Help Keep The Place In Puppet Place

We need a little help from our friends.

In February 2015 our contract on our current premises, at Unit 18, on Bristol Harbourside comes to an end. However, we have the opportunity to secure a new agreement for Unit 18 with Bristol City Council. To do this we need your support.
We are in negotiations with Bristol City Council and now is the critical time to show them that Puppet Place is an important place for Bristol and puppetry. If we do secure our new agreement this will mean that we can:
• Make Bristol Festival of Puppetry 2015 bigger and better.
• Run puppetry workshops for all ages at Unit 18.
• Continue to provide workspace for our resident community of puppeteers and artists.
• Provide a full year round programme of events and activities for everyone.

If you like the sound of all this and would like to express your support for Puppet Place please leave a reply below, like or share this post or write a statement of support to rachel@puppetplace.org

Without a new agreement and a building to work from, we will struggle to continue the work that we already do and support the next generation of artists and puppeteers.

Thank you

Rachel McNally – Executive Producer

Stop Motion Weekends – What’s Up Doc?

15/16 February & 22/23 February 10am-4.30pm

Last night I caught up with Mary Murphy, workshop leader and Associate Lecturer at Bristol School of Animation about what she’s planning for these weekends. Stop-motion animation is a painstaking process with 3 seconds of film representing a day’s filming and that’s not counting all the prep and pre-production. Mary’s approach refines the process, making stop motion accessible and affordable.  She describes her approach as “kitchen sink”, all materials are readily available (usually on Amazon or at Maplins).  She has honed the fabrication process into a simple step by step approach that creates a sophisticated and robust puppet. Her mission is to de-mystify the whole process, giving participants the tools and confidence to take them through from concept to a working character.  This is what Mary had to say about the weekends.

“These weekends are for people who are starting out, who want to investigate animation, who have an idea for a character and want to find out how to make the character live and breathe. We will be focussing on the model-making rather than the filming, although that is part of the process. By the end everyone will have realised their character idea as a puppet and had a chance to explore its movement on camera.

Many people have a great idea of the visual look of a character, hair colour, skin tone, but that is the last stage in creating a stop-motion puppet. Unlike a design that is realised in a static 3D form, the character needs to  breathe and move in a realistic way on film, like in live puppetry. It’s important to understand the underlying structure, the armature, the joints etc that are needed to give you control over your creation so that you can bring it to life on camera. The first weekend will give people the chance to create their own puppet character using the “kitchen sink” process. The second weekend will introduce industry standard tools and processes. We will look at the type of joints and armatures used by companies such as Aardman and how they relate to the puppets and characters we have been creating over the two weekends.

I love running these workshops, they are the kind of workshops I wish had existed when I was learning stop-motion! With these puppets people can start telling stories quite quickly and I often find myself learning new things from participants. ”

Stop Motion Weekends

15/16 February

22/23 February

10am-4.30pm

at Puppet Place

£310 / £290 Members (for both weekends all materials provided).

Next Post Interview with Nic Prior: Bristol Festival of Puppetry Production Manager and Facilitator for A Blagger’s Guide to Technical Riders 19 February.

Puppet Extras and Puppet Surgeries

As many people are no doubt aware we are launching our Programme of Workshops and Seminars for 2014 (part 1, we’re working on part 2 at the moment).
As well as all the great performance based workshops we’ve got some really useful sessions that focus on the other elements of working in theatre, performing arts that we all have to do. These are our Puppet Extras.

6.30pm Wed 5 February: Negotiating The Tour with Rachel McNally Puppet Place Executive Producer
£15/£10 members

This is a great session for people finding themselves booking a tour for the first time, or wanting the sharpen up their negotiation skills. How much should you be charging for your work? How do you start negotiations with bookers? Should you always say “yes”, or is “no” sometimes the best answer?

This will be an informal session and will provide some practical tools for working out fees and a few handy tips for how to secure the all-important booking. Rachel (that’s me!) has worked extensively as a tour booker with a range of companies and has an extensive knowledge of the UK touring and rural touring circuit

 

6.30pm Wed 19 February A Blagger’s Guide to Technical Riders with Nic Prior Bristol Festival of Puppetry Production Manager

£15/£10 members

This is another great session for individual performers or small companies who find themselves doing everything! A well-prepared tech rider is a critical tool for companies and theatres. Get it right and your touring experience will be infinitely smoother and more enjoyable, allowing you to give your best performance. Nic will guide you through some of the “dos” and “don’ts” that regularly come up. Send us your tech riders in advance and we will make sure that advice is pertinent to everyone in the group. Nic has extensive experience of touring shows in the UK and abroad and has probably seen it all. He is also well used to the particular requirements of puppetry through his work with BFP.

6.30pm Effective Marketing with Megan Farrow, Farrows Creative Communications Director

£15/£10 members

How do you create the marketing campaign for your show, tour or exhibition?

This session will look at how you bring the different elements of the marketing mix together (including image and copy creation, press, PR, advertising and social media) to create a really effective campaign.

To book call us on 0117 929 3593 or email victoria@puppetplace.org or you can even book online This link will also take you to all the other lovely and marvellous workshops we are running. 

Bristol Festival of Puppetry is landing – what to see?

We’ve had a few requests from people asking for recommendations. I always say we are the worst people to ask. We programmed it, don’t ask us to choose, we love it all!

However, here are a few hints and pointers.

I really love animation but am new to live puppetry – recommendations?

Obviously the film nights, ( A Celebration of Puppet Animation with Peter Lord 4 Sep, Show Me The Animation 5 Sep) are not to be missed, also check out the Aardman exhibition in the Blue Room. Live show-wise, you will love Paper Cinema’s The Oydssey 3-4 Sep. Great live music and nearest to live animation you’ll ever see.

I’m feeling skint – what’s free?

We know that feeling all too well. Check out The Smoking Puppet Cabaret on the weekends, many of the artists performing in the theatres, will also appear at the Cabaret. Come to our Creatures of Bristol Carnival – the opening event. If you’ve got kids, come along to our Wild Storytelling. Meet artists at the Festival Breakfasts. Check out the Aardman Exhibition and Puppet Trail. Come along to our Open Doors Day at Puppet Place. And finally, join us for a day of international street puppetry at Pupp-Out.

I’m a practitioner or just plain curious about puppetry, are there any sessions I can attend?

Yes, with bells on! Look at our programme of workshops – come and join the puppetry discussion at the Open Space event, Puppetry What Next? (£5 and you get lunch too!) 

I know you’ve got a family programme, but I’ve got some teenagers interested, what’s good for them?

Again, Paper Cinema’s The Odyssey will have them rooted to the spot. Oskar’s performance All Aboard is a real treat for any age, but I have a strong suspicion that younger adults and teenagers will relish it. 

What’s different about the Festival in 2013?

We’ve got a South West Slam night – the first in our region. We’ve put a show in the car park at Tobacco Factory – Vindstille. The Carnival opens the Festival on Saturday 31 August and there is a very special ceremony.

Anything else we should know?

Look at the full programme here and book. It’s starting to sell out. Ticketline is 0117 902 0344.

That’s your lot for now. This blog is going to handed over to our press gang shortly, so keep your eyes, electronic devices etc peeled for the next installment!

Rachel McNally – Co-Producer

Bristol Festival of Puppetry Blog – An Introduction

We decided to start this blog as a way of sharing our thoughts and musings with you as we go into the final few weeks of preparation for the Festival. We’ll introduce you to the companies and the Festival team along the way. I strongly suspect there will be some late night ramblings and nonsense as well. Once the Festival starts we will be posting features, reviews, photos. In the meantime if you want to check out what’s on, http://www.puppetplace.org/festival is your best bet.