Puppet building bonanza!

Over the last few weeks since returning from holiday i have gradually been getting more and more busy. This past Easter weekend saw the activity hit an all time high. I'm working on a project at the moment that requires lots of characters all of a similar size and shape, as a result i am patterning universal body parts wherever possible. You can see in this photo a pile of arms ready to be glued into shape. I don't normally "mass produce" anything, I guess I prefer the personal touch, but it has been a fun learning curve.

It's been an extraordinary project in many ways. Today i have dyed more fabric than ever before... two hours were spent slaving over a boiling dye pot! It's not easy work let me tell you, but it's very satisfying knowing that you have created something from scratch, even down to the hand-dying the fabric. I am at the final stage of construction before the first character is finally ready to be covered, work on that will start in a couple of hours once the fabric has dried out. Here is the blank head of the character "Naymlap". I hope to have him completed tomorrow, I will be posting pictures once he is finished.

I hope you've have a good rest over the Easter holiday period, take care - Dave

Is it just me?

Is it just me or is this year flying past? I keep on meaning to write updates on here and whenever i get the chance i check the date of my last post and i am shocked it was so long ago.

I mentioned before that I have been in talks with the Museum in Peru about building some characters for them... that's all still in progress. I am building prototypes for approval at the moment. It's nice to be involved in a project which is challenging because it is completely different from the norm. Normally people want cartoon style characters with lots of stand out features etc, but this job is different. The museum quite rightly has a very clear goal of what the want to see made, and it's a great challenge to work towards this. Apart from anything else it's a great discipline!

This summer I will be attending I-Fest for the first time in 6 or 7 years! It's really exciting and I hope to learn a lot. I am excited to be teaching my first ever workshops out there this year, which is a great honour for me because I am someone who has learnt so much at I-Fest workshops down the years. I have been fortunate enough to be on tow puppetry Dream Teams at I-Fest in the past so I have some very fond memories of that particular puppet festival and I am really looking forward to meeting some old friends while I'm out there. I am planning to travel with Harry Barrett from One Way UK, so it looks like it's shaping up to be an old school reunion!

Have a great Easter - Dave

The Peruvian Connection

So I must apologise for being slack in posting recently... I have been really busy and honestly haven't had a chance. I am hoping for things to calm down a bit in the next week or so.

Before I went away on my holiday I received an email out of the blue from a gentleman in Peru. This in itself is not completely out of the ordinary as i have been fortunate enough to receive emails from people all round the world saying how much they enjoy Pierre's videos etc. However this email was different, whilst he had seen Pierre's videos that wasn't the point of the correspondence. He is a representative from the National Sican Museum of Peru, and he has commissioned me to build the puppets for the Education Centre at their museum. This project is not going to be a small one, and will probably be the subject of many more blogs in the future. It is a real honour to be allowed to be a part of this project. I will be creating some really unique characters for the museum over the next few weeks and months, and i will show them to you as and when they are complete. The concept sketches that have come through look great so i am really excited about turning them into reality.

I'll keep you posted.
All the best - Dave

The Happy Hamster

I've just got back off my holiday and I will be updating you with all the latest happenings very soon - but first I have to share this video with you. This afternoon we popped round to my parents to say "hi" to Mum (what with it being mother's day and all) and my Dad introduced us to his new Hamster!

All the best - Dave

YouTube Partner program explained...

When did you first use YouTube?

• 2005 possibly if you were really quick off the mark.
• 2006 is quite likely... Myspace was expanding rapidly at that time and the video hosting it offered was rubbish. As a direct result YouTube profitted hugely by enabling people to use the "embed code" to place their videos (hosted by YouTube) on their Myspace pages.
• 2007 saw YouTube firmly establish itself as the market leader in online video, now with many people starting to call online videos "YouTube" videos regardless of which site actually hosted them.

Well for the old school fans amongst us you will remember the days of the YouTube "Director account". This was a scheme run in 2006 to try and reward the well behaved content producers by giving them some extra rights and customisations on their channel. Typically this included the ability to upload videos longer than 10 mins or 100MB. It also allowed them to display a logo alongside their videos. There was no money involved until the very end of 2006 when several YouTube directors were approached by YouTube to create Christmas and New Year videos. This was the very beginnings of the YouTube Partner Program. Mid 2007 being a Director lost all kudos because the program was opened up to everyone and is now simply achannel type in a drop down menu that you can select... whereas before you had been made to apply and be approved. The hangover from the good old days can be found HERE, the old "/director" page on the YouTube site which is now a graveyard channel which serves only as a reminder of what once was :)

I have recently been approved as a YouTube partner on both my YouTube channels. Almost exactly a year after i was approved as a YouTube director. 1 year on the benefits of these programs are pretty much the same. I will not make any money out of the partner program (it's not actually possible to) the point of the partner program is to give people the ability to customise their channel pages and feel more involved in the site. I have to say that the added features definately improve the look of the average channel page and I think it may well roll out to all channels in a years time (much like the old director channels are now open to all).

How do I know i won't ever make any money out of the partner program? Simple really, I don't receive anywhere near enough views. Top YouTubers like Nalts, LisaNova and Renetto can reasonably expect to get 10,000 - 20,000 views per video regardless of what it is, with some getting far more! Views is the key thing here. BusinessWeek reported this week that click-throughs on social networking sites are significantly lower than that recieved on other sites (4/10,000 rather than 20/10,000). This is significant because the partnership that YouTube offers is one that shares revenue with you from funds raised by GoogleAdwords. A friend of mine recently started a website and has advertised using GoogleAdwords as they are extremely effective. He pays something in the region of 15p per click-through. This means that even if i were to get Renetto's views i would only ever recieve at most 60p per video (assuming YouTube passed on the whole 15p to me - which we both know they wouldn't). Well we all like getting pocket money don't we... any revenue sharing under the current partner program on offer would definately be pocket money. Except YouTube clearly state in their T&Cs that they will not pay out any money due to partners until it reaches $100.00 (£50.00)... that's a whole lot of 60p videos!

So how are people like Renetto and Zipster08 able to talk about geting regular Money off YouTube? The original partner program is a pay-per-view deal. For every person that views their videos for more than 30 seconds they get paid. YouTube claim these partners are able to take home around $1000.00 per month.

So where does this leave you and me? Feeling exactly like we did with the Director channels a year ago.

Happy Valentine's Day folks :)

Ever since the Muppets stormed onto the scene puppetry has been a romantic affair... Miss Piggy constantly chasing the affections of Kermit, and Gonzo with his chickens. It certainly is a far cry from the wife beating antics of Punch and Judy.

So today for all the "lovers and dreamers" out there... here is the crex81 channel's valentines day offering:

Loch Ness Monster!

For many years people have argued over the existance of the Loch Ness Monster... nobody honestly knows if it is real or not, However you can be sure that if it was real it would probably look nothing like this:I was sitting around in my workshop last week playing with ideas in my head and sketching them out everynow and again... for some bizarre reason i couldn't shake the thought that i needed to build a Loch Ness Monster puppet :)

Well one week later here is Nessie! I hope to make some videos with him for the crex81 channel but that all depends on the time i have over the next week or so. Nessie is my playful interpretation of the Loch Ness Monster, in a classic tourist syle. I visited Loch Ness about 15 years ago now, but i still remember the tacky tourist ornaments of Nessiethat you could buy. This is my attempt to bring one of those ornaments to life.

All the best - Dave

Puppets on sale

This past week has been a busy one for me so unfortunately i haven't been able to post much. A week ago today i was busy filling out forms for my YouTube partners application. I managed to make it through the three rounds of the application process successfully, i am now approved as a Partner on both my crex81 and hellyersonline channels.

Billy the emo Kid sold on ebay! He went to one of my youtube friends mbpearce76... if Mike does a video recieving the puppet i will link it to this page. I was planning to put the purple monster on ebay this week as well, but unfortunately for anyone who was eyeing him up (i had had a couple of enquiries when i posted his pictures) I have already sold him! I met with Harry Barrett from One Way UK this week and he bought him as soon as he saw him! I will work on some more characters for ebay soon.

In other news... I attended the Super Bash on Sunday night at Battersea Evolution. It was NFL UK's Superbowl party. Having watched the Giants beat the Dolphins at Wembley late last year i was delighted to see them go on to win the Superbowl. This links nicely to the hot news topic for this week. The Premier League have announced this week they wish to play regular season games outside the UK just like the NFL trialed last year at Wembley. The suggestion has recieved a mixed reaction. I think it is sadly just a tool to get the rich clubs even richer, the clubs with a big enough global appeal will be the Liverpool, Man Utds and Chealseas of this world - not the Derbys and Readings.

Progress in the Workshop

I am recovering from Superbowl Sunday... i went up to Battersea Park to the Super Bash hosted by NFL-UK. It was a great night with a turnout of 4,000 people. Following the Giants win at Wembley last year over the Miami Dolphins the majority of the crowd (myself included) were rooting for the Giants. What a fantastic game... two really important plays from Eli Manning turned the game around. A famous victory for the underdog!

Anyway back to puppetry - Billy the emo Kid is on Ebay and going to be sold on Wednesday. Check out the video below to see him. Newbie the purple monster will be going onto Ebay once the sale of Billy has finished. My partnership application with YouTube got approved on saturday. Having read all the small print i doubt i will make any money off it, but at least i have now got control over the banners on my page! I'll be posting more progress soon.

Take care - Dave

Upstaged - take a bow

Unfortunately i am having to bow out of Upstaged before it has even started. This is due to a combination of prior work commitments and late notice on their part. If i have really pushed i could have made it work, but to be honest it wasn't worth the effort. What makes this early exit even more annoying is the BBC just activated their rating system today and i was ranked 19th overall out of 150+ contestants.

On a better note YouTube have released their partner program in the UK and i have cleared the first two stages of approval for that... so who knows i may yet become a YouTube partner!

Take care - Dave