A few weeks ago I bought a “Ghost Cat of Doom” finger puppet from Stacey Rebecca of puppetpie.com. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with it, but her little finger puppets are just so cool and clever I had to have one of my very own!
When I finally getting around to writing my memoirs (“Weird Like Me”), I may have to dedicate a chapter to her. Her quirky sense of humor comes through in the wacky descriptions of her little felted monsters! I’ll just say this… Bedazzled Tampon Finger Puppet.
I guess I didn’t keep a close enough eye on it, as you should always do with ghost cats of doom, and when I looked back I saw it had claimed yet another victim. Poor PJ-dog.
When you get a chance check out her work and show your support!
From the apparent mess left by the sudden disappearance of Puppet Productions comes some good news. Some former employees of the company have acquired the rights to the products, and have launched Puppets, Inc.
Check out the website and read the Who We Are section, which includes:
First, please understand that we are NOT Puppet Productions.
However, some of the rumors out on the internet are true. A few former employees of Puppet Productions managed to acquire the rights to the full catalog, including all designs and copyrighted programming, from Puppet Productions after its closure. That would be us.
Right now only the programs and some accessories are available, but hopefully the puppets we know and love will be available soon! If so, this will be a great resource that's back for the puppet community, and I think we should give them a fair shot and not let the problems with Puppet Productions reflect on them.
This is just awesome! The FAO Schwartz Muppet Whatnot Workshop is back online, and you can create your own custom Muppet "Whatnot" for just $90!
A "Whatnot" is sort of an all-purpose puppet which would get different hair, noses, etc. attached to them and were basically the "extras" on the Muppet Show. Check out the site and the one and only Kermit the Frog gives you a better idea of what Whatnots are all about.
You can choose from three body color/styles, and about a dozen different eyes, hairstyles and outfits. Check it out!
Most of the puppets used in my videos came from PuppetProductions.com in DeSoto Texas. Today I found out they just went out of business! It's a shame because the puppets were very well made and reasonably priced.
This shouldn't effect The DumbAscii files though, since I already have quite a cast of characters and I've been working on making my own puppets lately anyway, but it's still a bummer to lose such a great puppet resource.
Caught a news story about some leaked footage of the audition tapes for the Nation of Marriage (NOM) “Gathering Storm” anti-gay marriage commercial and puppet inspiration struck! It doesn’t matter to me really which side of this issue you are on, but the Gathering Storm commercial is just plain ridiculous, and the audition tapes made it even better!
This was a quick video to make, only took a few hours to shoot and edit, especially since I didn’t have to actually worry about lighting the green screen properly! This video also marks the video debut of Tegan, the newest member of the DumbAscii Files. (She really is a much better actress than she portrays in this clip).
I was just setting up to shoot another video, but this one was just begging to be made, and if I waited any it would probably be too late to be funny. I threw in a book and movie reference thrown in just for good measure too.
So please, gather up your children and head to your basements, for there is a storm gathering…
When I heard about IL Governor Rod Blagojevich being arrested (and after wondering just what took so long anyway!) I knew what I had to do. I MUST MAKE A BLAGO PUPPET! I also had to somehow use the word “gubernatorial” because it’s one of my favorite words to say. Try it… it’s fun!
Ok, technically I didn’t make him. He’s just Manley wearing a wig. In fact I didn’t even make that. I had an artist friend Patty Pulliam of Rustic Studio step outside her usual media to dabble in puppet wig-making. (For the record, I made the part in from that goes across the forehead, and that’s where I got stuck. As you can see from my previous post she did an amazing job on it!
For this video I recorded the audio first at a friend’s studio because I felt it would have been way too difficult to do the voice and puppetry at the same time, and have it consistent enough. Heather and Eric Bouton of Heather’s Drum Studio in Elgin, IL helped me out a lot!
Heather provided the voice and obscenities of Patty Blagojevich. It’s almost a shame to have them bleeped out, but its funnier that way! I could not stop laughing when she was recording her part either!
Eric did all the audio engineering and even chipped in to handle the voice of the cops. Thankfully, he didn’t want to kill me even after the 20th take of some of the parts. (Delicate Genius at work here!) I took the rough mix and did some editing for timing, added a few reverb effects, then mixed in music.
As for the filming, this was the first time I’ve used a green screen. It worked pretty well, even though there are a few little glitches here and there. One problem is that the puppet’s eyes are green, so that was almost impossible to not have it bleed into the background.
This was the first time I tried using an upgrade of my light setup too. The last videos were just done with whatever lights or floor lamps I had in the house. I went to Lowes and picked up some 1000W work lights and some other assorted lights, and had most of them rigged up to mic and drum stands. Guess you have to work with what you’ve got sometimes!
Working with the chroma key effects was interesting and challenging. Next time I’ll need to try a few more lighting combinations to see what worked best. I may also try filming in the basement and backlighting the green screen itself. I’ll have to get my puppets some blue contact lenses as well!
There’s going to be a few more Blago videos too. I can’t let the wig go to waste!
Ok, here's a sneak peek at my next video. I wanted to wait but this is just too good! I had my friend Patty of Rustic Studio help me make a "Blago" wig.
I'm not spilling the beans just yet on what the video will be though, but obviously it'll feature our much-loved governer Rod Blagojevich.
I'll be recording the audio this weekend, and hopefully I'll have everything filmed and edited by the following weekend. (It's written here now, so I better get it done!)
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