Mudblood Puppeteers

Comment by Westpuppets on April 13, 2008 at 10:02am

When I turned 40 and started having health problems I thought that maybe I could use puppets to do all the crazy acting stuff in my place. Then I embarqed on a huge book quest reading anything I could find (mostly from ebay) to actually build one of those marionette thingies. Now I have local friends that help me improve my building skills! Puppet people are the best people!

Comment by Westpuppets on April 20, 2008 at 11:42am

I was lucky enough to see one Fettig book in the library briefly. It was amazing but I was not allowed to check it out. Have not found a copy I could afford yet.

Comment by Westpuppets on April 20, 2008 at 11:47am

Mudbloods. What do we charge when someone wants a birthday party show. Same as clowns? We have no parents in puppetry so how do we find out business stuff like that?!

Comment by Westpuppets on April 25, 2008 at 11:23pm

30 minute shows. 1hour setup, 1 hour break down. 5-10 marionettes in each show. Costumed intro and backstage tour add about 15-20 minutes. Stage packs into trailer behind the car. Cloth flip backdrops and misc props in the show. You can see some shows in my vids. So what do you think? Been asking 100-200 but not sure where in that range I should be.

Comment by Puppetgirl on April 26, 2008 at 5:12am

i wish i could help, but most of my shows were volunteered. u could always call a few clowns and see what they charge and how it's broken down for them and then have a similar price or idea. even though they don't do puppets it might help.

Comment by Westpuppets on May 4, 2008 at 9:38pm

Thats true, its almost not worth doing for less then 200 because it is just so darn much work. Why oh why did I choose marionettes!? Curse you little stringed creatures! Next time I'm doing finger puppets. ha!

Comment by Freggie Productions on May 16, 2008 at 10:24am

I always say I've been interested in puppets since I was 9 months old. That's when Sesame Street premiered and according to my mom I would watch it whenever it was on.

Most pictures of me as a kid shows a puppet on my hand. It was like another life form (I'm sure some psychologist could have a field day with that one).

Here's a funny story. When I was younger I had an "Animal" puppet (from the Muppet Show, so capitalization is necessary) and I use to masking tape a thin dowel to his hand for manipulation (yea, I used to study the Muppet Show).

Well one day we were driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. I squeezed myself down on the backseat floor (this was looooong before car seats) so I could put on a show through the back driver's side window for the passing cars. Now picture this, all you can see from my car is Animal waving and smiling at you as you pass. My mom, who was driving, sees people laughing and pointing while they're passing. She can't understand what they’re laughing at until she catches a glimpse of Animal putting on his show in the mirror.

I guess you can say I've been performing since the mid to late 70's.

Comment by hamstermatic on May 29, 2008 at 4:13pm

First performance experience was through a Baptist Church... did a show called "Bernie the Bicycle Breaker" on tape with mup-a-likes. Somewhere @10 yrs old.
Four puppets in the show with at least 3 up at a time. One festival the performance times were advertised in advance and when performance time came around I was the only one there besides a large audience. I realized I could probably manage with three puppets. I put the fourth one on a broom handle, laid on my back on a cooler, stuck a puppet on each hand and one on a foot and the show went on. About a third of the way through, the rest of the volunteers showed up and took over the two "creatively" manipulated puppets.

I did some more through high school and a little in undergrad, but I had to go deep into cover when I went to grad school, because they took Telecommunications very seriously. Well, now I just let people know up front that I do all sorts of puppets and it is just part of the package. They cope or they don't, but I am much happier.

Comment by Michael Grassia on July 9, 2008 at 9:28am

Just wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. I am new to the site and puppetry as a business.

I've loved puppets my entire life. In fact when I was in high school my parents used to let me stay home one day a month. They knew I needed a break every now and then. On those days off you know what I did? I built puppets. Mostly sock puppets because thats what I had available. But I would build rod puppets as well. I did try an internship when I was 13 with a pupept company but it only lasted a month due to it was December and the building didnt have any heat. I didnt get a chance to learn any puppetry there but did help out with the behind the scenes of their show.

I used to perform my puppets privately because I no one I knew was really interested in seeing puppet shows. As I got older my love for pupeptry continued and I learned as much as I could through reading books and watching videos.

I did pretty well, that in 2003 I was teaching computer art at a high school and the school discovered my love of puppetry that they asked me to perform for their special needs program. I've never performed in front of an audience before but knew I could and within two months I built a pretty crude looking rod puppet, the set and wrote a show. I performed in 2003 and did two shows. Since I never performed infront of an audience before I didnt know what to expect. Once I started one of the special needs students started screaming uncontrolably. Since it was a live show it messed me up. But the second show went great. Sadly the first show was the recorded one.

I havent had a chance to perform since then, but redesigning the rod pupept and the set and getting ready to start the show again.

When I went for my masters I had to do an intership and interned with a puppet company. I didnt get to perform, but I did get to learn more construction and control methods through repairs. I also learne a lot of what happens behind the scenes. With this new found knowledge I am hoping that my next show will be a success.

I am also developing a Punch and Judy show which is different from most in subject matter. I am actually sclupting the heads right now and will post pictures as soon as I can.

Comment by Daxxus on July 12, 2008 at 11:33pm

Our troupe is new - completely new.

We've all been Muppets fanatics since the 70s when we were kids in bell-bottoms, but this idea of The Devil's Minstrels actually needed "professional help" for us to really get started.

We had this idea more than 10 years ago (we've only been public since May '08) but honestly it just seemed that we as a group did not have the craft skill it took to create what we wanted for puppets.

So once I got up enough capital ($) I went in search of a top notch puppet creator. Yeah - that was tough... Try explaining you want to create puppets of Muppet quality to do a "Death Metal meets Spinal Tap meets Puppets" Internet TV Show - LOL - it was pretty difficult.

We got lucky (EXTREMELY) by meeting John Kennedy Hands In Art through Michelee Puppets here in Orlando. As you can see, if you follow the link, John's resume is amazing - he worked on the TV show Dinosaurs as 1/2 of Baby Sinclair and has a background with the Muppets.

For us, once we got those insanely professional puppets in our hands the puppeteering came naturally from the hours and hours of sitting in awe of all those great TV shows of our past.

Now we are learning as we do - which in my humble opinion is the best way to learn. We know that our 1st stuff is a little slow etc. but that's the point - we're having a blast and picking it all up as we go.

Anyway that's my story - and as a closing side note - John is an extremely talented guy and all around amazing personality so if anybody here needs something done he's certainly the man. You can contact him from his site or contact me for more info on what he did for me etc.

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