Hi there!

Earlier this year I was asked to put together a shadow puppet show which could be part of a larger presentation. This added an interesting twist as it meant that we couldn't leave our props and stage set up... instead we had to walk everything on in full view of the audience. We received great feedback from the performance, and quite a few people were asking how it was done.... fortunately I had recorded one of the rehearsals so I have able to put together a split screen comparison video. There were two days of rehearsals between the two performances, but it gives you the idea.

Here you can see the whole live performance:


Below you can see the split screen version with "director's commentary" :)


Thanks for stopping by - I hope you found it useful.

Take care - Dave

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

How to make money with puppets... a new book

As a rule I'm not a fan of posting adverts on my blog... but Paul Louis sent me a link to his new book recently and I thought it would be helpful to a lot of the people that read my blog (judging from the questions I get emailed). I'm guessing most of you will have seen his videos from eHow on YouTube so you'll probably know who he is, but for those of you who don't know him check out his bio below: 
Paul Louis has been a professional puppeteer, filmmaker, award winning actor, writer & composer since 1981. He is a now popular Internet Video Puppetry Guru, featured on eHow.com, TVlesson.com, 5Min.com and all over YOUTUBE. As a power seller on eBay, Paul has built more than 4,000 custom puppets for theaters, ministries and film/video production. He is a "direct call" listed puppeteer with The Jim Henson Company, and the creator of the former nationally syndicated children's puppet TV series, "Jelly Bean Jungle" (Which President Clinton called, "High quality children's programming"). Louis has performed as a puppeteer for more than 30 TV & Film productions, including the hit cult film, "Team America: World Police." He now teaches puppet building and performance workshops all over the world, and collaborates & advises producers on their own puppet related projects for TV, film and theatre.
If you'd like to check out the book for yourself then please follow the link below:
Click here to view more details


take care - Dave

crex81: a simple explanation

OK so many of the regular readers of my blog (well done to both of you!) will know I run a couple of YouTube channels.

hellyersonline is my own vlogging channel… it is anything and everything that I see and do in everyday life. Some of this will be puppet building videos and some of it will be silly comedy ideas and other bits will be holiday and family days etc. This channel aims to please 1 person only – me . I know the quality is mixed and I really don’t mind, I do it for my own amusement… and it amuses me that other people watch.

crex81 is a collection of puppetry videos that I have uploaded. There are no people (real humans) featured on the channel as regulars. I have had human guests and puppet characters interacting with humans… but the star has always remained the puppet. I have never intentionally shown my dace on this channel (it has sneaked into shot once or twice… but that’s another story). One question I do get asked from time to time is - what is crex81 – what does it mean? As you will have picked up from my Spraid blog I wrote a short while ago, I am really into spraycan art. I used to travel a lot and take photos of graffiti all the time. When I first started designing my own tags etc I came up with a name: “Creative Explosion”. Very simply crex was already taken as a username… and I couldn't be bothered to write out CreativeExplosion as a username all the time so I shortened it to crex81.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the latest video offering – Pierre playing Tennis on Wii Sports… it was filmed live and I was genuinely playing it with him. I hope some of the fun of the game translates to the screen it was a real laugh.

Take care - Dave

Horse Puppet for SALE!

It seems that the Horse Puppet I designed a couple of years back is still quite popular... I've put one up on Ebay this week, so if you're interested please do check it out.

If you can't bid on this auction but your interested in having a horse puppet like this made for you please email me on: info@hellyerspuppetworkshop.com

Take care- Dave

EPMF - Festival report

So I promised a EPMF report a short while ago. Today is the day it has arrived! I have been helping to lead workshops at the EPMF for just over 10 years now, so it's become a old favourite of mine over the years. Below you can see me (in black with the red shirted puppet) leading a workshop at the Reading leg of the festival.

One of the great things about going to puppet festivals is meeting old friends and fellow puppeteers. Debra Fader (seen here with Vernon the Wolf) is a very talented puppeteer and puppet builder. Debra is based in Maine (USA) so it's more of an effort for her to attend then most... but Debra has become a favourite workshop leader and her classes are always packed.

Below is a picture for old times sake... This is me pictured with Harry Barret owner of One Way UK. When I first left college I worked full time with Harry for just over a year.

Something new for the EPMF 08 was the Puppet Academy Team. This was a new concept for 08, the team met applied online (one the One Way UK site) and met for 1 week in August. Then after that one week prep time they had to perform at both the EPMF festivals. Considering they only had one weeks preparation time they did really well. If this sounds like the sort of project you would like to be part of you can apply to be in the Puppet Academy 09 team online now.

Take care - Dave

I-Fest here we come!

I have mentioned before that I will be going to I-Fest this year with my wife Shelley. It's going to be a great time and we are really looking forward to it. I have just got home from visiting the local post office to pick up some US dollars in anticipation of picking up a bargain in the exhibits hall. As I was picking up the money I had a bit of a think back to all the visits to I-Fest I had made before when I was younger. I went 5 times between the ages of 16 and 21... it was great, it was a really good place to watch and learn from very experienced puppeteers who were happy to help and encourage you on. I will try and take lots of photos over the next week so I can share some of the moments with you all... and i'm sure there will be time for a quick video at some point.

If you're going to I-Fest, i'll see you there!
All the best - Dave

ps Happy Independence Day to all across the pond!

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

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

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

Take home a little piece of the workshop

Some of you will remember that i started this puppet a while ago but never finished it. Well good news is here! I found myself with some unexpected free time yesterday and i finished him off. And even better i am pleased to announce that he is on ebay as of NOW!

If you are a puppeteer or you are a collector and would like to own a "one-of-a-kind" 20inch boy puppet then bid away :)

It's the first puppet i've ever sold on ebay... so i hope somebody sees it who likes it. If it goes well i will be putting more characters up there for sale.

All the best folks - Dave

Newbie Tuesday!

Last night i was very excited to put the finishing touches on my first ever character with a moving eyebrow mechanism. I learnt a lot about what to do and what to avoid... in all the character had 3 sets of eyebrows made for him until i was finally happy with the result. This is a landmark character in a couple of ways really, firstly due to the eyebrows but also because of the fur. I bought this purple fur fabric in a tiny fabric store in Brighton last summer, it's about 4 inch long pile. This is the longest fur i have ever worked with... it was great fun but very messy (despite my best efforts to be tidy!).

"Newbie" as he is known at the moment (it's a phase they all go through) is a single handed human arm puppet - made specifically for a solo performer. This means there is no second hand hanging around waiting for a second puppeteer. Newbie is made for a right handed puppeteer.

Take care folks - Dave

Upstaged update

Things are moving on slowly with the BBC3 Upstaged project. There are only 90 contestants so far (correct at time of writing) yet it takes forever to get your material approved on their web site. Needless to say this has been frustrating for many of the performers who are waiting for their content to clear. Those who were fortunate enough to get their videos cleared first are receiving good viewing figures on the site... whereas those whose videos took longer to clear are receiving very few views. It strikes me that the BBC didn't do too much research of other video hosting sites as because the video content is actually quite hard to navigate. There are three options for filtering the videos: newest, top rated and most viewed. That will only serve to propel the people with lots of views even higher up the chart... but hey, that's life i suppose. I guess as a regular YouTuber i take for granted the many search options: most viewed, most discussed, most rated not to mention the fact that you can filter by sort (comedy, entertainment, travel, blogs, education etc etc). The thing that made me laugh most was i posted my pitch video on YouTube the same night as on Upstaged, it took 14 hours to clear on Upstaged and only 14 minutes on Youtube - lol

Brand new characters will be coming to you from the workshop very soon... i am working on a very exciting project at the moment. It's my very first character with animated eyebrows. I will post pics in the next couple of days.

all the best folks - Dave

UPSTAGED pitch video

Well the UPSTAGED website is live and lots of people have started uploading their pitch videos etc. Well i am no different, please take a minute to check out my pitch below.



I am not holding out much hope of getting through to the next round because nothing in me wants to go round begging for people to vote for me... it just seems tradgic. If you want to check out BBC3 and the UPSTAGED project please do, but if you don't i won't be the least bit offended :)

take care - Dave

Diddy is Finished!

The sewing machine was fixed yesterday and in no time at all Diddy was completed. I'm really pleased it all worked out so well despite the unplanned interruption in the middle which could have really knocked me off course. Diddy is the smallest puppet i have made at only 12 inches in height, but he makes up for it in having bundles of character. I really like his colourful and open face.

I made him based on a couple of photos i found on the internet... but having learnt from my lion puppet i remembered not to worry about being too lifelike but to concentrate on the key features. For me this was made easy by using a simple technique which we all used to use at school - tracing! I loaded the photo into Microsoft Publisher (don't ask why i use it... but i use it for everything) and used the line art tool to trace the basic shape of the Puffin. This automatically edited out any complex and unnecessary features (shading etc). It was a great way of working out the essence of the character without going into too much detail and making the project too hard. You can see here the sketch that i made up is realistic but quite cartoony.

I am pleased to have him finished and look forward to showing him off in future :)
Take care - Dave

Brief Techy Update

Hi folks - really sorry i haven't posted in the last week. I will probably be posting this weekend with pics from my latest project. This is just a brief update to say that i have added two new features to the blog. Firstly the YouTube video bar in the bottom right. This video bar automatically updates with my latest crex81 videos, so if you're not the sort of person that uses YouTube you can catch all the latest vids here instead. Also "Hello" to all the Facebookers out there! I have added a live update from my Facebook page. This is just a bit of fun, but if you're a regular reader and you have a Facebook why not drop me a line - it'd be great to hear from you! (same goes for Myspace - the link's in the side)

That's it for today, the puffin is 90% complete so i will post pictures soon.
Take care - Dave

2008 has been a crazy year... and it's only the 11th!

My year started on a bad note - my trusty sewing machine decided to break again! It's with the menders at the moment and i am chomping at the bit ready and waiting for it to return so i can finish off my latest project (a puffin). I have been talking to people about it and they all ask - "why a puffin?" to which the only honest answer is "why not?". Whilst they are loevly birds i have no particular emotional tie to them... i just liked their colourful beaks i think so i decided to make one. Below is a video i made in the heat of the moment about the sewing machine.

I will pick up the sewing machine next week if all things go well. Since then my week has been fantastic. I have recieved some really encouraging emails from people who have been watching my YouTube videos as well as having been contacted by two TV networks who are interested in using my puppets on their channels! So even though i have only lived 11 days in 2008 i have already decided this is gong to be a good year!

all the best folks :) Dave

Vernon

Vernon is the name chosen for the new character. Check out the video below to see him in action. I'm just checking in briefly today to say whilst i have started another new character i have managed to break my sewing machine yet again so it amy be a week or so before it gets finished unfortunately. I will of course keep you posted with any updates.

All the best - Dave

Out with the old...

...and in with the new year!

Happy New Year to everyone (and anyone) who reads this! So in a mad dash of creativity before 2007 ended my wife and i decided to make one last puppet. Because time was against us we decided to make another wolf but in a totally different colour scheme and with different furs. It was a great challenge which was very enjoyable and kept me up until 2am 3 nights running but Vernon is now complete! You can see his head here (on the left). I had managed to pick up the beige fur really cheap in the local market by chance about 3 weeks ago so i was thrilled it turned out so nicely and also that i got a chance to use it. You can see from my expression i was pleased with my achievement... this photo was taken at about 2am Saturday morning and i hadn't got to bed yet - i'm not sure if i was more pleased at having finished the head or the fact that i was finally going to get some sleep. The next photo is a full body picture of Vernon, he is a human arm puppet.

2007 was an amazing year for me... full of highs and lows. However i can't help but be positive about the steps forward i have taken in the past year with my puppet building. Characters like Vernon were the sort of character i used to aim for but never achieve, but times have changed and thanks to help from some great friends (Dave Privett, Phil Fletcher and Harry Barrett to name a few) i have realised my ambitions! This one triumph is of course not the end, but it is a great first step along the way. I look forward to a fantastic '08 and hope to be bringing you more great characters very soon!

All the best - Dave