Monday 27th April - First day of term.
Getting started
A week ago, we had just received our briefs, and today we finally started the project. Starting the day strongly with a one on one tutorial with Lucy, chatting about the project and catching up, the term hard just started.
I spent the day familiarizing myself with the project and going through all the sources provided by the tutors.
Some sources that caught my eyes were "La machine" an organisation in Nantes that creates large mechanized puppets (So incredible !!), the "potatoroom" (really liked the aesthetic of their work, very grotesque but yet appealing), and the "paper cinema" (I loved the intricate design of the drawing and the simplicity).
Throughout the day I learned more what puppetry was. In fact anything can be a puppet, from a crooked can of soup, to a rake in the garage. Object Manipulation is the act of taking any object and crating a character with it.
Later, we called as a group with Louis, our BA2 leader, Millie and Gabe. We discussed what the structure of our days were going to look like, determining an afternoon call around 4pm (French time), and more structural details about the upcoming few weeks. The final form of the project will take place as a film and not a performance as we had hoped for, due to the pandemic. Yet we still have to think about "who is the audience?" and the style we want to adopt as a group for our puppets.
I quickly learned that day that puppetry is not just a little character on a string. It is anything and everything, from shadow puppets, to whole body puppetry. Movement, sound and storyline is important.
Although it was a tough day because we, as a class, had just learned we would not come back to school in Cardiff for the rest of the term, it was still very interesting. I caught a small glimpse at the large and diverse world of puppets, and got very excited to work with it. I won't lie, I am quite disappointed about the fact we will not perform, and learn in a real group environment, I can not change the situation and I am forced to accept the challenge of doing puppetry in quarantine.
At the end of the day, we had a nice little catchup with the whole Design for Performance department by zoom. So nice to see familiar faces and to realize every one is in the same situation...
A very exciting day, and a great week ahead.
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