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!

I-Fest report 2

OK - yes I realise that there has been a long wait for this... what can I say? I've been kinda busy.

Right where were we?

So at the beginning of July I posted a blog from I-Fest, I can't honestly say if this was me writing up my workshop notes or me blogging... but this is certainly me on the computer at I-Fest! During the week I was working as a Conference Assistant and a workshop leader. I have lead lots of workshops in the UK and quite a few around Europe as well but I had never taught in the USA before and for some reason I found myself to be very nervous. I think this was because I-Fest has played a huge part in my puppetry career and many of the "defining moments" I can think of in my puppetry experience all happened there.

I am pleased to report that the workshops went a lot better than I had expected them to go. By the end of the week the "Getting to grips with Arm Rods" class I lead went so well I would rank it alongside some of my best ever workshops... which was nice. This pic shows me mid flow in the workshop ...it was really fun. I had prepared this workshop just for I-Fest and actually turned out so well it will be a workshop that I will teach more often.

For some reason when I first said I went to I-Fest some people emailed me saying "but aren't you English?" ...Well yes I am, but my wife and I travelled out to Chicago specially for it. BUT if you are in the UK or Europe and you would like to be part of something similar to I-Fest with great puppetry teaching and lots of resources available I recommend you make an effort to get to the European Puppet Ministry Festivals in either Reading or Derby this year! I will be teaching at both and we are expecting to have a great time. Check One Way UK's website for details.

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

A trip down memory lane

Most of you will probably have come across me since I first got involved with Myspace a couple of years ago... or since last year since i started making videos on YouTube. Hellyer's Puppet Workshop was only thought of in 2005, but i have been involved with puppetry since about 1991.

Like a lot of children I was given a glove puppet when i was growing up. I remember it well... it was a little beaver called Chippy. I remember learning the basics of my puppetry from my days as a Sunday school performer. Schools, local authorities and Sunday schools provide great opportunities for people to learn and grow in their talent and ability. An organisation that has helped me over the years is One Way UK. You may have already noticed me mention them before as a company I have worked for... as well as the company that will be stocking some of my puppet designs in the future. (Well done you if you spotted the links). One Way UK provide training for puppeteers almost every weekend of the year, in the past I have both benefited form this training and been a trainer for them. That's the case next weekend, on the 26th and 27th October I will be working as a trainer at the EPMF. The weekend is aimed at puppeteers working in schools or Sunday schools, but would benefit anyone who wants to gain basic puppetry skills. If you are going I'll see you there... if you're not going, I'll let you know how it goes.

All this reminiscing has got me thinking back a few years and I found an old photo you may enjoy laughing at. Here's me in the USA 10 years ago, meeting my puppetry hero Dave Privett. It's hard to believe but I was once skinny with good legs! What can I say - I played a lot of football in those days and short shorts were in fashion. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) Dave is a great guy, If you check back to the first blog you will see that I met up with him last year for a puppet building tutorial day.

Below is another blast from the past. It is my old puppet team, the Unlimited Puppet Crew. This photo was taken just before a Christmas performance... we had just bought the lovely new shirts.

Thanks for visiting again folks... all the best

Dave

Introduction

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to read this. My name is David and i'm a puppet designer. I started Hellyer's Puppet Workshop a couple of years back when i first started experimenting with building puppets. I have been a puppeteer since I was about 10 years old, but prior to two years ago I had never made a puppet (except one or two half-backed efforts).

At the moment I work part-time as a puppet designer as i am just finding my feet in this area. Like I said before i have about 16 years worth of puppetry performance experience, but relatively little construction experience. I have been fortunate enough to have worked for One Way UK full time for a little over a year when I left college. That really stretched me as a performer, but it also gave me an insight into how puppets are made. I was able to feedback from a performance point of view how I would like to see the puppets they sold improve.

Well that was about 6 or 7 years ago now, I have taken a break from performing for a couple of years. Last year my brother Matt introduced me to YouTube. It was an instant hit with me. I got hooked on the likes of Renetto, Geriatric1927 and tlg847... so I started my own YouTube channel: crex81. For the last year I have been posting little performance vlogs on there and trying to intergrate with the YouTube community. That really have been the limit of my recent performance as my focus is becoming a designer.

Last October I attended One Way UK's annual European Puppet Festival and was fortunate enough to meet up with Dave and June Privett. I had met Dave in the states about 10 years ago at a puppet festival over there (I-Fest). Dave is a great puppeteer and puppet designer. Dave was kind enough to spend a couple of days with me passing on some construction tips and hints to me... two days i will never forget! My wife (Shelley) and I learnt so much during that time, it really was priceless.

Yesterday I met with Harry Barrett from One Way UK and started discussions about his company taking on some of my designs... i'll keep you posted!