Project: Fox macropuppet!
Dec. 13th, 2007 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labricoleuseProbably the most complex crafts project on The Little Prince was the Fox macropuppet.
The project was largely the province of my assistant, third-year MFA candidate Emily Vandervoort Mason. Emily's degree focus is craftswork, so i asked her what, of the range of projects on the show, did she want to be responsible for (with my oversight and input, of course). I wanted her to have the opportunity for a great portfolio inclusion. Bravely, she picked the Fox.
St. Exupery's Fox illustration from the book
used with permission
This is the original image in the book, which heavily influenced our design concept. Here are the renderings, by McKay Coble:
rendering with fox image
rendering detail with Dogon mask research image
McKay was pulling together a lot of influences, while trying to remain as true as possible to that original image of the pointy-faced Fox with the startled tail. You can see the image of an actual fox and the image of a Dogon tribal mask which were part of the research.
The first thing we did was consider: how to mount the mask over the head? The most famous example of this kind of mask is the Scar mask in The Lion King, for which we inspected the plans. That rig involves hydraulics and carbon-fiber components that were far beyond the budget/time constraints of our production, so we were inspecting them with an eye to, "How can we do something like this quickly and durably but within the budget we have?"
We knew it would need to be an apex of two rods, connected with struts for stability (rather than a single wire like the rendering implies) so the mask wouldn't whang around all crazily. We knew it needed to be mounted on a backpack-style frame, supported around the shoulders and chest. We also knew that some type of joint with a huge range of movement would have to connect the mask to the frame, so the actor playing the Fox could move his face in a number of different ways to create the character. But what materials to use?
Emily spent the latter half of her summer making flying monkey wings for the Children's Theatre of Charlotte's production of The Wizard of Oz. For that project, their crafts team had used narrow PVC piping as a framework for the support structure, so Emily first constructed a mockup apex frame from PVC pipe. She built a tight-fitting canvas "vest" with a thermoplastic-reinforced backplate to support the rig, which fitted down into long pockets on the back. The PVC pipe though was clearly not going to take the stress of the operation of the macropuppet, and it was a thicker, more "obvious" material than the designer wanted. Out with the pipe and back to the drawing board.
When i do these kinds of projects, i typically go to one of the big-box hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowe's, and wander around every aisle in every department, just looking at what they have. Then i go to one of the big-box artsy-craftsy stores like Michael's or AC Moore, and do the same thing.
At AC Moore, i saw something in the floral department that struck me as possibly useful: wreath stands. You know, like the kind that hold up wreaths at funerals or flower-horseshoes at the races? So, i bought two and brought them back to the studio. McKay and i spent an afternoon making a really rudimentary version of the Fox so that the actor would have something to work with in rehearsal while we worked on the "real deal." Here's our mockup:
This gave the performer something to manipulate, to get used to creating a character whose face was actually at arm's length, and it gave the other actors a "face" for the Fox with which they could interact. It's like when you see DVD extras, and an actor is doing green-screen work talking to a tennis ball on a stick. This cardboard Fox was to the real Fox, what Andy Sirkis in a union-suit was to Gollum, if you will.
We bartered with the scenic department to get the real foundation made--they welded us a steel version of the jacked-up wreath-stand frame, in exchange for us dyeing a whole mess of fabric for the set. Emily worked on the artistry of making the actual mask and tail from thermoplastic, paint, cheesecloth, and plastic pampas grass. But we still had one unreconciled problem: what could serve as the joint for connecting the mask to the frame?
We had tried a whole mess of things: a steel universal-joint (too mechanical in its range of movement), a metal ball joint from a rear-view mirror (too stiff), and a children's toy used by stop-motion animators called Zoobs (too weak). Finally, we found our solution in the Gorillapod, a camera tripod whose legs are durable strands of ball joints. A short section of a single Gorillapod leg was the perfect thing to afford our Fox mask a wide range of natural, stable, yet easily-positionable movement.
Here's the final macropuppet in a series of stage shots:
the Fox is wary of the Prince
Lesley Shires as the Prince
Flor de Liz Perez, Joy Jones, and Heaven Chijirae Stephens as the Trees
Jason Powers as the Fox
Jason Powers as the Fox
Jason Powers as the Fox
the Fox learns to play tug-of-war with the Prince's scarf
Lesley Shires as the Prince
Jason Powers as the Fox
Flor de Liz Perez the Tree
the Prince has tamed the Fox
Jason Powers as the Fox
Lesley Shires as the Prince
Flor de Liz Perez, Joy Jones, and Heaven Chijirae Stephens as the Trees
So there you go! That's how we got from point A (a drawing in a children's book) to point Z (the realized macropuppet costume)!
The project was largely the province of my assistant, third-year MFA candidate Emily Vandervoort Mason. Emily's degree focus is craftswork, so i asked her what, of the range of projects on the show, did she want to be responsible for (with my oversight and input, of course). I wanted her to have the opportunity for a great portfolio inclusion. Bravely, she picked the Fox.
St. Exupery's Fox illustration from the book
used with permission
This is the original image in the book, which heavily influenced our design concept. Here are the renderings, by McKay Coble:
rendering with fox image
rendering detail with Dogon mask research image
McKay was pulling together a lot of influences, while trying to remain as true as possible to that original image of the pointy-faced Fox with the startled tail. You can see the image of an actual fox and the image of a Dogon tribal mask which were part of the research.
The first thing we did was consider: how to mount the mask over the head? The most famous example of this kind of mask is the Scar mask in The Lion King, for which we inspected the plans. That rig involves hydraulics and carbon-fiber components that were far beyond the budget/time constraints of our production, so we were inspecting them with an eye to, "How can we do something like this quickly and durably but within the budget we have?"
We knew it would need to be an apex of two rods, connected with struts for stability (rather than a single wire like the rendering implies) so the mask wouldn't whang around all crazily. We knew it needed to be mounted on a backpack-style frame, supported around the shoulders and chest. We also knew that some type of joint with a huge range of movement would have to connect the mask to the frame, so the actor playing the Fox could move his face in a number of different ways to create the character. But what materials to use?
Emily spent the latter half of her summer making flying monkey wings for the Children's Theatre of Charlotte's production of The Wizard of Oz. For that project, their crafts team had used narrow PVC piping as a framework for the support structure, so Emily first constructed a mockup apex frame from PVC pipe. She built a tight-fitting canvas "vest" with a thermoplastic-reinforced backplate to support the rig, which fitted down into long pockets on the back. The PVC pipe though was clearly not going to take the stress of the operation of the macropuppet, and it was a thicker, more "obvious" material than the designer wanted. Out with the pipe and back to the drawing board.
When i do these kinds of projects, i typically go to one of the big-box hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowe's, and wander around every aisle in every department, just looking at what they have. Then i go to one of the big-box artsy-craftsy stores like Michael's or AC Moore, and do the same thing.
At AC Moore, i saw something in the floral department that struck me as possibly useful: wreath stands. You know, like the kind that hold up wreaths at funerals or flower-horseshoes at the races? So, i bought two and brought them back to the studio. McKay and i spent an afternoon making a really rudimentary version of the Fox so that the actor would have something to work with in rehearsal while we worked on the "real deal." Here's our mockup:
This gave the performer something to manipulate, to get used to creating a character whose face was actually at arm's length, and it gave the other actors a "face" for the Fox with which they could interact. It's like when you see DVD extras, and an actor is doing green-screen work talking to a tennis ball on a stick. This cardboard Fox was to the real Fox, what Andy Sirkis in a union-suit was to Gollum, if you will.
We bartered with the scenic department to get the real foundation made--they welded us a steel version of the jacked-up wreath-stand frame, in exchange for us dyeing a whole mess of fabric for the set. Emily worked on the artistry of making the actual mask and tail from thermoplastic, paint, cheesecloth, and plastic pampas grass. But we still had one unreconciled problem: what could serve as the joint for connecting the mask to the frame?
We had tried a whole mess of things: a steel universal-joint (too mechanical in its range of movement), a metal ball joint from a rear-view mirror (too stiff), and a children's toy used by stop-motion animators called Zoobs (too weak). Finally, we found our solution in the Gorillapod, a camera tripod whose legs are durable strands of ball joints. A short section of a single Gorillapod leg was the perfect thing to afford our Fox mask a wide range of natural, stable, yet easily-positionable movement.
Here's the final macropuppet in a series of stage shots:
the Fox is wary of the Prince
Lesley Shires as the Prince
Flor de Liz Perez, Joy Jones, and Heaven Chijirae Stephens as the Trees
Jason Powers as the Fox
Jason Powers as the Fox
Jason Powers as the Fox
the Fox learns to play tug-of-war with the Prince's scarf
Lesley Shires as the Prince
Jason Powers as the Fox
Flor de Liz Perez the Tree
the Prince has tamed the Fox
Jason Powers as the Fox
Lesley Shires as the Prince
Flor de Liz Perez, Joy Jones, and Heaven Chijirae Stephens as the Trees
So there you go! That's how we got from point A (a drawing in a children's book) to point Z (the realized macropuppet costume)!
