Meet Sebastian, he is attention seeking sock monster. Likely Story asked me mock up their character for their production ‘The Locked Door‘, a children’s show for all ages about a girl who wishes for more than she bargained for. Likely Story have a wonderfully inventive way of bringing a story to life and I sincerely hope that The Locked Door gets the reception it deserves to gain the funding it needs to reach the next level.
I can’t reveal much about this big guy but the idea is that he’s made from affordable materials with instructions anyone can follow.
Another commission from Jay Green of Bedales School in Petersfield. My brief was to design and build a puppet of a young boy to be puppeteered by one person alone.
When I was researching for Jay’s earlier Commission of Pacino I came across an excellent boy puppet by Mary Robinette on you tube. This was the inspiration behind my boy puppet, which combined Mary Robinette’s puppeteering technique with puppet making techniques I had learned at Blind Summit.
The Boy was used in Jay Greens production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Nights Dream at The Olivier Theatre in Bedales School, winter, 2010.
I finally got around to taking some good photos of my owl. He was made for a friend’s Pantomime production of Babe’s in the Wood.
Underneath the fur and feathers he has a very simple plastazote head and body. His toes are built over a glove so they can wiggle. His eyes are made from small torches and illuminate for his entrance in a dark forest in the show. He’s now gone to live for a while in the window of our local Wicca and Pagan shop White Witch.
Perhaps the most ambitious undertaking Blind Summit’s embarked on to date. El Gato Con Botas or “Puss in Boots” (a collaboration with the Tectonic Theatre group and Gotham Chamber Opera in New York City), boasts a menagerie of 28 puppets, ranging from shoals of fish, bunraku cats, a life-size lion and a 10 foot ogre!
On this incredible project I had the pleasure of carving a macaw parrot in styrofoam, sculpting ‘super sculpey’ hands, fabricating marionette bodies, making half a dozen white rabbits, a lions body and limbs, and much more, its hard to recall, there was just so much happening!? The project brought together so many talented individuals, it was wonderful to all be together under one roof.
Actor, Puppeteer, and puppet maker Henry Maynard, posing with Marionette style puppet. Armature by Henry Maynard, fabrication by Billie Achilleos, covering by Greta Schuckert.
Macaw by EVERYONE!
Puss In Boots directed by Moises Kaufman, premiered at The New Victory Theatre, New York, on the 2nd October -10th October 2010.
Wonderful photos of the production can be viewed here, featuring the phenomenal 10 foot ogre, created largely by pattern cutting genius Becky Johnson.
(In sesame street style) The puppets of Puss In Boots were brought to you this Autumn by :- Nick Barnes, Becky Johnson, Billie Achilleos, Paul Vincett, Henry Maynard, Greta Schuckert, Rachael Sheppard and Sindy Buissink.
In autumn 2009, I was asked by Blind Summit producer Helen Hodge to create a couple of puppets for Sidmouth Amateur Dramatic Society for their production of ‘Babes in the Wood.’
Bert the Owl and Ernie the Fox (named by S.A.D.S), were created slightly larger than life to be easier to operate and clearer to see on stage. Bert is made almost entirely of plastazote and fake fur…Erine is slightly more complicated using similar build techniques to Pacino the wolf.
Itool was my first attempt a wood carving and marionette making. He stands at 500mm tall and is carved purely from lime wood. He was constructed in my third year at Wimbledon College of Art and when I had access to such conveniences as a band-saw and disk sander, which made some of the initial work easier. Although power-tools provided easy solutions to most problems, much of the carving was done wit good old fashioned hand tools.
Although I am very please with how he turned out, being carved in Lime for it’s attractive grain resulted in him being too heavy to string without excessive hollowing out of all his parts. At the time, I didn’t know any puppeteers and he was left to gather dust until recently when Ben Thompson (Blind Summit’s Low Life, War Horse) and Iestyn Evens (of Talk To The Hand productions) worked their magic and brought him to life in this film.
Itool the Faun from Billie ‘Fingers’ Achilleos on Vimeo.
In December 2009 Blind Summit collaborated with director Mick Gordon to make a puppet for ‘On Emotion’ at the Soho Theatre, London.
The puppet was a miniature replica of Blind Summit’s co founder Mark Down, who also stared in the show. The head was expertly sculpted by Nick Barnes, my part in creating mini Mark was fabricating his body and painting his hands and head.
My first work for Blind Summit was to create the ‘chinese kite’ style puppets for Yellow Earth Theatre’s production, ‘Running the Silk Road.’
My self and Paul Vincett (Puppet Master of Stitches and Glue Monster workshop), made various animals from bamboo, stretched cotton and silk cloth to imitate the kite style and be animated using simple but unique methods.
‘Running the Silk Road’ was performed at The Pit, The Barbican, London, in June 2008.
In Spring 2009 I was approched by Ben Lister and Victoria Emes of Antidote Productions to create puppets for an independent music promo of Lisa Li-Lund’s ‘Bloodface’.
Made on a tiny budget, it involved a very dedicated team to produce using many tricks to get the desired effects. It was a valuable experience that introduced me to some very talented individuals and taught me a lot about film making.
The miniature figures were made with an aluminum skeleton covered with carved and laminated bulsa wood. The underwater shots worked incredibly well have led to me thinking about making some aquatic marionettes at some point in the future. It was very enjoyable to work on such a small scale but I would approach many things differently if I had a chance to do it again.
The video was my first opportunity to do a little puppeteering myself as proffessional Jeremy Bidgood (Pangolin’s Teatime) is limited by how many hands he has. Set designer and textile artist David Curtis-Ring made an incredible environment for our characters and the creepy undead puppets that drag our ‘Lisa’ to her watery death. We were all soaking wet by the end of it, but it was a lot of fun in getting there.
Lisa Li-Lund ‘Bloodface’ from Ben Lister on Vimeo.
