Beginning Puppetry

I’ve had this idea for a puppet show for quite a long time. Even in the very early stages, when it was just an idea, I knew that it was going to be terrible. But I wanted to make it just for me. Now that most of my major life crises are averted and things are back to somewhat normal, I’m in a position where I can spend some spare time working on this idea. To that end, I’ve started putting together a rough outline of how I want to proceed.

• Learn the basics of puppetry by watching some Youtube videos.
  • I began doing this today.
• Acquire a puppet to practice.
  • I’ve decided I want to use custom hand-and-arm-pole puppets, but they’ll be expensive, and they’ll take time for the artists to make them. So starting out I’ll use Folkmanis puppets, which I have several of, for practice and testing.
• Get video editing software and learn how to use it.
  • I haven’t begun researching yet. I have some video editing software, but it’s non-standard, it’s quite inefficient in terms of workflow, and it’s old. I’ve only used it a few times over the years, and every time I get it out to use it, it’s become out of date and the authors want me to pay a lot of money for a new version. It might make more sense to use a subscription service like those available from Adobe, if I can fit it into my budget.
• Decide if the cameras I have already are sufficient, or if I need new ones.
  • I have several ideas about how to do this.
    • I have multiple smartphones that I could put on tripods for capturing video from different angles, but adding microphones to them and transfer of the video would be complicated and kludgey.
    • For a while I had decided I wanted to use VHS camcorders, and I had even acquired one with a working battery, but before I got to set it up and test with it, I was homeless for a while and I had to toss it out to make space in my car for sleeping and storage.
    • I have a GoPro, but only one, and it’s only really good for action shots. And it’s an old one, so it’s unreliable and transferring video off of it takes literal hours. It’s no good for close shots or really anything other than action shots.
• Find a place to work.
  • I’ve asked around and unlike in other places, there aren’t any free public library rooms or practice spaces in the SF Bay Area. Every indoor space comes at a very high price. So I may have to practice at home for now.
• Build a puppet stage.
  • I found a useful video on Youtube that shows how to make a basic puppet stage out of a wardrobe box from U-haul. This will be great starting out because it can be folded flat for storage, and if it gets damaged I can just make another one.
• Make some scenery for the stage.
  • I can do this using just roll paper, some paint and markers. It doesn’t need to look professional, it just needs to get the idea of the environment across.
• Do some screen tests.
• Write an outline of the story and sketch some early scenes.
• Make some background music.
  • I’ve decided to make my own terrible background music by jamming on my nifty keyboard.
• Begin filming the scenes.

So that’s the outline of my plan. It will need a lot of fleshing out, and each step will take a lot of time, with cross-project work across each area.