PuppetVision Has Moved

The PuppetVision Blog is still being updated, but it's moved to PuppetVision.Blog!

If you read the blog via RSS and haven't seen any updates for several months, you probably need to update your RSS Reader with the new RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/XVGw.

PuppetBuilding.com Returns Next Week

PuppetBuilding.com (finally) returns in just a few short days...

Follow Me On Twitter

Are you on Twitter?

Like any good early adopter/online-fad-chasing-blogger I've had a Twitter account set-up for quite awhile now. Lately I've really been getting in to it too, so follow me on Twitter. You can read my random musings, eaves drop on conversations I'm having with fellow Twitters and find links to neat/cool/funny puppet videos that for whatever reason don't make it here to the blog.

If you've got no idea what I'm talking about and you don't know a tweet from a chirp, don't worry! There's a handy video on YouTube that explains Twitter in plain English. It'll tell you everything you need to know to get started.

PuppetVision's Got A New URL

It's time to update your bookmarks because PuppetVision has a brand new URL - www.puppetvision.info

This is something I've been planning for awhile and it's the first in a series of steps I want to take over the next year to update and upgrade the site. Don't worry if you type in the old Blogspot address by mistake though; you'll automatically be redirected to the new one.

Weekend Puppet Catch-Up

While I've not been blogging there's been tons of puppet related stuff going on. I think it's impossible to cover it all, but here's a quick look at some of the interesting stuff that's been happening:

• Patrick Algermissen has made a short film called Pupsock & Wendell in The Gallery of Doom that sounds really interesting. It's a mash-up of live-action, puppets, 2D animation, and 3D animation and will be screening at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. as part of the museum's Jim Henson's Fantastic World exhibit.
  
  
• Sid and Marty Kroft are in their 70s and still going strong according to a recent article in the L.A. Times.
  
  
• Avenue Q opened in Toronto last week. As part of the media/promotion effort, Rick Lyon spoke to the National Post's Allison Broverman.
  
  
• David Beckham is coming to Sesame Street. He's just one of many celebrities beating a path to the show recently.
  
  
• Pinocchio's Marionette Theater in Orlando was forced to close last January after founder David Eaton was diagnosed with leukemia. Thankfully, David's prognosis has improved along with a number of other prominent puppeteers including Heather Henson and Sean Keohane he's trying to reopen Pinocchio's and pay down its $30,000 debt.

I'll be back with more soon!

Not Posting, Heart Attacks (not really) and Feist

Hi all, it's been almost 3 weeks since my last post, for which I truly apologise. I've been working on some puppetry stuff pretty intensely lately as I mentioned before. A few people actually emailed me because they were concerned something had happened to me, which was ironic because I was fine until last weekend when I collapsed in the wings during a show and had to be rushed to the hospital. The initial fear was that it was a heart attack, but it was most likely Pericarditis (inflammation around the heart).

I'm fine and going to be taking it easy for awhile. Can't promise I'll be updating daily for a little while, but I'll try to post a few times a week for the rest of the summer. While I go tackle the 200+ emails waiting for me in my inbox, why not check out puppetry-loving Canadian singer Feist on Sesame Street singing (what else?) 1-2-3-4.

Update: Not sure why graphics are missing from the page, but that's one of the things I'll get right on.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Birthday Canada!

Today is one of my favourite holidays...the day Canadians celebrate a bunch of British colonies being brought together as "one Dominion under the name of Canada" by going to BBQs, rock concerts, festivals, fairs and watching stuff blow up in the sky at night. Like all nations our history is imperfect, but I'm very proud to be part of a country that for past 141 years has striven to build a society based on the principles of freedom justice and tolerance for all.

It's somehow fitting that our national pride was once best summed up in a beer commercial:



Happy 141st Canada! You don't look a day over 30.

Tweet! Tweet! I'm on Twittter

So, okay, I admit - I do a lot of blogging. In addition to PuppetVision, I also post over at PuppetBuilding.com, occasionally write about digital puppetry and related technology at Machin-X and I've recently started updating my Bear Town Production Journal (which was PuppetVision's predecessor) again. I've been pondering away to make it easier to track all the stuff I put up online in one place and thought that Twitter - the free micro-blogging service that lets you send updates or "tweets" about what you're doing to your friends - might be a good way to go. So from now on I'll send out tweets whenever I am posting or doing interesting puppet-related stuff online.

You can check out my new Twitter page at http://www.twitter.com/puppetvision/. If you use an RSS reader you can also subscribe to my Twitter RSS feed.

Put Puppet Building on Your Web Site

Want to add a little puppet building to your web site? There's now a dynamic widget available that you can use to put the latest headlines and tutorials from PuppetBuilding.com on your web site or blog or Facebook page. Just click "get widget" above. It can be installed automatically on most major platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) with just a few clicks, or you can grab the raw Javascript or Flash code and embed it manually yourself.

Don't forget, there's also a handy PuppetVision Blog widget available too.

Doing A Little Maintenance

If you subscribe to the PuppetVision Blog's RSS Feed you may notice a lot of old posts popping up in it over the next little while. Nothing's wrong, it's happening because I am doing a little housekeeping. I'm going back and tagging/republishing a lot of old posts that were written prior to Blogger introducing the tag feature to categorized them and make them easier to find. There have been over 1,200 posts here since I started PuppetVision in November, 2004 (plus the blog's archive contains a lot of puppetry links and info from PuppetVision's predecessor The Bear Town Production Journal) so this is a process that's probably going to take me a week or two.

Best...PuppetBuilding.com...Review...Ever

I love this mention of PuppetBuilding.com in Major Tom's LiveJournal:

"...they're from PuppetBuilding.com, which looks to be BoingBoing for people who like putting their hand up an imaginary person's butt."

Classic.

Add PuppetVision To Your Web Site

I've created a neat little widget that displays the latest news and articles from PuppetVision:



*Note: If you are viewing this in the site's RSS feed, the widget will not be visible

If you'd like to add it to your website or blog it's easy, just click on the "Get Widget" button. If you use popular services like Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, etc. it can be added automatically. If you maintain your site or it's hosted by a service not included on the list just select "Get Code" to grab the Javascript or Flash code to embed the widget on your site.

Taking A Brief Break

For personal reasons I'm taking a brief break from the blog, but don't worry I will be back posting by the middle or end of next week.

Until then, check out this fun new video from PuppetGreetings.com featuring Sean Johnson and Kevin Carlson (link via Puppet 101).

Greetings Blogger Users!

I just discovered that on Wednesday PuppetVision was once again featured as one of Blogger's "Blogs of Note" (this last happened in the Fall of 2005 I think) and as result the traffic here has quadrupled in the past couple days and brought in a few thousand first time visitors.

If this is your first time visiting, PuppetVision is all about puppetry in film, video and digital media (think podcasting, web video, that sort of thing) and usually updated on a daily basis. Feel free to take a look at the PuppetVision Squidoo lens, which functions as sort of an online "cheat sheet" to some of the most popular content posted here over the years. If you'd like an excellent sample of the amazing variety of puppet stuff that's out there you can also watch 50 or so of YouTube's coolest puppet videos in the PuppetVision YouTube Group.

And if that's not enough puppet stuff for you I also write PuppetBuilding.com (all about building puppets) and Machin-X: Digital Puppetry, a blog about Machinima and new ways that pixels and puppets are being mashed up together.

Welcome to PuppetVision! Please visit often.

You Tubular!

I recently created a PuppetVision Group on YouTube where you can browse the best of all the YouTube puppet videos I've featured here on the blog. Enjoy!

The Best of PuppetVision @ Squidoo

If you're a new reader to the blog or just want to explore some of its most popular posts, take a look at the PuppetVision Squidoo Lens. In case you're not familiar with it, Squidoo is a web site that allows anyone to set up a single page on a topic that they know or care a lot about.

There's a lot of content on this site (850+ articles and counting) and at the moment it's not very well organized so this is one of the solutions I am trying out. Right now the lens includes links to some of the most popular posts I've made, including some of my favourite puppet films, puppetry theory and podcasting. I'll be occasionally updating it and adding new content from now on.

Links, submitting stuff & more about the updates

Several people have written in because they noticed that their link in the sidebar dropped off as part of the recent updates. I wanted to write a quick note to say that if that did happen to you it's not intentional or deliberate and no slight is intended. When I upgraded to Blogger Beta a few weeks ago I lost the old site template and all the sidebar content along with it so I've had to reconstruct it from memory and inadvertently missed a few sites. If you have a puppetry blog you'd like me to add please just send me an email and I'll be happy to add it as soon as I get a chance.

Puppetry blogs do come and go all the time so I do tend to drop links that haven't updated for a few months until they start updating again in order to conserve space in the sidebar. I used to hold off adding new blogs until they were a little established because it was pain to add and remove them constantly in HTML, but the new Blogger Beta widgets make it much, much easier to maintain a blog roll so I'll probably be a little more prompt from now on in that regard.

I also wanted to mention that if you're sending in cool puppet stuff - and I love all the great puppetry info and links readers send in - just remember that the blog is primarily about puppetry in film, video and digital media (Machinima, the web, etc.). As a puppeteer I might find a site about Iranian shadow puppetry fascinating, but I probably won't write about it here unless there's a film or video angle to it. Likewise my other sites Machin-X and PuppetBuilding.com have a specific focus on (respectively) digital puppetry and puppet building.

If you do send in a link and for whatever reason - usually a lack of time - I can't or don't post it's please understand that it's not personal. I don't take it as an insult when I send links to other blogs and they decline to post them and you shouldn't either.

And while I do try to keep the blog roll as comprehensive as possible, if you're looking for nearly complete list of puppet links on the web Takey is your man. Honestly, I don't know where he finds the time!

Updating PuppetVision

I spent the weekend learning Blogger's new template system. I'm not done tinkering with the site's template yet, but I have added a few new sections to the sidebar on the right:

Recently @ PuppetBuilding.com - The titles of the most recent posts at PuppetBuilding.com are now displayed in the sidebar.

Puppet Podcasts & Web Series - This should be a close to complete list of all of regularly-updating puppet podcasts and web series.

Puppetry Blogs - The blogroll should include most of the puppetry blogs out there, or at least all the ones that have updated in the past few months.

If you know of a podcast or blog I've missed or have one you'd like added please drop me a line at puppetvision {at} gmail dot com.

RSS oddness

Those of you who use the site's RSS feed may have noticed some old articles mistakenly appearing as new over the past few days. From time to time I have to update old articles to correct mistakes or add new information and a bug in Blogger's new beta software seems to be republishing any old, updated articles in the RSS feed as new ones. There's not much I can do about it at the moment, but hopefully Blogger will fix the problem soon.

Held hostage in Mexico, other things

Okay, I'm not technically being held hostage in Mexico, although it certainly feels that way. Everyday this week I've been stuck at my new home/studio everyday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. waiting for the cable company to arrive and install TV/internet/phone (they're going to show up between 8-4 "sometime" over the next ten days). Just to make it a little more dramatic there are bars on the windows and door so it feels little bit like being trapped in prison, cutoff from the outside world.

Hence, inconsistant blogging and if you've sent me email recently, likely the reason I've been unable to respond. Hang in there, and hopefully the cable company will show up someday soon and things can finally get back to normal.

While I'm savouring my few minutes of borrowed internet access for the day, check out this Wired Magazine article about the crazy things Terry McBride is up to and why Nettwork is the coolest record label on the planet. It's not exactly puppet-related, but you could take the business model he's trying and adapt for almost any part of the entertainment industry.

Also, Brian and Hogg and dotBoom will be featured on an upcoming episode of TechTV's Torrent. Oddly enough, they did the interview in Toronto's historic Fort York and there's a Flickr gallery available with pics from Brian's interview. No idea when the show will air, but Torrent runs on TechTV in Canada Saturdays at 8 p.m. EST (outside Canada you can find the show on Google Video).

Also, while giant puppets invading cities is sooo 2005 (see previous post) there are links to the latest giant puppet attacks here and here (links via Boing Boing).