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Meet Yuri the bird-man of Queen st. West. We made him for a collector in Toronto who happens to live in our old stomping grounds. Back in the day you would see tons of weirdos and old farts creeping the streets. Now the area is a little different with the new Queen west crowd moving in. We thought we would pay tribute to the way it once was.
The 2010 Fantasia film festival will be showing two Beans and Bueller shorts. We feel super lucky to be able to participate in this awesome festival. Some of our favorite films have premiered at the event including Inglorious Basterds and Let the Right One In. So many great films will be showing and we cant wait to meet some of the other participants and film makers. Our submissions will be our newest short Contacting Kevin and our animated neurotic little boy Bryan in Bedtime for Bryan. We will post times and venues for the screening after the July 29th program unveiling. Thanks to everyone who helped make these shorts come to life!
Cable control is possibly the coolest thing ever!! If you are old enough to remember Chucky from the Child’s Play series he was a cable controlled puppet controlled by up to seven people all with certain appendages to manipulate. The movements are so fluid and control sensitive. I am drooling thinking of using the mechanics. Anyways Ill stop blabbing and show you some process shots from Jim’s incredible work!!
The main control stick
In the skull
The begginings of the eye set.
Bueller
POp MOntreal came and went so fast! We had our room at the Notman House, and we feel super lucky that we had a chance to show something in there. Not so much because of POP (which was fun and all that) but more becuase the house itself is really something else. It used to belong to Montreal’s premier archival photographer, William Notman, who before 1920 was the only photographer documenting the city at the turn of the century. So every photo you’ve ever seen of Montreal in the olden days was taken by Notman.
It’s sad to see the state of the mansion at this point. It’s up for sale (got 5 million?), but the inside is quite run down and destroyed. Film crews rent the space once in a while, but other than that, the place remains boarded up.
It is kind of creepy and I should also mention that the super wealthy Notman donated this home to charity and had it turned into a hospice for women. The back end of the mansion was built and added on later. We had a chance to explore back there (it was closed off for POP) in the hospice area, and I can imagine why a regular person wouldn’t want to buy this property. Apart from the millions of dollars in renos, think of all the women over the years who spent the remainder of their lives wandering the halls of that house before eventually passing away…there must be a few ghosts lurking around in there.
milkbone railslide
It’s a shame that nobody has thought to restore the place and turn it into a gallery or artists residence to honor Notman’s contribution to photography here in Montreal.
Here are some photos of our installation. We had a small room, but it was perfect for what we had in mind. It was difficult to get a good shot of the whole installation due to the tiny size of the room, but here it is broken down into two parts. This photo is the view from the first doorway.
And here are the girls Lydia and Penelope just over to the left by the second doorway.
This guy’s made from my old neighbour Brooklyn’s sweater. HIs name is Duppy.
Pen and Lyd are awesome…Pen is Penelope on the left, Lyd is Lydia on the right. Penelope’s shoes are my favorite. I had so much fun dressing everyone.
We wish our camera didn’t suck, and that we took more photos…instead of waiting until 5 minutes before take-down time, but here you go.
The symbol was the best part of setting up. We did this after 8 hours of hanging giant puppets and rigging lights from a ten foot ceiling. Ryan and I started with a circle and took turns adding stuff to it until it was finished. All hail.
Our beloved puppet Chug.
He is our banger boggin puppet. Boggin is a term for a really wasted, washed up down and out kind of person. The type of guy or gal you’ve seen posted up on those benches at Carre St.Louis knocking back 40 pounders of Russian Prince at 10AM. You know, the booze hob goblins and the gasoline huffers. Those’re Boggins.
So we decided to make this little video…an experiment really, to take this character Chug to the next level.
Watch what happens when Chug the Boggin gets super wasted!
Currently Chug is sitting in the production office at Nu Films here in Montreal…but we plan to break him out for a new episode of debauchery so stay tuned!
We made this sculpture…a static version of one of our puppets for an art show back in December 06.
I documented some of the steps involved just to give you an idea of how it’s done.
Now we pretty much taught ourselves how to do this on our own, so really anyone could if they wanted. You really don’t need many supplies, just a trip to the hardware store and a bucket of silicone….and time.
You start out sculpting your head.
Build your armature…this one is made of wood and wire.
Pouring then casting your mold.
Stick it together!
Cut and Sew.
You get the idea…
Many movies later and you’re done ;)
ok now you try.
