Comm Lab Video - Sock Puppets Mania!!!
Our assignment was to create a video, any video we wanted as long as we kept it around 2 or 3 minutes long. This process was exactly that for me, a bit of a process. You see I originally had this idea to create a graphic equalizer out of myself to a particular song. The idea was to have myself squatting and standing up based of the beats of the song similar to how the levels go up and down in an equalizer when a song is being played. This idea ended up turning into a Computational Media project I did which now works with any song or any sound the computers receives through it's internal microphone.
Now, I need another idea for Comm Lab. I wanted to do something that would be a little challenging for me due to my previous experience with video. I seem to get pretty interesting ideas while listening to music and suddenly the idea of sock puppets popped in my head. Then I found a song that would fit with the idea of having one puppet for a few seconds and then have a burst of many puppets joining in.
I sat down and did a general story board of the idea. I presented this to my teacher Marianne and she liked the idea but was hesitant on whether or not I'll be able to 1) make enough puppets and 2) get enough people to help. I figured that might be a problem but figured I should be able to find the necessary resources.
After a few e-mails to my good friends here in New York I figured I will be able to get enough people to shoot my idea, now it was time to make the puppets. I have no experience with sock puppets but thought it couldn't be all that hard. I bought like 10 pairs of socks for $5.00 at K-mart and some eyes at an art store not to far from school.
I knew the mouths had to be well constructed because the puppets are going to be singing and seeing their mouths move to the music was important. I used some cardboard that was laying around the floor to construct each mouth and hot glued colored construction paper to the cardboard. I hot glued the cardboard into the holes I cut out in the socks. This actually took the longest considering I had to cut out about 18 ovals of cardboard and 18 holes in the socks along with 18 ovals of construction paper and then hot glue them all together.
Next was the eyes which had an immediate effect on the socks giving them life. For a while it looked like I was making the things in the Tremors movies until I added eyes. But they still didn't have much personality, so now I had to think of ways of differentiating them from one another. Eventually I had about 18 puppets that had their own unique style.
The next day all my friends showed up to shoot the video. I had about 7 people ready and willing. We used a long table and a kind of foot stool we found in a class room to setup the stage. I brought in two sheets to cover up the table and stool so you weren't able to see anyone underneath. I signed out 2 cameras and 2 tripods and placed them in front and to the right side of the stage. I also brought my own video camera in and used that as a moving hand-held throughout the shoot. We spent about a half an hour lighting the room to give it a more music video look. We had three lights, one in front, one in the back left and one on the right side shined against the wall. Eventually it looked pretty nice.
I had everyone put the puppets on and get use to them. Then we listened to the song a few times and practiced mouthing the puppet to the music. Some people were good others were terrible. My one friend seemed to be right with the music so I made him the lead puppet and we started shooting.
I broke the song into about four sections. The beginning with just one puppet, the one puppet leading into the first course, the duet with two puppets singing, the duet leading into the second course. Then I separated puppets either by themselves or paired them up and had them to the end of the second chorus with just them.
We shot each section three times and then tried some additional shots I thought I might need in the editing process.
Since there were some fun stuff that didn't make it in the video I carved out 3 outakes and have put them up for people to check out:
Outake 1
Outake 2
Outake 3