How do they do the Java sketch?

[ToasterBoy]

I found the Muppet Magic/Ed Sullivan DVD for $12. Cheap at twice the price. I love the JAVA sketch. I would love to build those puppets and do a tribute performance at the school I teach at. But I have a question.

I know the Puppeteers are dressed in black with a black background. I know the puppets are pretty easy to make (though getting the little one to blow smoke would be a challenge). Here's my question....

Are the puppeteers just standing behind the puppets or, as I think from watching it over and over, is this a raised stage and the puppeteers are below controlling them with black rods?

Man when I watched that for the first time and the main puppet rotates so his eyes go all the way around his body I was flipping out! That was amazing to me and I had to watch and watch to see how it was done.

GET this DVD!

Grant
throwingtoasters.com

and soon....

slugpuppets.com

 

[King Jim]

They did good.

 

[Dagger Claws]

Maybe This Way . . .

Hey there all, it's been a while since I last posted. I've seen the Java sketch (it's been a while though, so what I remember I'll take a stab at answering your question), and although I don't know exactly how they blew the smoke and rotated the eyes (I could guess) I have a pretty good idea how they did the set up. I'm guessing that the puppets were performed on a table top, all in black, front and top so that it looks like they're performing in that black void, the performers are all in black, and the control rods all in black. Since it was filmed, the camera was dead on the puppets, SO the table was probably not visible to you and since everything is in black except for the puppet you don't see it either (ie. you don't see the top of the table or the outline of a table since everything is black, only that the puppet is dancing on SOMETHING.) I say that it had to have been a table top because if I remember right that whole thing was dancing, and the puppets did a lot of steps and stomps, VERY hard to do if you were doing that in the air above you. ALSO, the lighting of that needs to be done right, because too much light will show the audience that they're dancing on a table top, too little won't show off your puppet. CHECK AND ASK ANYONE IN THIS SITE ABOUT HOW TO DO CHEQUE BLACK THEATRE LIGHTING. It's a type of theatrical lighting design used alot in black box theatres in Chequeslovakia (I HOPE I spelled that right) where all the lights on the stage are all focused and centered into a curtain of light that shines ONLY on the puppet, NOT the performer, further obscuring the puppeteer and in your case the table top. ALSO, the choreography needs to be done carefully so that the rods that control the puppet don't cross the puppet at all, because if you did you'd have a black control rod showing against the colorful puppet's body.


I hope that helps and that all makes sense,

Marc

 

[HeartlessGiant]

Great DVD, classic sketch. They did it on the Muppet Show or on Sesame Street too, it think.

Totally worth getting that dvd, everyone. Go get it now. All of you. GO GO GO!!!

P.S. Sorry i had nothing to contribute as far as advice. I flipped out too when i saw the face rotate all the way around. I have NO CLUE how that was done!

 

[Buck-Beaver]

It is done with a variation on what's referred as the Czech Curtain of Light technique where you basically have a narrow tightly focused strip of light downstage and no light upstage. The puppeteers dress in black and stand upstage out of the light, the puppets are held inside the light.

You need proper lights with barndoors to do this on stage. It's easier to do for camera because the black saturation levels can be cranked up on the camera(s) to disguse any imperfections in the lighting. Puppetry for greenscreen/blue screen works sort of the same way.