DYCP Project: Integrating Film with Life Puppetry and Masks
I very was very fortunate to receive a Develop Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England at the start of the year (2023), and have been using it over the course of this year to explore how to integrate film elements and animation with live puppetry and masks. This page will document chronologically my progress with this project. Please also visit my blog interested in seeing individual posts about each stage!
Stage 1: Painted animations
I experimented with painting individual frames onto acetate using acrylic, layered over a painted background (see video below!). It is definitely very rough round the edges, but it’s a good start I think. Notice the “nut” moves because I realised it was in the wrong place, started removing it from each acetate sheet then forgot to paint it back in! I’d like to try and improve this animation at some point, but for now I just really enjoyed trying this new technique!
I then tried using green screen for the first time by animating the monkey acetate frames on a green background, then layered the monkey on top of some old collages I did ages ago after removing the green background with chroma key. I quite like the effect of the collage background, though the monkey himself is quite patchy after I removed the green background from the animated frames. I’m finding it interesting, even though it’s out of my comfort zone, and I wonder how it could look to be animated against a photo or film.
Stage 2: Cardboard animations
Experimenting with animating cardboard figures, in the style of my cardboard art. I created my own sound effects using my own voice to make eating/ monkey noises, and scrunching up on paper etc. I have only really touched the surface with this technique and would love to make more developed and complex animations like this, making more use of different angles and perspectives. The backgrounds were made really quickly just for experimenting, so this is something I would like to develop much more.
Now here’s one where I used green screen. A female gelada munching on grass! I animated her on top of a green screen, then layered her on top of a painted background. I made about ten faces at different angles, some with the mouth open, showing the teeth. Underneath the video there are some original green screen clips and photos of the different face angles.
Stage 3: Microcinema Rainforest
Microcinema experiment created with Ulysses Black. We created a miniature “rainforest” installation using found objects, a plant and paper leaves, and explored it using my phone camera. My old projector had packed up so we couldn’t project it as a live feed, but we learnt a lot from it. We filmed it in a dark room with some mood lighting (a desk lamp pointing away from it, and a bright light from above shining through a scrap of cardboard with slashes cut into it, so that “shafts” of light could shine through the “canopy” onto the “forest floor”). Here is the best of a load of little films, after adding some filter effects and making adjustments of contrast, tone etc. We also made a rough soundscape, layering free sound effects downloaded from BBC sounds and Zapsplat, and ones created ourselves. It’s not true microcinema but it’s a start and something to be developed.
Second microcinema experiment using cardboard trees and cardboard snub-nosed monkey puppet!
Stage 4: Cardboard masks
I made a cardboard mask based on the cloth victorian girl mask I made when I was in Spain last year, with vintage paper doilies for hair rather than lace. I also made a monkey mask from papier mache (this was made slightly earlier so doesn’t have the cardboard style I’d like but my time is limited so I’m using it for now!) and a monkey-orchid mask! I then spent a couple of days with Ulysses Black, exploring character and costume and then experimenting with green screen to make videos with both masks and cardboard monkey puppet:
Photos of green screen filming:
Layered green screen film
Me and Ulysses Black layered up some of the green screened footage in Adobe Premiere and made these videos… We made one “ultimate” layered video where we added elements of everything we played around with:
Mask work with Peta Lily
I spent an incredible couple of days one-to-one with amazing performer/clown/ theatre maker/ facilitator Peta Lily as she mentored me on mask work and physical theatre as part of my DYCP. I met Peta for the first time in 2012 when I attended one of her Dark Clown workshops, and again in 2018 when I did her “Alchemy of Archetypes” workshop. She is such an incredible facilitator, that I asked her to be my one-to-one mentor for this part of my project, helping me with my physical theatre skills to feel more “embodied” on stage, and with mask performance skills.
Over the two days, we did SO many things… Peta has so many techniques up her sleeve that I filled an entire notebook with my notes! I learnt some basic mime skills, grounding skills, how to express certain emotions through the body; we worked with the Trickster archetype… we also did some vocal training… we explored haiku… we worked with masks she had brought along to the workshop, and then she directed and guided me as I explored character through the cardboard masks I had made. It was just amazing! Working in this progress-led way opened up so many possibilities. Peta encouraged me to do so many things I would hardly have dared allowed myself to do otherwise, and I’m feeling so inspired from her delightfully macabre and devilish humour.
Animation Armature making
I went to Bristol for a couple of days to learn how to make basic wire armature for animation puppets with lovely animator, Roos Mattaar. It was a really informative and inspiring couple of days and I learnt so much! Can’t wait to finish the puppet when I have the opportunity.
Projection experiments
In an effort to try and integrate some live performance and projection, I spent some time experimenting with Ulysses Black. We still haven’t quite managed to do any live microcinema due to some technical issues, so that’s probably something to be developed at a later stage. Here are some photos and videos of our experimentation (photos by Ulysses Black):
