So i've had a week off work this week and there was a project brewing in the pipeline with me and my brother as he's looking to build up his videography skills to promote his work. I needed to use up some annual leave so i booked this week off, my brother did the same as he also had some annual leave to use up. So what better way to spend the time than creating our very own full length puppet picture movie in our local woodland area.
I've done theatre work before so didn't mind helping my brother and putting my acting talent once again to good use, sure you don't actually see me in the movie we've filmed over the past 4 days but my skills live on in my puppetry, one thing i realised, I've done my own short puppet movies before, but to create a feature film is very hard work. I learnt so much more doing puppetary skills on a camera when you are not driving the camera.
My brother is director and also did some of the puppetry. This mine & my brothers first feature film, with more in the pipeline. Filming involved 4 solid days some retake shots and some extra comedy bits added in and i loved it. Plus it was nice to spend some brotherly time together, don't do it often enough. My brother had this vision in his head of how he wanted the film to pan out, i suggested some ideas and he rolled with it. My puppetry skills really improved over the 4 days, once i got fully into the head of the characters and how my brother wanted the movie. In the theatre world you get months worth of rehearsals, this was 4 days to fully get into character and the way my brother wanted the characters portrayed on camera. Something i learned is you don't need a massive budget to make a move, the puppets i bought second hand off eBay and have a collection of puppets for making cool funny Videos, but my version of the puppets was very different for how my brother wanted them in the movie. My version of one of the puppets is very hyper active, but i had to tone him down for some of the filming and i also learnt how to work with better range of speeds and emotions in the puppets to really bring them to life, which if you can imagine for a puppet, is difficult, as they don't have a wide range of expressions, but through simple hand movements you can really bring them to life.
On the first day of filming, we managed to shoot some really good footage but there was an issue with my brothers camera equipment so we had to head home, his gimble needed to be activated to use it, so we headed back home, got it sorted, and went back the next day, thankfully weather was on our side, and i wanted to ensure i really threw myself right into this movie, to ensure the outcome film is really good, so, yes, we were up early, trips to Starbucks on route to get fuelled up on caffeine, and lugging equipment about from the car park to the movie location in the woods, it showed how out of shape i am as the walking was hard, was about a couple of miles to the location, but the more i did it the better i felt, movie location wise our local woodlands provide a natural film set, props were limited, but this wasn't a bad thing, but we had a grand idea. It was just me and my brother filming this movie, and equipment and bags had to be moved as they got in the way of some of the shots, but we came up with clever ways to hide the equipment. Next time I'm using a camo tent to hide it all. I must admit i didn't come prepared the first day of filming, You want to keep your belongs safe in this modern world of today where technology rules the world, so i had a jacket, but this didn't have any zips on so had to keep moving it about and ensuring my tech didn't fall out of my pocket. Thankfully it didn't, otherwise we wouldn't have got home. I did find, the driving quite tiring, so thankfully my brother took this on and it allowed me to review the script and really get into character, its been a long time since I've done any form of acting, not since before the pandemic so was a little bit rusty and its a new experience.
Thankfully the following days were loads better, i took a ruck sack with drinks and snacks, first day i didn't do this and filming for 3-4 hours i struggled a bit. So i would always recommend taking plenty of snacks and drinks with you for filming as possibly some baby wipes and toilet roll as there isn't any toilet facilities in the woods we went to. Its easier for blokes to get buy, but i can't imagine its easy for the female gender. Even though the first day was called short due to technical problems, i wanted to ensure we had plenty of time to capture some fantastic shots, so all snacked up decided to head back on second day of filming and put easy 6-7 hours in of filming. There were times where i could take a break depending on bits brother was filming that didn't need my puppetry skills so this was an ideal time to do some wildlife spotting and saw some deer, squirrels and lots of birds and insects. I wore the same set of clothes for the 4 days of filming and they needed a good wash at the end of filming as some shots required me to get right down in the undergrowth of the woods, and lets just say the filming location was used by the local deer population for all off their daily habits including going to the toilet. Each night, after we got back from filming i showered because i got covered in under growth.
Its the first thing, me and my brother have done something this cool together, sure we are working on other side projects but just to be away from the troubles of the world and like back in the 80s when we were children out exploring and playing as children do. I learnt a lot about myself in the past 4 days with phone out of sight and not working on computer based side projects. There is a lot to be said for being in nature, really is, you forget all about problems in the world, work, conflicts in the world and you get to see some great wildlife, really do. I would highly recommend getting out and about in nature. I slept so well the nights after filming, no weird dreams, just a calm mind. Its the longest i've been away from home and just shut down the tech, sure i used my phone to take some behind the scenes filming Photos but apart from that my phone was on silent and in my ruck sack and i forgot it was there. So in some parts it was a digital detox and it was fantastic. It reminded me of being a child again and how unplugged the 80s and 90s were. I also loved making the movie, sure i have played about with puppet Videos but what me and my brother have filmed over the past 4 days is awesome. It did give me great respect for the hard work by puppeteers there is so much to think about, you've got to make the puppets feel alive and express a range of emotions but you have to film in such a way as not to spoil the illusion of these puppets coming to life. That meant being out of shot, which is easier said than done. But as the days progressed my skills got better on avoiding part of an arm appearing. Once i had a better understanding of how my brother was moving with the camera and the vision he had, it got lots easier, filming scenes become a lot quicker, and in some shots i improvised and my brother was really pleased. The scenes just work and the continuity of the story works and can't wait to see the finished film. But even though filming is finished a bigger job begins, the post editing of the clips to bring them all into a feature film, some of the clips won't be used and will be deleted. The voice over of the characters needs to be done and the movie will be ready when all of this is done. But my brother will do a fantastic job and so looking forward to having been given the chance to work on this movie.
