Got a response from the Sesame Puppeteer Workshop...

[Rymoore21]

I received the same letter. Of all of my facebook friends in the puppetry community, only 2 of them were accepted. I think this will be something that Marty and Matt will do again in the future so keep trying. I learned a lot about my on-screen skills by doing this audition, whereas I typically only do live shows. Don't take it personally. I do, however, think the word choice of the letter could have been better.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

Don't take it personally! I heard from a very reliable source that there were over 300 entries! The chances of getting in were very slim, so if you got in, you were extremely lucky!

 

[D'Snowth]

So far, I've only seen or heard two rejection emails that weren't the same message that the rest of us got. I don't doubt that the number of submissions were in the hundreds, I knew that with an opportunity like this, they were probably going to get slammed with tons and tons of submissions. I honestly don't know who else got accepted, I've heard this James Kemp person's name come up a few times, but I haven't heard of anyone else from here at MC, or elsewhere, practically everybody I know who sent in a submission got the exact same rejection letter. But, again, they made it clear that there was limited space, and that it would be first-come, first-serve... I don't even remember when I sent in my submission, without looking, but I believe it was about a month or so after I heard received word about the workshop.

I don't believe we'll be seeing an opportunity like this again anytime soon, however; such opportunities like this are extremely rare, getting in is even rarer, and actually being able to work for SST (or any other Muppet/Henson entity) is incredibly, incredibly hard... and I've heard that from people who have been in the puppeteering profession a lot longer than I have.

I will be honest though, I wonder what they specifically would have said had they not sent me the same form-rejection, because I've given demonstrations for puppeteers who have worked for Henson before, such as Ed May, and he said he saw no flaws in my performance technique whatsoever, and like some people have said, "Your performance technique isn't quite right for the Sesame style of puppetry" doesn't quite sound like the best thing they could have said.

But oh well.

 

[crazy chris]

id love to see some of the video submissions that were accepted!! anyone know of any?

cc

 

[Muppetlab]

This is the response i had... I thought it was the standard reply -

Thank you for submitting a video for the 2014 Sesame Puppeteer Workshop. There were a record number of submissions and selecting participants for the workshop was a very difficult task. While we found your video enjoyable, we cannot offer you a slot in the puppeteer workshop at this time.

We encourage you to keep developing and working on your skills. Precise lip sync, bold characters, and ability to perform with a monitor are some of the things we look for when searching for new puppeteers and we hope that you will continue working on all of these puppeteering techniques.

Continue to be creative and may we wish you success for the future.

Sincerely,

Matt Vogel
Martin P. Robinson

 

[crazy chris]

i heard a rumor that (even though they specifically said not to) they were actually looking for people with the right "chops" to mimick existing characters... anyone else hear that rumor?

cc

 

[D'Snowth]

We encourage you to keep developing and working on your skills. Precise lip sync, bold characters, and ability to perform with a monitor are some of the things we look for when searching for new puppeteers and we hope that you will continue working on all of these puppeteering techniques.

That's actually something that many people have actually made threads on before in the past... where are aspiring puppeteers supposed to get their hands on monitors?

i heard a rumor that (even though they specifically said not to) they were actually looking for people with the right "chops" to mimick existing characters... anyone else hear that rumor?

cc

I haven't... that almost sounds made-up.

 

[crazy chris]

That's actually something that many people have actually made threads on before in the past... where are aspiring puppeteers supposed to get their hands on monitors?

any smart phone

I haven't... that almost sounds made-up.

funny enough...actually from QUITE a reliable source...lol

cc

 

[D'Snowth]

Who?

 

[crazy chris]

wish i could say

lol

cc