Google+ is kicking Facebook's Ass?!?

So I saw an article online today explaining why Google+ was "Kicking Facebook's Ass"

I couldn't help but comment on the article, which I felt overstated the case for Google+ somewhat. If you're into this sort of stuff, here was my reply:

Brilliant propaganda! I admire your optimism.

Google+ is the best example of a 'false positive' that you could hope to find! As you rightly point out in your article people are flocking to Google+ because they don't have a choice. Google is making you sign up for Google+ in order to get the most out of its other services (YouTube, Documents, Analytics etc). That doesn't create a community though!

Simply throwing 20 people in a room doesn't make a party... and simply adding (what will become if it isn't already) millions of people onto a social networking site - doesn't make it a social networking site.

The key element is the 'social'. Doubtless Google has more potential reach than Facebook or any other site, but it has a shocking track record when creating community is concerned. The original batch of YouTubers who called themselves "the YouTube community" have mostly left YouTube now as it was clear to see that Google were far more interested in making ad revenue off corporate accounts rather than foster their own community... this has opened the door for LiveVideo, DailyMotion, Vimeo, Vloggerheads and many more to provide the community element that these people wanted. Google's other ill-fated ventures into 'community' would be Google Wave and Google Buzz - both retired (despite both have frenzied launches with people clambering to get their hands on invites).

A wise man once said "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" I guess I'd like to say that Google has proven through its own chequered past that you can lead a vast quantity of people to a website, but you can't make them interact.

Take care - Dave

Dwayne the REINDEER Puppet!

Dwayne is a brand new professional half-body puppet hand made in England by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop. He measures approximately 21inches (53.5cm) tall from the top of his antlers to his waist. He also has an excellent arm span of approximately 40inches (102cm) allowing real scope for expressive arm gestures. Dwayne is a 'live hand' (or Human Arm) puppet - so you can put your hands inside his to enable him to pick up objects and use props during your show without the need for elaborate sets ups. He's a great fun character who will really engage audiences of any age... his character is of a juvenile, oddball reindeer!

Like all the puppets made in Hellyer's Puppet Workshop Dwayne has been made out of great quality materials. Dwayne's body is made out of durable and lightweight mini-cell foam and his head is made out of durable and flexible reticulated foam. His body is covered completely in two colours of 1" pile natural coloured deluxe faux fur fabric. He is lined in dark brown polar fleece for added comfort and his neck is separated from his shoulders to allow greater flexibility of movement.   

Check out more photos of him on eBay!

European Puppet Ministry Festival 2011

I can't quite believe I went to my first puppet festival 15 years ago - and have been to one every year of my life ever since!

This year One Way UK's EPMF was held in Derby and Reading and I was fortunate enough to be invited to teach at both festivals. I was running workshops on a variety of subjects including puppetry for YouTube and a range of basic and advanced puppetry techniques.

I love visiting or working at puppet festivals as there is always so much creativity around the place which always help to accelerate my own creative process for my own projects. These festival was no different, but they were tiring too! It's tough teaching classes all day, I think across the two events 500 puppeteers attended, which is cool. After the second festival a bunch of us went out for a post-festival feast and hilarity ensued!

Sesame Street Live: Review

So yesterday I took my boy to see Sesame Street Live: "Elmo Makes Music"and I thought I'd write a quick blog about it.

Firstly I should mention my son is 21mnths old... so he doesn't have the longest attention span in the word, but he loves Elmo and Sesame Street. My wife and I thought we'd take a bit of a gamble and see if he would sit the a show. My son watches clips of Sesame Street on YouTube all the time (he has his own 'favourites' playlist of them!) so whilst Sesame Street isn't on normal TV in the UK he knows the characters (We occasionally get to see the Northern Irish 'Sesame Tree" which is good... but it's not the same).

As soon as we walked into The Capitol Theatre in Horsham I knew we were in for a good show, the stage set (even with curtains closed) was impressive and clean. The show was only on for one day at The Capitol... but it looked like a full house, there were certainly no spare seats anywhere near us. Just seeing the Sesame Street Live logo above the stage at the start made my son feel the need to randomly shout "Elmo"and point, which was encouraging, at least he knew why we were there!

Once the characters came out on stage I was completely relieved... the characters were brilliantly made and very clean - in fact I am tempted to say that these suits were brand new they were so clean. Back in 2008 I was invited to help out with a short stint on Rainbow Live (initially as Zippy, then George). Whilst it was great fun to work on, and obviously I am thankful for the experience I have to say that the characters and costumes were all showing their age... at points embarrassingly so. Anyway the Sesame Street costumes were fantastic!

There were a couple of little slip ups, but otherwise the show went very well, certainly my son thought it was fantastic. During a group dance in the opening half Zoe got a little over-excited and slipped over right at the front of the stage, but recovered well. Big Bird also lost a piece of foam halfway through the first half. The foam fell out of the costume and Bird Bird walked off, not to return until the second half. Having not seen the show before I don't know if this is related or merely coincidence.

I'm not sure how many costume changes happened during the show, but Cookie Monster played a bigger role in the first half than the second... and having selected his cookie-jar shaker to be included in the band... it was a shame he didn't appear to play it! The only other slightly negative comment would be that Zoe and Abby Cadabby's voices were a little hard to understand because of the speed, pitch and accent.

However this is all nit-picking. The show was great and it held my son's attention all the way through. The crowd were getting involved with all the songs, clapping and singing along. I would love to see the show again, and will certainly keep my eye out for more Sesame Street Live's in the future!

Take Care - Dave

Turtle Puppet

Recently I made a Turtle puppet for Surrey County Council. It was for an annual Childminders' Network meeting they host. They didn't request a turtle specifically - they told me to make whatever I wanted to. It was great to get the opportunity to make something totally new and without any limits on what I could do.
Why did you choose a turtle if you were allowed to make anything Dave? 
My son is 18months old and last week he started saying 'tuh-tull' whilst sitting on his "finding Nemo"baby-changing mat. Simple really.
So here are a couple of photos of the Turtle under construction and a video of the completed character. I hope you like him.

 This is is the turtle with the basic head built and the shell still under construction

Here I'm finishing off the lining of the shell - you can see the fins already stitched in place

Wonnacott Wolf's Antique Valuation Challenge - Episode 1

It's a bit of fun - I hope you like it :)

Pierre's new show

It's 2011 and Pierre the great is back on the Tube of You... enjoy :)

take care - Dave

'Terry' the Urban Fox - full body puppet

If you'd love a fun fox puppet, then you're going to want to meet: 

Terry the Urban Fox

Terry is a brand new professional full-body puppet hand made in England by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop. He measures approximately 34inches (86.5cm) tall from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He also has an excellent arm span of approximately 40inches (102cm) allowing real scope for expressive arm gestures (two arm rods with elastic bands are included!). He has a bushy tail which follows him everywhere he goes... it has a wire inside it to help give it shape and also to allow you to pose it just the way you want it. He's a great fun character who will really engage audiences of any age... he's a friendly urban fox!

Terry is an unusual character and as such he has an unusual mouth action. He is designed so that his upper jaw does all the moving when he talks rather than the much smaller lower jaw. This is the opposite to many other hand puppets you will see but it enables him to 'sniff out' what's going on in town with a much more believable action. 

Like all the puppets made in Hellyer's Puppet Workshop Terry has been made out of great quality materials. Terry's body is made out of durable and lightweight mini-cell foam and his head is made out of durable and flexible reticulated foam. His body is covered completely in 1" pile chestnut brown faux fur fabric with his head and tail being covered in 1" pile chestnut brown deluxe faux fur. Details on his ears and hands are in 1" white fun fur, Terry also has a keychain on the waistband of his trousers and a dog-tag round his neck. He is lined in polar fleece for added comfort. 

Note: This professional quality puppet has been hand made by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop for adults, it is not a toy. Hellyer's Puppets are used in many countries in shows and films to enthral and entertain. If you'd like to find out more about our puppets and how they're made search online for: "Hellyers Puppet Workshop"

We hope you love this character as much as we do - Happy Bidding :)

Happy New Year from Hellyer's Puppet Workshop

So we've successfully reached the end of 2010... a year packed full of great memories!

This year in the summer I was fortunate enough to visit the United States again to teach puppetry at I-Fest (you can buy DVDs of the workshops I taught from OneWayStreet.com). Despite the festival being fantastic as usual (and being looked after so well by the One Way Street team - Thanks to Todd and Susan!) the highlight of the trip this year had to be the visit to see the Blue Man Group in Chicago! Dave and June Privett from Playsoup took us along and we had a fantastic time!

Also in the summer I was able to visit my friend Phil Fletcher again who is a fantastic puppeteer and puppet builder. We've known each other since the good old days when MySpace ruled the earth and Facebook hadn't even been invented :) Phil is now working at the BBC in London and he (and Warrick - also a puppeteer at the BBC) were kind enough to show us round TV Centre and their studio.

Later on in the year I also taught at the One Way UK annual puppet festival in Reading, I have been teaching at that particular festival for the last 13 or so years so it was great to be asked back again (must be doing something right). 

And all this activity has been squeezed in between puppet builds and some fairly major planning sessions for the future of Hellyer's Puppet Workshop (the fruits of which will be seen in 2011).  I'll leave you with two videos... the first is Pierre's big end of year 2010 quiz:

The second is a wrap up from me and a possible New Year resolution.

All the best for 2011!
Take care - Dave

Sid the Cyclops

If you love fun monster puppets, then you're going to want to meet: 

Sid The Cyclops!

Sid is a brand new professional half-body puppet hand made in England by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop. He measures approximately 21inches (53.5cm) tall from the top of his yellow mohican to his waist. He also has an excellent arm span of approximately 40inches (102cm) allowing real scope for expressive arm gestures (two arm rods with elastic bands are included!). He has a cute little pot belly and just the one eye (but hey... he just wouldn't look the same with two!). He's a great fun character who will really engage audiences of any age... he's a friendly monster!

Like all the puppets made in Hellyer's Puppet Workshop Sid has been made out of great quality materials. Sid's body is made out of durable and lightweight mini-cell foam and his head is made out of durable and flexible reticulated foam. His body is covered completely in 1" pile electric blue deluxe faux fur fabric with details in 3" pile yellow fun fur. He is lined in polar fleece for added comfort and his nose and eye-lid are covered in hand-dyed antron fleece. The fleece covered hump in Sid's mouth will help you grip it while manipulating him, and his neck is separated from his shoulders to allow greater flexibility of movement.   

Note: This professional quality puppet has been hand made by Hellyer's Puppet Workshop for adults, it is not a toy. Hellyer's Puppets are used in many countries in shows and films to enthral and entertain. If you'd like to find out more about our puppets and how they're made search online for: "Hellyers Puppet Workshop"

We hope you love this character as much as we do

Happy Bidding :)

Take care - Dave