A few weeks back myself and Oli Kember shot with Boris and Sergey, two potty mouthed Eastern European puppets with a penchant for the theatrical. They are the proud employees of Flabbergast Theatre, run by Henry Maynard, an actor and compere who was also the star of my recent 48 hr short film. Henry’s a staggeringly talented chap and you can hear more from him on Wideopencamera here. I first became interested in puppets when I saw Henry perform Faeries at the Royal Opera House before Christmas and was just blown away by how fluid, expressive and entertaining the puppets could be. They’re operated in the Bunraku style, with three visible puppeteers but you become completely lost in the characters themselves and quickly forget that there are people actually moving them around. This is our first experiment in taking the puppets into film land as they’re normally very much a stage act. Strangely you actually have no idea how to frame the shots as there are so many subjects in frame. Concentrating on just the characters and not worrying if you cut off puppeteers heads is pretty much the best way. On stage you’re very aware of the actor performing the puppet and the interaction between puppets and puppeteers can be very entertaining, but with a film version it’s much more intimately connected to the puppets themselves. They have no facial expressions yet these guys are able to convey the most unbelievable amount through physical expression. It’s brilliant stuff and I’m looking forward to doing more. My career seems to be dragging me fast towards non-traditional methods of expression, filmmaking and storytelling and another big piece of work coming up involves creating a complete storyworld for a luxury brand in a way you’ve never seen before. Seeing how much great performers can achieve with so little on stage is so inspiring. We often agonise over every decision and the budget ramifications of those decisions, sometimes it’s nice to just let great performance do it all for you. Good fun.

Technorati Tags: black and white, boris, boris and sergey, bunraku, flabbergast theatre, henry maynard, puppets, sergey, short film, silent film, unrequited love