talking, it was time to start rehearsing the final show! Each student is asked to create their own short performance of less than 3 minutes as well as participate in a group song which has all the workshop attendees plus the instructors in it! The song chosen for 2015 was “We’ve got a dream” from the movie Tangled. 20 puppeteers and puppets had to squish into a very small space to learn to move together. The good part is that no one had to sing! All the puppets were lipsyncing to the song! The homework from the performance class was to learn the puppet choreography and the words of the song! So once Miss Hannaford and the other attendees got back to the hotel, everyone had so much homework that they organised their own dinner and went back to their rooms to finish their homework.

Day 7: Saturday, 23 May 2015

Today was the last day of Beyond the Sock 2015! Miss Hannaford finished all her homework but she was worried that she didn’t quite have the choreography of the song quite right. The timetable was the same as the last few days, so in the morning, Miss Hannaford nearly finished building her Monkey puppet by inserting the foam head into the skin and she nearly finished creating the eyes when she had to stop for lunch. No one was allowed to stay inside the workshop room on their own because of all the dangerous equipment around!

After lunch was the performance workshop where the focus of today’s lesson was learning to read scripts taped beside the monitors but to read the script and perform the puppet as a character. Students were paired together but each pair was given a different script to perform. The goal of the exercise was to be bold in terms of character choices as the script that Miss Hannaford and her pair named Will was given could be interpreted in many different ways! After all the groups performed their scripts, it was time to rehearse the group song a few more times!

The performance workshop ended at 4pm because everyone had to run back to the build workshop to finish their monkey puppets! All Miss Hannaford had to do was attach the nose and eyes to her puppet. What really interested Miss Hannaford was that the nose shape of her puppet was printed using a 3D printer and that while she was at the performance class, the volunteers in the build workshop had glued on a safety stem from a doll joint so she could attach the nose to the puppet and it won’t come off! Once the puppet was finished, Miss Hannaford had to take her puppet to a photo shoot back in the theatre and race back to the performance studio so she could rehearse her performance piece and the group song with her new monkey puppet called Matilda!

At 7pm, the audience for the show started to arrive. The audience was made up of friends and family of the attendees; Professors, Lecturers and students from the University; and people off the street who had heard that there was a free puppet show! Everyone did their little performances that included songs, scenes and jokes. The two performance teachers Noel McNeal and Peter Linz used puppets to act as hosts for the show by introducing each act but they also helped the workshop attendees perform their characters by moving arm rods or bits of scenery! You can see a panorama photo of the TV studio and set we got to perform in at the bottom of all the pictures! You can even see the 2 real tv cameras that recorded the performance!

The show was really funny and the group song was a huge success! At the end of the show, it was time to take the big group photo and for everyone to say goodbye. Miss Hannaford’s highlight was to have a picture taken with the teachers Peter and Noel but she also got a hug from both of them! I was really proud of Miss Hannaford for being brave and performing in front of a TV camera and studio audience!

Tomorrow we fly home to Australia. I can see how tired Miss Hannaford is after such an exciting week so I expect that she will sleep most of the way home. I had a wonderful holiday with Miss Hannaford!

Lucy, Miss Hannaford and Matilda Monkey.

Lucy in Texas: Day 4 and 5

misshannaford Uncategorized May 28, 2015June 8, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, muppets, Project Puppet, Puppetry, Texas 0 Comment

Day 4: Wednesday, May 20 2015.

Second day of Beyond the Sock! Many of the workshop students including Miss Hannaford are staying in the same hotel so we ended up having breakfast together which gave us a chance to learn each other’s name and where in the world we came from. Miss Hannaford and I are the only humans and puppets from another country. Everyone else lives in the United States of America. The hotel has it’s own little shuttle bus and everyone going to Beyond the Sock caught the bus over to the University of North Texas.

The University’s theatre building not only has the workshop rooms we are using but also a huge theatre for performances. Everyone met there before we were split into 2 groups. Miss Hannaford was in group A along with 8 other people. Group B had 10 people in it. The reason we were split into small groups was so everyone could get individual attention and help from the teachers but also to be safe inside the two workrooms since there was lots of machinery and cables around us. Miss Hannaford was given a timetable which showed Group A did Puppet Making in the morning and Performing for TV in afternoon after lunch while group B did the opposite.

All the students were given their own special box of supplies based on the fur and fleece they chose the day before. The main task in the puppet making class was to cut out and glue the foam together for the Monkey head as well as trace the hand template onto the fleece fabric so they could be sewn together ready for class the next day.

Lunchtime was at 12:45pm so all the students and teachers walked down the short street from the building to a wonderful pizza restaurant called Crooked Crust. This gave Miss Hannaford a chance to talk to students from Group B to find out what they learnt in their morning session.

The afternoon session started at 1:45pm promptly. The first exercise was to hold your hand in the air as if there was a puppet on your arm and learn how to move your hand properly so that the puppet eyes were looking directly at the mirror. One of the teachers is Noel McNeal and he gave us practice puppet eyes made of paper with a pipe cleaner ring. We did the alphabet as well as counting to 20. The big challenge of the afternoon was to use actual practice puppets and stand in front of a TV camera so that the puppet is in the view of the camera not the head of the puppeteer! We learnt to centre the puppet and make it look directly into the camera then make the puppet walk into the ‘shot’ say hi and walk out without moving our feet! The workshop day ended at 6pm with a bus ride back to the University. Miss Hannaford did go with some of the other students to a local craft store to buy some costume elements for her puppet and we all had dinner together at one of the restaurants next door to the hotel!

Here is a video made by the staff at Beyond the Sock made about some of the activities we did during the first 2 days of the workshop!

Day 5: Thursday, May 21 2015

Today’s timetable was the same as yesterday. Puppet making in the morning, Puppet performance for film and TV in the afternoon. In the making workshop, Miss Hannaford started to cut out the purple fur of her monkey. Very quickly all the worktables, floor and people’s clothes were covered in the different fur we were all using! Everyone had a different colour of fur and when fur is cut, it becomes really messy! Then it was time to start to sew it together. Student’s had the choice of sending the cut out pieces to the expert sewers in another room, but Miss Hannaford wanted to sew the puppet herself so she ended up taking the puppet pieces back to the hotel to sew together for homework.

In the afternoon workshop, Miss Hannaford started working with other students in group performances. The lesson was to get the puppet to look at each other while another character was talking. Another exercise was to get the puppet to use it’s head to describe directions. The puppet had to walk into the shot, look at the camera and say “Hi, I was over there and now I am going over here”. On the word “there” the puppet had to look in that direction, then face the camera again and turn the other direction when saying “here” When performing a character for TV, the puppeteer looks at small tv screens around them to see what the puppet is doing. The challenge is that if the puppet walks right, on screen, the puppet is moving left so it is very tricky to work out which way the puppet is actually going when the puppeteer has to move as well.

In the next picture, Miss Hannaford is performing the pink puppet with 2 other students. The man at the end with the blue puppet is famous puppeteer Noel McNeal! You can see one of the tiny TV screens we used while performing next to his shoulder.

Here is the video of today at the workshop created by the Beyond the Sock Staff!

Can’t wait for tommorrow’s excitement!

Lucy and Miss Hannaford

Lucy in Texas: Day 3

misshannaford Uncategorized May 25, 2015June 8, 2016"Beyond the Sock", Lucy Green, muppets, Puppetry, Texas 1 Comment

Day 3: Tuesday 19 May 2015
First day of Beyond the Sock! The workshop didn’t start until midday so Miss Hannaford and I went to visit the local Home Depot which is a hardware store bigger than Bunnings or Masters! Miss Hannaford was looking for some hardware for her robotics project and she got some really useful advice about what she was looking for.

It was then time to meet the other attendees at Beyond the Sock! There are 18 other humans and about 30 puppets in the group. Nearly all of us are staying at the same hotel so we caught the hotel bus together to the University of North Texas Theatre and Television department. Miss Hannaford was really excited to meet people in the real world that she knew only through her online puppet groups!

We met our instructors, got to see the TV set we were performing in and the workshop room we were making our puppet monkeys in!

The first activity was to design our monkey character. Each human attendee was given a card with a fur/ fleece code on it. Miss Hannaford was given 8B which was purple fur with light grey skin! She then had to decide what sort of character the puppet would be. The TV set is of a building on a tropical island with a fruit stand.

Miss Hannaford decided that her Monkey would be a tourist visiting the island, so her design included a small camera and the character would be wearing a tourist t-shirt.

The day ended at 5pm so all the humans caught the bus back to the hotel for an official meet and greet of everyone involved in Beyond the Sock. Miss Hannaford and I met two famous puppeteers who actually perform Muppets and Sesame Street characters! One is Noel McNeal who is most famous for performing the character of Bear in Bear in the Big Blue House and the other is Peter Linz who performed the character of Walter in the two newest Muppet movies! Peter Linz even asked Miss Hannaford if he could pick me up and perform with me!

I also met many of the other puppets and their human companions. We took lots of “selfies”.

I had such a wonderful day! I can’t wait until tomorrow!

Lucy and Miss Hannaford