Zerks' Log

Zerks' Log chronicles the voyage of a doomed spaceship Venturi 553.

Zerks' Log is one of the most impressive puppetry web series I've seen. It's an 18 episode series (the season is currently 11 episodes in) about Captain Zerks Ganymedewski and his ship the Venturi 553, which disappeared without a trace. The story is told through videos from the lost spaceship's “black box” that feature Zerks fretting about his second-in-command, pondering his love life and making otherwise trivial, humdrum observations, totally unaware that he's doomed.

This is a great example of how to design a show around the limitations most web shows face. The character of Zerks is kind of elaborate and created through a combination of animatronics and special FX makeup worn by actor Ben Alpi, but the show is shot entirely on a very simple set (it's just a desk, a chair and a green screen). There's obviously an enormous amount of post production and effects work that goes in to creating something like this, but if you have the time, the know-how and access to the right equipment you could easily produce a show like Zerks Logs for just a few hundred dollars.

Via NewTeeVee Station.

Kanye West's Creature

Kanye West's recent Glow In The Dark tour featured a giant animatronic creature built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

Remember that big animatronic puppet that Jim Henson's Creature Shop was building for Kanye West last year? Well, Sean - who along with his brother Patrick was part of the team that built the monster - sent in some links to some amateur video from one of Kanye's concerts on YouTube.

The monster was apparently made out of foam and fiberglass, built on a carbon fiber spine and covered with hand-stitched fabric. The quality of the videos (which you can watch here and here) aren't great, but the effect looks spectacular!

First Look at "Where The Wild Things Are" Creatures

A series of skateboards provide the first look at the monsters of Where The Wild Things Are.

The film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are (see previous post) has been hotly anticipated for a long time. The film's original teaser was released back in 2000 and the movie's troubled production history has been widely reported. Now as the Wild Things prepare to finally move to the big screen we get our first complete look at the movie's creatures.

Mark Hamill Talks Yoda

Mark Hamill reminisces about working with Yoda in this clip from the documentary Legends of Film and Fantasy.

Here is Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, talking about the difficulties of working with small green animatronic puppets that have exceptionally high midi-chlorian counts. It's a five minute clip from an upcoming documentary called Legends of Film and Fantasy.

Hat tip to Monster Island News via Lost in Schlock.

Open House at The Creature Shop Next Week

Kermit the Frog greets visitors to the Jim Henson Company studio lot in Hollywood.

The Visual Effects Society and LA ACM SIGGRAPH are hosting a very cool-sounding open house of sorts at Jim Henson's Creature Shop next week called Innovation in Puppetry: From Animatronics to CGI next Tuesday, January 13th at 6 p.m. The program includes a presentation about the Creature Shop, a live demo of the Henson Digital Performance Studio, an audience Q & A, guided tours of Jim Henson's Creature Shop and self-guided tours of the rest of the Henson lot.

This event is free to LA ACM SIGGRAPH and Visual Effects Society members and $20 for non-members. New members who sign up on site and pay the $40 annual membership fee will be admitted for free. If you live in or near L.A. and have an interest in the Creature Shop's work or have always wanted to see the Henson lot, this sounds like an opportunity you shouldn't miss.

For more details and to RSVP go to www.visualeffectssociety.com.

Cross-posted from Machin-X: Digital Puppetry.

Note: You're supposed to RSVP at the Visual Effects Society web site, but I couldn't figure out how to do that so if you're planning to attend, it's probably best to email them directly to sign up.

Update on The Hobbit

Director Guillermo del Toro is directing the two-part Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit.

While doing promotion for the new Hellboy II Blu-Ray, director Guillermo del Toro provided some minor updates on his upcoming two-part adaptation of The Hobbit. He reports that filming will commence in 2010 and last an entire year. del Toro - who's well-known for his love of practical effects like animatronics and puppetry - also says he's planning to break new ground in puppetry:

"We will be pushing them to the edge of technology where we will fuse animatronics and CGI into a seamless new art form in creating creatures." While Hellboy II had a lot of recognizable puppets, del Toro says that The Hobbit will feature more of a seamless mix. "You will see some mind-boggling mixture of CGI / puppetry like never before. "

You can read the full report here.

Get Ready For More Cats & Dogs

A sequel to the 2001 family film Cats & Dogs is headed in to production in Vancouver.

Remember Cats and Dogs?

I've always thought it was a great little family film and its villain Mr. Tinkles has to be one of the funniest animatronic puppet characters ever created. Recently word has been spreading that a sequel called Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore is headed in to production. I was excited to hear that Brad Peyton (see previous post) is helming the sequel. Also good to hear is that Dave Barclay is once again supervising the animatronic characters for the film, although this time they'll be built by Lee Romaire Studios.

I'm not sure whether the sequel is intended to be a big budget theatrical film or not; evidence suggests that the producers might be cutting some corners (note: this is not the case, see my note below), when you consider they're hiring a relatively inexperienced (albeit very talented) director and have decided to forgo rehiring the Creature Shop, which created the animatronic characters for the original. However, Brad Peyton is has a really distinct vision (his short film Evelyn the Cutest Evil Dead Girl is fantastic), Dave Barclay is one of the best animatronic puppeteers in the world and Lee Romaire's studio is able to do really interesting work even with a limited budget (see previous post). Add all those elements together and this low-profile film has the potential to be something special.

Hopefully we'll hear more about Cats and Dogs 2 as it moves through production.

15/10/08 Update: After posting this, I got an email from someone who is actually working on the film in Vancouver who assures me the budget for this is actually quite a bit bigger than the original and it's being planned as major release for next year.

50 ft Robo Spider Loose in UK

Some unconventional street theatre is being created with a giant animatronic spider in the UK.

Take a look at CNN's report of the incredible 50 ft spider that's currently on the loose in England. Don't worry, there hasn't been an invasion of giant radioactive insects (yet) it's just an elaborate piece of free street theatre that's happening this weekend in Bristol, UK. The "Robo-Spider" requires 12 operators and reportedly cost about $1.8 million to build.

Kind of makes you want your own giant animatronic robot, doesn't it?

07/09/08 Update: I forgot to mention that the people behind this are La Machine (some of the same folks who created The Sultan's Elephant).

Kanye Visits The Creature Shop

Is this a model of one of the monsters from Where The Wild Things Are?

Jim Henson's Creature Shop is rumoured to be working on something "big" for Kanye West's next live tour. The popular Hip Hop artist recently paid a visit to the Creature Shop and posted some photos from the trip on his blog. The pictures include the one above, which appears to be a model for the upcoming (and reportedly troubled) film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

Image via /film.

Update: Aaaand just like that the picture goes "poof". Maybe Kanye wasn't supposed to post that? It turns out that the Creature Shop is building a bunch of giant puppets for Kanye's next tour. I've updated my original post accordingly.

Where The Wild Things Aren't

There's trouble brewing in post-production on Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

I don't know if you've heard or not yet, but Spike Jonze is directing a film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are featuring puppets and hybrid animatronic/CG characters from Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Spy reports from early screenings have indicated that the movie is a dark, brilliant and extremely faithful adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak book, so naturally Warner Brothers is rumoured to want to either extensively reshoot it, or scrap the movie altogether and start over.

I really hope Warner doesn't mess with the movie. Chances are they're looking for a fuzzy (or at least Harry Potter-esque) family movie and didn't get it, which begs the question why did they hire Spike Jonze to direct in the first place? Oh well, at least Forest Whitaker's kids liked it.

Via I Watch Stuff.

A Clean Shot with Creatures

The video for A Clean Shot by The Myriad - MTV's "breakout band of the year" - was just released yesterday and draws some heavy inspiration from The Dark Crystal and other classic fantasy films. You can catch some "making of" footage on YouTube and there are a couple photos of the puppets from the video available below.

The video was directed by Josh Forbes. The puppet creatures seen it were created by Romaire Studios and performed by Kevin Carlson (the little ones) and Tony Prince (the big guy).

Pictures courtesy of Romaire Studios.

Monday Morning Inspiration: Making the Mundane More Fun

This animatronic goat "eats" botched bets from Japanese gamblers.

I worked as a puppeteer in Japan several times in the late 1990s and every time I was there I was struck by the way that the Japanese always seem to inject a little whimsy in the most unexpected places. Take this animatronic goat for example. It's used at the Edogawa Kyotei boat race course in Tokyo where disgruntled gamblers feed it their losing tickets rather than throwing them out or tossing them on the ground. Not technically a puppet perhaps, but still very cool!

Via Pink Tentacle.

Drumming For Candy Bars

An animatronic gorilla is featured in a new ad campaign for Dairy Milk chocolate bars in the UK.

In the UK Cadbury has launched a £6.2m (!) ad campaign for Dairy Milk chocolate bars featuring an animatronic gorilla playing the drum solo in Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight. I'm not really sure what it has to do with Dairy Milk or if it will help them sell more chocolate bars, but it sure is a neat ad.

Via Puppeteers Unite.

Fantastic, Trippy Experimental Electronica Video

A new video by experimental electronica artist Nodern makes great use of a great looking puppet.

Oh diamond diamond thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done is a weird, trippy and very cool video by experimental electronica artist Nodern that features an amazing-looking jackal puppet (well, I think it's supposed to be a jackal anyway). You can watch the video here, but Quicktime is required.

Via Boing Boing with special thanks to Ben.

Rico, Our Robot Friend

Rico the Robot, designed and built by Jim Greenall.

Here's a fun little video featuring an animatronic robot puppet by Jim Greenall, who builds animatronics at Animal Makers.

Thanks to Jim for sending it in!

Early Disney Animatronics

Julie Andrews sings with the first animatronic motion picture puppet - a robin.

Quick question...what's the very first motion picture ever to feature an animatronic puppet? The Dark Crystal? Nope. The Empire Strikes Back? Guess again. Believe it or not, the answer is actually Mary Poppins!

Walt Disney of course pioneered the field of animatronics and, as this short video about early Disney animatronics explains, Mary Poppins was the very first Disney film to utilize Walt's brand new toys. Anybody else notice how the contraption being worn by a man in a chair around the 1:10 mark of the video is really, really similar to a modern motion capture rig? And this was the early `60s!

Say what they will about Disney, there's no disputing that he was a man who was way, way ahead of his time.

Animatronic Panda Violence Sweeps Japan

Animatronic Panda Bears perform a beat-down on a hapless offender of their dignity.

If you were to believe a series of viral videos on YouTube from Japan's Buildup Co. (among other things, they rent out animatronic Panda suits) you'd think there was an outbreak of Panda related-violence sweeping the Far East. From Panda snipers to nightstick-wielding Panda gangs and of course the classic Kung-Fu Panda the message seems clear...never, ever p**s off a Panda Bear.

Links via Pink Tentacle.

Transformers Animatronics

An giant animatronic Autobot Bumblebee waits for his close-up on the set of Transformers last year.

I have to say that I was really skeptical of the new Transformers movie, but the newest trailer for it looks pretty good. If you grew up in the `80s playing with the toys like me it's hard not to find the shot of Optimus Prime rolling up as a big truck and transforming (with the classic sound effect no less!) pretty darn cool.

While there's little doubt that Transformers is going to be an over-the-top CG extravganza, what's really interesting is that in additional to all the computer work, KNB FX has built several giant animatronic Transformers for the film. You can see some of the pics of the animatronic version of Bumblebee (pictured above) here.

I don't believe that KNB has gone on the record about their work on the film yet, except to confirm that they were "building some robots" last year, which is not surprising since Transformers - which comes out July 4th - is still shrouded in a lot of secrecy. While it's not clear whether KNB's animatronic Transformers will appear in the finished film or if they were just used as stand-ins during live action filming, it's worth noting that there's a lot more animatronics in the movies than you might expect.

It's not uncommon for animatronics and practical FX to be heavily utilized in movies to do things people usually assume are accomplished completely in CG. KNB built an animatronic version of the lion Aslan for use in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Doctor Octopus' tentacles in Spiderman 2 were performed by a team of puppeteers in many scenes, despite most people's assumption that they were entirely computer animated.

Animatronic Chicken Video

This animatronic chicken puppet was built for a TV commercial advertising noodles.

I just watched a YouTube demo reel for Argentina's Elcarimat FX that features an Animatronic Chicken puppet that was built for TV commercial. Personally I think that the pacing of the video is a little too fast, but it's also one of the most fun reels I've ever seen.

Chicken puppets sure do seem popular in advertising; earlier this I wrote about chicken puppets that in commercials for Ruby Tuesday.

Wiimote Controlled Mario Puppet

A innovative person in German has built a Wiimote controlled Paper Mario puppet.

Add this to the list of things you can do with one of those snazzy Wii Remotes - control a Paper Mario puppet. Not too shabby, eh?