Monthly Archives: October 2011

Sony Vegas Production Studio 11 Trial

Posted on October 20, 2011 by lance| 1 Comment

I downloaded the Sony Vegas Production Studio 11 trial today, right off the Sony webpage ( http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiopp ). Installed it, which was pretty quick, and then shot a quick puppet video to try out some of the features. It was also the first test drive of the Professor Puppet.

Here is a screenshot of what I was just working on:

Sony Vegas Production Studio 11 in use

Right away, really trying to use the Professor puppet, I find the mouth very tiring to operate, something is definitely amiss with the design (not that I had plans to go by). But I could tell while building it that the fit was a little tight and awkward.

Not much to do about it now, I will make it work until I make another puppet, with a more generous hand/mouth space. The opening motion is what really takes the effort, I feel like I have to fight the puppet to open its mouth, maybe he’s a bit shy, we’ll see.

Anyway, back to Vegas, the movie editing software, for those just joining us at this paragraph. Coming only from OpenShot (rock on dudes, open source) and Windows Movie Maker (bleh), Vegas is a welcome change. You can already feel the level of detail this software allows you, I know I will make higher quality movies right off the bat with this.

I just did a whirlwind tour, diving in to try to render something (which is going on right now, at this very moment, and my computer is suuuuper slow). Getting up and running this fast is nice, and it didn’t even crash (yet).

It’s a very quick video, but I also tried a little bit of green-screen action, which kinda worked as you will see. Each puppet was filmed separately, then “combined” magically with the green screen. Still looking for a good green screen setup, I’ll get there.

Here is the finished video:

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Posted in Foam Puppets, Movies and Clips, Process

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Foam Puppet Making

Posted on October 17, 2011 by lance| Leave a comment

Over the weekend I spent a good part of the day making my first foam puppet.  He’s just about finished, but he needs a few more accessories, and an arm or two would be nice.

Here is the almost-finished puppet, I call him:  Professor!

a blue white bearded muppet puppetI’d love to show you how I made him, but in all truth, I totally winged this project.  No patterns, no mock-ups, just cut and go.  Very happy with the way everything ended up this first time around.

I did a nice bit of web searching before I even attempted to make this foam puppet.  Here are some of the sites I visited:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/06/foam-puppet-making.html

http://puppeteersunite.com/

http://www.projectpuppet.com/

Here is a rough sketch of the pieces I cut out of the foam.  The main head parts were a little bit more egg-shaped (pointy side) on the tops and bottoms.

puppet parts cut from the foam

Here are some things that I’ve learned while making the Professor:

  1. Making puppets is fun!
  2. Always have lots of hot glue sticks ready
  3. Use razor blades to cut foam and use with caution
  4. Keep a sharpie handy
  5. Save the scraps, at least the bigger ones
  6. Be patient, especially if this is your first puppet!

Getting the “skin” on the Professor wasn’t exactly easy.  Since I didn’t start with a pattern, I wasn’t sure what size pieces to cut.  Also, cutting pieces of fabric to fit over rounded foam heads is tricky!  The Professor has a bit of a patchwork look because of this, and a few small spots that are made up from the scraps.

All in all not bad, the hot glue keeps it all together nicely.  Speaking of materials, all of the fabric for this project came from the 1/2 off remnants at our Jo-Ann’s fabric store, so the total cost of this puppet is probably somewhere in the  realm of $15 or less.  Not bad I say, not bad at all!

I will post more when the arms are finished, and if any accessories are made, I’ll let you know.  Just wanted to share this new project while I’m making it!

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Posted in Foam Puppets, Puppets

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