Puppetry for TV and Web Course for Melbourne

 


Gary Friedman Productions presents a unique opportunity to learn the art of performing puppets for television. This puppetry workshop, lead by Jim Henson- trained master-puppeteer and director, Gary Friedman, is suitable for film makers, puppeteers, performers, and others interested in learning about how puppetry is made for the screen. This course, eight evenings of three-hours per week, will include design and construction of puppets, manipulation for the camera, developing scenarios for performance, voice, character development and short performances. Participants will develop, perform and direct their short scenarios for a course show-reel.

You can view previous such courses, run over the past few years, here, here and here!
The exact venue is still to be confirmed, but it will be in the South Eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
The eight-week course is at a special discounted price of only $799, with limited places available.
For full information and bookings, contact us here.

Australian Artist in Schools Program

For our Artist in Schools 2011 program we adapted the course from our 'Looking for a Monster' project, which I'd been working on for many years. For some time, we'd been thinking of launching a school's program based on the 'Monster' project but we first needed to run a pilot program to see how it would work in both primary and high schools. So we chose Curl Curl North Public School (primary) and Strathfield South High School to run the ten-week pilot.

The main student work was done using shadow puppetry and the results have been documented for you to watch. You can view the Making of the High School program here and the High School Shadow Performances here. The Primary School Program documentary can be seen here.

We used the puppet play and poetry by the young Czech writer, Hanus Hachenburg, as a springboard for students to start observing and reflecting upon themselves, their community and greater world around them. The overall themes were becoming 'Every-day Heroes' as well as 'Using the Arts to Change the World'.

We began the ten-week project with simple ‘World of Paper’ exercises, in which the students had to portray their heroes or famous people they respect by building them out of brown paper and bringing them to life. This was followed by students developing their own stories, with messages which they wanted to share with the world. Some of the students developed Identity poems or used historical figures or events, which they brought to life using shadow puppetry.

“ When the students came up with their stories and engaged in the creative process, what they produced and what I think they learnt from the whole ten-week program was quite amazing. I felt that the students achieved something really special. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this group of children do something to such a high level.

In terms of the stories themselves, the messages were so powerful, for example ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ and the story of Nelson Mandela’s life, which were very important stories to tell. To have done them in a typical classroom format could have worked, but I believe this is a way they will remember, because the whole process was creatively scaffolded. I think that Gary’s involvement in facilitating that scaffolding was crucial. The high level of the shadow puppet plays produced was very unique, because although children are often able to play and create, they seldom have the expertise that was provided by the artist in residence programme.

One of the most powerful things we achieved was the integration of basic skills. For example – I was listening to one of the students, who had previously struggled with the whole literacy process, telling the story from the perspective of her character and her telling of the story was now actually outstanding."

Jan Warhurst, Deputy-Principal, Curl Curl North Public School, NSW, Australia  

A Month of Surprises

It's been so long since I last posted anything. No excuse folks, but in the past month, amongst other stuff, we have relocated from Sydney to Melbourne. Although it's still in Australia, or so they tell me, it's really like another country and the red tape has been horrendous. But now that we're based in the 'culture capital' of Australia, we have all sorts of new plans in the pipeline, so stay tuned.

We took our two-year old son, Idan (in the pic above), to watch Melbourne-based puppet company Dream Puppets performing 'Dreamer in the Deep' last week and he was blown away. In fact he doesn't talk about anything else now, so it looks like my prediction when he was born might just be correct? Take a look at my post from two-years back here!