Feist + Old Trout= Honey Honey February 18, 2009
Posted by leskanturek in 3-D work, Music, Puppets, Student Post, Theatre.Tags: Feist, Gigi Gray, Honey Honey, Judd Palmer, Music video, Old Trout Puppet Workshop
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by Gigi Gray
Canadian singer-songwriter Feist teamed up with Judd Palmer’s Alberta based Old Trout Puppet Workshop to make the video of her song Honey Honey (from the album The Reminder). Palmer’s dreamy puppet visuals are a perfect accompaniment to Feist’s soft and evocative music, and together the video comes across in a most magical way.
It begins with the singer lighting a match, unveiling this other world in which an old sea-man’s journey is put in peril by the presence of a sea monster. Meanwhile, the seafarers wife awaits at home fearing his interminable voyage. The puppets are so expressive and seem human like evoking real emotions with such exaggerated features. The images and visuals marry well together as they both move in this haunting harmony that really captivate the viewer. The video was directed by Anthony Seck.
(Above) The old fisherman
(Above) His wife in the lighthouse
(Above) The storm at sea
(Above) The monster fish
I think puppetry and music are perfectly suited for one another. Both can be very effective at telling tales. Music videos are often portrayed as stories even if the lyrics of the song aren’t narrative. Lyrics to songs may not always be narrative, most often are not, but many like the approach of creating a story within a song to really capture and keep the viewers attention. It makes the song slightly more tangible. Viewers can identify and relate to characters, and situations.
Feist comes from a visual arts background. Her father, is an abstract painter, and her mother studied ceramics. Some kind of appreciation for puppets seems a logical, it would be interesting to know how much she (Feist) was involved in the making of, or conceptualizing the video.
The video for Honey Honey can be viewed on youtube here. Also here is the link for the Old Trout Puppet Workshop
Shockheaded Peter January 13, 2009
Posted by leskanturek in 3-D work, Music, Puppets, Theatre, Visually Cool & Relevant.Tags: Cautionary Children's Story, performance, Shockheaded Peter
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(Above) Julian Bleach, Co-creator of Shockheaded Peter and the M.C.
(Above) Julian Bleach (in background) and Tamzin Griffin (on ground, also a co-creator of SHP). Photo by © Joan Marcus (from the site New Partisan www.newpartisan.com/home/a-glorious-gory-grotesque.html )
Shockheaded Peter is a musical adaptation based on the German children’s book, Der Struwwelpeter (Slovenly Peter) by Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann. The original book was comprised of 10 stories about children, who, because of their bad habits or misbehavior meet dire consequences in gruesomely moralistic fashion. Shockheaded Peter chronicles those stories of bad children in a wonderfully disturbing production that incorporates pantomime, puppetry and elements of Grand Guignol theatre, children get their thumbs cut off (for sucking them), are burned as their comeuppance for playing with matches and much worse. There really aren’t any survivors. All this to music by the Tiger Lillies. Shockheaded Peter on You Tube
(Above) Anthony Cairns (left co-creator) and Tamzin Griffin. Photo by © Joan Marcus (from the site New Partisan www.newpartisan.com/home/a-glorious-gory-grotesque.html )
(Above) Interior illustration from the 1917 edition of Struwwelpeter
Above) Struwwelpeter and Other Disturbing Tales for Human Beings Illustrated by Bob Staake Published by Fantagraphics Books 2006.
(Above) Struwwelpeter: Fearful Stories and Vile Pictures to Instruct Good Little Folks Illustrated by Sarita Vendetta. Published by Feral House Books 1999 Out of Print. Sarita Vendetta’s illustrations for Struwwelpeter.
(Above Left) Slovenly Betsy by Henry Hoffman ? Published 1911. (Right) Struwwelhitler by “Dr. Schrecklichkeit” Published 1941
