This time of the year I am engaged in a Pageant for the celebration of New Church Day. The Pageant honors the founding of the church by conveying theatrically portions of the Book of Revelations. In particular we have a 30' seven headed dragon puppet, which I am in charge of and I also perform the role of the disciple John who was exiled to the Isle of Patmos and there had visions which were written down and became the Book of Revelations. It's becoming quite an event and the dragon puppet is awesome.
My point being that puppetry is an ongoing activity. As you may have seen in other posts (that contain photos) I have a puppet shop where I am developing a series of puppets for use with The Gnomes of New Hope.
Although those activities are on again off again because of publishing efforts, the intention is to create a generic chassis for the puppets, which can be used for Marionettes, stick puppets, and animatronic characters.
I am proceeding to set up two staging areas, one for the "little theatre" production work, which includes the parade float scenario, and the other for set construction, configured for an assortment of larger stages, most particularly for the 25' turntable present in the Bucks County Playhouse.
But the work on the parade float will be the first order of business in terms of performance venues.
In terms of the actual puppets, we are developing the first three puppets; Constable Warren (who has become the mascot) Zach, and Zebby. With these three puppets completed, we will be able to film a few scenes up against a green screen and use the artwork from the storybooks as the backdrops.
On another front; I am building a Raid Array so I can finally set up the editing station with Final Cut Pro, but along with that, once the array is functioning and the new (old) storage and processor is up and running, then work will begin on 3D rendering of the characters. The primary purpose of 3D at this point is figurines, for which there are numerous applications, one of which is claymation.
So, even mentioning these few arenas, you can see how extensive this project has become.
It is somewhat unclear how everything will turn out, but my focus of attention is refining the studio to accommodate all the necessary components of various production activities and to continue to produce as much product in-house as possible. It is my estimation that utilizing the facilities and resources to produce the primary support items before attempting to take the show to outside venues is the most practical approach to developing a long term operation and achieving stability in a highly speculative market.
Of course, other options are always on the table, under the right circumstances, but for now, release and distribution of Volume One of the Storybook is the first order of business.
