To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 15:47:11 -0500
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Fire


Having been at the center of the situation at the San Francisco Festival, I
thought I'd chime in here. (Hobey, I'm insulted that you didn't remember.)
In my show "Slovenly Peter", I have a puppet that is made to be set on fire.
The stories are children's cautionary tales from mid-19th century Germany.
Theatrically, I thought it was important to have the actual catastrophes
that befall the children happen to the puppets (it's a show for adults).
One story is about a little girl who plays with matches and sets herself on
fire. The puppet is a simple rod puppet, with a body based on a juggler's
torch and dressed in flash paper.  The puppet, visibly manipulated, lights a
match which touches her flash paper dress which goes up and sets off the
torch which is doused in bbq lighter fluid. The flaming puppet runs around
(being chased by her kitten attempting to put her out) before being put into
a backstage bucket of water.  I have never burned down any theaters although
I occasionally lose the hair on my knuckles. Prior to the performance in San
Francisco, I was contacted by the theater, asking for the number of my
pyrotechnician's license. I told them that I would give it to them if I had
one, and that they were welcome to have a pyrotechnician there in the wings
with a fire extinguisher at the ready. They said that they would get back to
me. At the festival, Mike Oznowicz, the festival director, came up to me and
said that they the college really didn't want me to do the fire, but that we
could say that he had been looking for me to tell me this and couldn't find
me and that we never had this conversation.  The next day Mike came up to me
and said, "Remember that conversation we never had, well, we had it." He had
chased the fire regulations all the way up to the city fire chief and they
weren't budging.  On top of this they were going to be watching me and if I
used the fire they were going to shut down the whole festival. Apparently,
San Francisco is very touchy about fire since the whole city burned down.
Everyone at the festival had heard about the situation.  People I didn't
know were coming up to me to ask if I was going to do the fire.  At the
performance, I had the MC make an announcement, "As many of you may have
heard, due to local fire regulations, we have had to make slight changes to
the show.  We hope that you won't notice." In the show, between scenes, I
visibly slowly and purposely change the sets. When the story of the girl and
the matches came up, I removed the previous set, placed a TV monitor on the
stage, and played that section of the show on video. The video monitor got
applause. 

On a sidenote, changing to my Biopsychology Ph.D student hat,
neuroscientifically speaking, there is no difference between seeing
reflected light and direct light.  Light waves are light waves.  They are
transduced by the rods and cones in the retina into neural impulses in
exactly the same way.  They may be perceived differently in the brain. I
would not be surprised if there was a feature detector, a neuron tuned to
fire (sic) to a particular stimulus, for fire, being that fire is a danger
and we become fascinated by it (I have an entire theory of puppetry based on
feature detectors which I have discussed here before).  But there is no
difference in actually sensing the different types of light.

Preston Foerder

-----Original Message-----
From: puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org [mailto:puptcrit-bounces-AT-puptcrit.org]
On Behalf Of Hobey Ford
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 1:22 PM
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Fire

I have featured fire in my shows but always simulations of fire.  The
fire prop which they sell at Spencers gift shops works very nicely and
Rosco  makes a very realistic candle prop operated by battery.  I used
to make my own fire prop with fan and silver thin milar with a fire
colored gel on a small spot light.  Another nice trick for fire light
is to use a fan on a piece of gold milar with a spot focused on the
slightly waving milar.  The light is reflected back on the set or
shadow screen simulating the jumping illumination you get from a real
torch.  Disney's Pirate ride had a similar trick of placing a large
sheet of clear plastic inside a window at an angle.  Fan and orange
light were placed below and as the plastic moves it sends up the
illusion of flames.  The nice thing about it was that you see through
the plastic as well at the animatronic pirate standing inside the
window.  I think using real fire in a puppet show calls to much
attention to the fact that it is real fire and the possibility of
danger.  The acception perhaps is The Center for Puppetry Arts and
John Ludwigs piece called "Fire" which I didn't see but have heard
wonderful descriptions of.  The people who saw spoke of the very real
feeling of danger in the show, which was the point I suppose.  I would
love to have seen it.  They were extraordinarily careful with their
very special effect.  I think I recall that they were required to have
a fireman in the wings.  Does anyone know?  I also recall at the San
Franscisco Festival there were a couple of shows that had to pull
their fire from the show because of fire marshall regulations.  I also
recall people being upset about those rules, but I the Bankok tragedy
certainly points out the danger of fire and fireworks (which seems
very absurd being indooors)  You will remember the Rhode Island Night
club fire which was another case of indoor fireworks igniting the
ceiling.  As for the Burning Man gathering in Nevada, It is on my list
of things to try and see.  Didn't the huge burning man sculpture get
torched early this year by an over eager participant?

On Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Michael Moynihan <mmoynihan-AT-wi.rr.com>
wrote:
> When I was running a theatre company we had performers who would
> juggle flaming torches, eat/spit fire & spin fire, sometimes while on
> stilts. We made and used puppets, but never incorporated fire puppets.
>
> Of course most performances were outside.
>
> A friend and multi talented performer, musician, costumer &
> photographer, who I worked with & goes by the name of PHOENIX
> FIRESTARTER is at THE BURNING MAN festival every year. She is on the
> crew that sets it up before and returns the dessert to its original
> state after the celebration. She is a fire performer. I've seen
> pictures and videos and live cams of the annual event. I'd bet there
> are artist created fire breathing dragons and various fire puppets
> there.
>
> Just found this image
> http://tinyurl.com/752ulf
>
> and this vid
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXasuPMnysg
>
>
> m j moynihan
> milwaukee usa
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