File puptcrit/puptcrit.0704, message 181


From: =?Windows-1252?Q?Mathieu_Ren=E9?= <creaturiste-AT-magma.ca>
To: <PaperMacheArt-AT-yahoogroups.com>, <PuppetCafe-AT-yahoogroups.com>,
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:20:24 -0400
Subject: [Puptcrit] Our Air Canada puppets are online!


Hi all.
remember back in February, when I was flooding the email world with news of the big puppet project I was on?
Well, I just learned it has been online for a while. Hidden inside the production company's website, and the customer's. Various kinds of puppets, all manipulated by two puppeteers, in front of a green screen.

Samples of the results can be seen here:
http://www.altproductions.ca/

(click on English (bottom of screen), then the COM section, then on the link for Air Canada.
All the puppets are there!
One classic hand puppet gag included.


And in the final context for which they were created:
www.thegreatmigration.ca
you have to participate on the promotional contest to see all the sections.
This site has both Enlgish and French versions of the puppet animations.
Requires  at least  Flash 8 to work.


****************************
The background story:

It was teamwork. On and off. It was crazy.
Fun and insane.

My collegue Daniel Auclair and I sculpted two of the heads together, back and forth.
We chose the types of puppets and most materials together.
It was suppsoed to be a quick contract, 4 days at most, making VERY simple puppets, the concept called for cheap losers, rejects, so the puppets were supposed to be craft-like, crude, primitive.
It lasted more than a week, and it became a monster of a project.
A cute, cuddly mosnter with fangs and many weapons.

After 4 days my collegue had to go to another previously booked project (ours was extended unexpectedly, customers, after seeing our prototypes, became hypnotised and raised their expectations tenfolds), and I had to finish it by myself. Again, we should have asked for more money, but were blinded by the fun.
Finish by yourself? Are you nuts? I said to myself. So I asked for some more money to pay for help (we were very rushed), and completed with some money out of my salary (darn). I can't bare to exploit anyone.

I managed to hire Nicole Villiger, a talented collegue who helped me with applying paper mache over the heads and the Main bird's body. The costumes (and the fat bird's belly) were made by Odile Gauvin.
I couldn't have done it without their precious and efficient help!
 
It still took me days to complete the work after the help was gone, and lost my mind only once.
I made one puppet alone (the white sock with feahers) in one afternoon.

Last day I had to remake some wings entirely.  Despite the fact that I had been awake for almost 36 hours, I managed to make the best wings I ever made in two hours (the main bird's).
I hope it shows well on the websites! They were filmed in High definition, but I can see, at least on the client's website's opening page, that the introduction animation was too compressed. I can't see the rest, slow internet connection here.

I was told we will get a DVD of all the filmed sequences. That will be great for showing to customers!
I probably will get it this week, when I meet the producer.

Comments more than welcome!


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