COVID19 Puppets/Títeres
Puppet shows for kids in the time of COVID19
In 2020-21, the students in the Create and Connect course with Profe Felipe Q. Quintanilla, took on the puppet challenge. This was an opportunity for the students to experiment with the art and performance of puppetry.
Their first objective was to create a puppet with whatever resources you are able to attain at your disposal. Secondly, as a prompt, they were asked to find inspiration and develop a new concept based on something that might connect with a child during these COVID times. Thirdly, they were asked to not read from a script, but to create a video where they simply experiment with finding a voice for their puppet
“Art can save us”: a conversation with puppeteer Pavel Fernández
But first, we had the great pleasure of first hearing first hand from Mexican German puppeteer, Pavel Fernández, who told about his journey in this art form from childhood to working with refugee children in detention centers in German in the time of COVID. He also gave us great insight with regards to how to approach puppet creation (with scarce materials), and character as well as voice development.
Antartica
Siena Burness Vreugde and Jasen Topping
For our puppet show, we were inspired by a pair of fuzzy animal socks. The pair of socks had the face of a penguin on them, inspiring us to set our show in Antarctica. We wanted to explore isolation to the extreme, since everyone is feeling pretty lonely these days. Up in Antarctica in the cold and darkness, it doesn’t get much more isolated than that. We wanted to create another character that would contrast this feeling of isolation
and loneliness, and so we decided to create a puppet that was from another planet. This character pointed out to the penguin the pandemic has limited a lot for people, at least they still had a planet and a family. The alien came to Earth seeking a solution for his war-ridden planet, where all his family had suffered and passed away. Although these are tough times, we wanted to remind our audience to be grateful for what they do have. It is important to count your blessings and appreciate every gift in life, even when the opportunities seem to have shrunk.
Zoom buddies
The eyes are ping pong balls with googly eyes glued onto them. To add personality, Elsie added grey felt and sparkly pipe cleaners around the eyes to create glasses. The voice for Elsie's character is inspired by her older sister's voice. It is a little bit lower than her regular voice to match with the tone of Parabjot’s voice and to make the puppet seem calm and relaxed. Overall, we both really enjoyed physically creating our puppets as well as developing their personalities.
Elsie and Parabjot
"Zoom buddies'' is a puppet show of two friends talking on a zoom call. The two puppets, Stacey (blue puppet) and Peggy (pink puppet) discuss the frustrations of Covid-19 regulations. The two friends have a difficult time adjusting to online school as they feel zoom calls cannot replace the experience of in-classroom learning. The inspiration for this puppet show started when we were discussing past quarantine horror stories. We both had bad experiences with online school during quarantine. Similar to many other people, we had a hard time adjusting to online life, self-teaching some subjects through zoom calls, internet issues, and not making any friends. This puppet show is not only meant to point out the hardships of education in 2020 but also to provide content that students of any age can connect and relate to. We both decided to make sock puppets because the materials were accessible. We both added tongues, large googly eyes, and hair to make our puppets look like cute people. Parabjot's puppet was inspired by Kermit the Frog as he is a unique puppet. She added buck teeth to give the puppet a central feature and chose a pink sock because it was the fanciest sock that could be found. As for the googly eyes, the eyes could not stand up on their own, so they were taped to pom pom's sewn into the sock. Peggy's voice was inspired by one of Parabjot's closest friends who has a deep dramatic voice and a "go with the flow" attitude. Elsie's puppet was inspired by a YouTube video about how to make puppets. This video was very helpful, especially for getting the structure of the mouth correct.
Inside the sock, there is cardboard and foam to help structure the head and give a little grip to the mouth. She used a blue sock as the body and made some large pom pom's out of navy yarn for the hair.
Squirrel and Coconut Kenny
Amelia
Teagan Townsley
Jason Samuel Aginsky
When creating the sock puppet, I had very little supplies, so I needed to be creative with my surroundings. I used packing peanuts for the puppet’s eyes, chewed up gum and ripped off pieces of a white hula skirt for the hair, as well as construction paper for the tongue. The voice of the puppet was inspired by puppet shows from my childhood, such as Sesame Street and The Muppets. The voice pitch, however, was limited by my low vocal capabilities. When creating the scene, I decided to create a topic that could appeal and relate to as many people as possible. During these stressful times many people are left feeling bored and that they have too much time on their hands. The topic of “fun things to do during covid” could be relatable to children of all ages around the world. By having “Coconut Kenny” next to “Squirrel” I felt like I could bring the most amount of humour to the scene by having Coconut Kenny be uninterested in all of Squirrel’s ideas. Squirrel was portrayed as being extremely excited, each character portraying opposite emotions. This contrast in personalities created an amusing and engaging dynamic between the two characters.
El personaje de Amelia es un joven adulto que está buscando algo significativo. La escena es sobre su viaje en las montañas donde aprendió a disfrutar de la vida. La inspiración era de mi diálogo de la semana pasado donde dos jovenes hablar de disfrutar del momento y ser presente. El processo de hacer mi títere fue más difícil de lo que pensaba. Usé una sabána vieja y lo cosieron juntos. Para sus manos y pies y para mantener partes de ella junto, usé cuerda de borado. Después pinté la cara, que fue la parte más difícil y finalmente adjunto el pelo. Decidí que la forma más fácil para hacerla mover era los palitos de madera. Para crear su voz intenté hacer mi voz un poco más suave y alta. También necesité otra voz para el “voz misterio” entonces fue un poco más baja. Pero me di cuenta de que fue un poco difícil recordar cambiar mi voz para cada personaje. También tuve una idea de pintar una camiseta para el fondo de la escena que se puede ver que intenté, pero no resultó exactamente como me imaginaba, si tuviera más tiempo para desarrollar, creo que habría sido una buena idea.
Tutorial de Roberta
Isabel Borisov
Hello! This is my puppet video (it is in Spanish but I gave it English subtitles so you can all enjoy!)
Cuando vi los calcetines en clase, inmediatamente me atrajo el rosa brillante. En mi punto de vista, tuve una idea para mi proyecto donde mi personaje era una chica peculiar (y un poquito pesada). También, hice los ojos "locos" - y lo mismo con su pelo. Con esto, nació "Roberta". El proceso de desarrollo comenzó con su personalidad, específicamente su voz, no me tomó mucho tiempo. No sé porque, pero su voz inmediatamente me poseyó. Primero, sabía que quería un voz aguda - porque "Roberta" emulada la edad de una niña. Segundo, quería un voz molesto y similar a las aspirantes a chicas VSCO, chicas básicas.
El concepto de la escena es como si Dora la exploradora fuera una YouTuber peculiar. El formato es como de un videotutorial de los YouTubers de maquillaje/DIY, pero su peculiaridad hace que el video sea más cómico. Ella trata de hacer un tutorial, pero con frecuencia se distrae. Experimenté con esto porque muchos niños ahora ven los vídeos en YouTube con más frecuencia, y con la pandemia con mucho mucho más frecuencia. Además, Dora era una figura integral en la niñez de nuestro generacion y "Roberta" es una mezcla de nuestra niñez y la niñez de hoy. Ya que el tutorial es sobre cómo hacer una máscara durante el COVID-19, es perfecto para los niños quienes están en los "lockdowns" o aquellos que siempre quieren hacer algo de DIY con las cosas que se encuentran en la casa. En todo época, ¡es más divertido!
After choosing my scene I started to play around with my voice for Larry, I had previously decided I wanted him to have a laid back, “skater boy” voice, and while writing my script I intentionally used words that only boys like that would use [in my mind].
Finally I wrote the script and begged my mom to be my coworker’s voice. It was really fun and interesting to put myself in the mentality of a high school boy, since I think it’s so different from the mindset of a high school girl [like I was].
Working student life
Mariana Isabel Martinez Gonzalez
While creating my puppet, I first chose a personality and character in my head and then made a puppet that matched that personality: an emo, skater, but hardworking boy in his teens, who was very funny but very complex at the same time, and I named him Larry. I chose a black sock to match the tone of his personality, I put a bunch of piercings on him and made small “headphones for him” so he can listen to his emo music, and finally I made his hair long and had it covering his left eye.
While I was creating this video, the first step I took was defining my audience. Based on my “emo” puppet I had made, I wanted to connect his dark humour or sadness in his personality to mental health and the implications of the things and circumstances that high school students have to live with that causes a decline in their mental health.
I chose to do a scene in Larry’s temporary part time job talking to a coworker, because I think most high school students have experienced having a deep conversation where you pour your heart out to your coworker in the middle of a shift.
Encontrarte a ti mismo; A 6 pies de distancia
Clara Mustata y Juan Posada
En Encontrarte a ti mismo; A 6 pies de distancia, Juan and Clara realizan un espectáculo de títeres con tres escenas que se enfoca en el tema de ‘ser usted mismo’ y el ‘mantener su carácter auténtico’ a través de una interacción entre un oso y sus nuevos amigos que encuentra durante su viaje, incluyendo un pájaro, un granjero, un dragón, y finalmente, su madre. Durante el periodo difícil de COVID19, frecuentemente nos encontramos intentando ser alguien diferente porque es muy difícil ser genuino porque constantemente interactuamos solamente por las pantallas y consumimos Netflix y noticias más que nunca. Tenemos un bombardeo de medios externos que nos lleva a ser más fácilmente influenciados por los personajes y vidas imaginarias de otras personas en lugar de vivir nuestras propias vidas, que son limitadas por los monitores ahora. La meta de Encontrarte a ti mismo; A 6 pies de distancia es para recordar a los niños que no deberían intentar ser otra persona y añorar los aspectos de otras personas. En lugar de esto, deberían enfocarse en lo que les hace únicos. Esperamos que nuestro espectáculo deja a los niños con un sentimiento de ser realizados y tener confianza en ellos mismos, igual como el protagonista lo expresa en los últimos momentos de la 4ta escena.
El standup show de Froggy
Precious Adekoya
Cuando empecé a pensar en un tema para el proyecto de marionetas, pensé: "¿Cómo puedo animar a la gente durante una pandemia?". "¿De qué manera puedo incorporar la risa a mi proyecto?". De repente se me ocurrió la idea de hacer un espectáculo de stand-up comedy. Nunca había hecho un espectáculo de comedia. El único contacto previo que he tenido con la comedia de stand-up es que una de mis compañeras de piso está en Western Improv y he escuchado algunos de sus programas a través del zoom. Algunos de sus espectáculos me sirvieron de inspiración para lo que hice en mi proyecto. Cuando empecé a hacer una lluvia de ideas, pensé en el tipo de personaje que quería ser. Decidí un nombre, una ocupación y un estilo de humor. También decidí centrarme un poco en los aspectos negativos de la pandemia. Pensé que burlarse de los aspectos negativos de la pandemia alegraría a algunas personas. Disfruté mucho haciendo este proyecto porque me animó a ser creativa. Pude utilizar elementos que ya tenía en casa. Recorrer mi casa para encontrar algo que representara los ojos, el pelo e incluso la boca fue un reto, pero agradable. Crear los chistes fue aún más difícil. Intenté que mi personaje fuera alguien divertido a veces, pero que también contara chistes secos. Quería destacar la dificultad de la comunicación a través de una pantalla.