Teele Uustani is a puppeteer and performer who has been working with us over the last few years, helping to develop and tour shows including Macbeth and Ghost Stories.
During lockdown, Teele wisely departed from her base in London and decamped to her native Estonia, from where she was able to explore some new techniques as part of this R&D.
Teele writes....
During the distant R&D for The Keys of Tobias Brown, I explored with providing different backgrounds with shadows and other visual images/effects. Part of this exploration was also figuring out how much Paper Cinema style puppeteering is possible to do with just one person (instead of two or three as usual).
Since the whole project is very much still in development also from visual side I did not have many actual PC puppets to play with, so I extended the puppet play to exploring shadows and different light sources and how they work on camera. I filmed shadows of some of the puppets as well as plants both indoors and outdoors. I played with creating movement not by moving the object but the light source.
Different set ups for the filming sessions (indoors and outdoors) and some of the examples of playing with shadows, glass and colour.
Although PC world is usually black and white, I also explored colour and played with different materials, such as glass and plastic to create simple visual effects. None of these....were to create or support a particular narrative, but simply to find out what works on camera, how it reads and what could be used to find new aspects in the PC visual language.
I also tried out using a(n actual) 3D puppet, its relationship to the paper world and how it works in front of camera. I used a puppet (the Moth man) that Catherine Rock, built based on Nic's design.
Film by Teele, music by Francesca Simmons.
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