Puppet Kaos -

Episode 11 is here! This week, Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster investigate why people go trick-or-treating for candy on Halloween on Puppet Kaos’ own newsmagazine 50/50. Do ghosts even like candy? Don’t vampires want blood instead? Does this tradition even make any sense? Let Puppet Kaos tell you the truth behind Halloween!

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (80MB)
mov format (31MB)

The music is News Sting by Kevin MacLeod. It’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

And this video used lots of graphics generously licensed by their original authors through Creative Commons licenses. There are so many that they deserve their own table:

Graphic	Usage	Author	License
colourscapebg3.jpg	50/50 background	Jonny Baker	CC Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
My First Jack-o’-Lantern With Ian	Truth Behind Halloween title picture	Tze-Her Su	CC Attribution 2.0 Generic
Machampane Wilderness Camp	Moostifer walking background 1	Ralph Pina	CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
San Gorgonio Wilderness	Moostifer walking background 2	Randy McEoin	CC Attribution 2.0 Generic
desert view	Bobby walking background 2	Jon Sullivan	CC Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
A Picture Share!	Loose tooth picture	Jenny Levine	CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
At the Dentist	Dentist picture	Seth Werkheiser	CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
#4 - The Tooth Fairy	Tooth fairy picture	Kaptain Kobold	CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

I just got my new green screen from my friend Fiona, because my apartment-mate lost the mailbox key so I had to mail the greenscreen to a friend who lives nearby when I ordered it. Thanks, Fiona. I’ve been using the new greenscreen backdrop in this episode. I’m still getting used to it. Some of the focus and lighting conditions were not ideal since I’m still experimenting, but it does give me more freedom simply because it’s bigger than my good old green piece of paper.

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I just realized that the color scheme of my blog is already very Halloween-y even without extra decorations!

Hm, maybe I’d decorate it a lil bit if I have time. (That kinda depends on when I finish making this week’s episode though.)

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Here’s a summary of what inspired each episode. It can get quite long so I’m breaking them into two posts. The first part is here.

Episode 6: Dance, Dance, Dance
What inspired this episode? Well, I thought it would be fun to have the puppets dancing. It was nice that I didn’t have to write lines, but it’s also very time-consuming to edit. But it was entertaining to watch nevertheless.

Episode 7: Big Dipper
This was inspired by this little tutorial on how to identify stars and constellations in the night sky. It was fun for me, and I thought, what if I do an episode about the night sky? After some brainstorming, I decided that it’d be fun to bring back Bottle Monster’s mom, Mr. Robottle and iBottle. It was tedious to dig out all footages but for me, the callback is worth it.

Obscure UCLA Facts You Didn’t Know
When Rick email me and told me that he liked my videos, I was pretty happy because I’ve always been a fan of his performances and humor. So I started to drag him into brainstorming with me, hehe. And this was around the time that school was about to start so we thought it’d be interesting to do a video on it. This was the episode that’s not really written. We just improvise things on the spot because improvising is actually very natural to us.

Episode 8: Nobody’s Watching
When I was meeting with Rick we came up with a few ideas for upcoming episodes and some of them don’t work that well with the question-and-answer format. I knew at some point, we’d be changing it up a little bit, so this episode is sort of setting that up. And this is another one of those “if you don’t know what to write, then write about not knowing what to write” cases. This is also kind of similar to the first episode where I just make puppets do what I do as a writer with the brainstorming… except that they have the luxury of dramatizations and I can only write on a piece of paper. Also I thought it would be fun to do one of those previews because it’s fall and every channel is doing it for the new season. And it would be fun to do one of those trailers with that deep announcer voice.

Episode 9: WordCraft
This post is inspired by the word “lexicon”. I have no idea why I was talking about that word at work with my co-workers, but I was saying that lexicon is a convention for Lexus cars. It was quite a stretch, but then I thought, hey, maybe I can come up with more words like these. So I came up with a bunch. This was also the first episode with materials written by Rick.

Episode 10: Silent Sneeze
I thought it would be fun to do a silent episode. It would be awesome because it’s a new genre to try and I like trying out new things. Also, I figured that I wouldn’t need to write that many lines so I can have the same length episode while not writing that many lines. It turned out to be a lot of work though, because you have to time the lines and actions to the music, and the motions have to be designed better since there’s no sound involved and there’s a delay in when the captions actually show what they are saying. It’s a very good learning experience though. I had to give Bottle Monster an excuse to not be able to sneeze. First I decided that he cheered for his team too hard so he lost his voice (this was around the time for Major League Baseball postseasons), but later I thought, sneezing would be a more interesting excuse and I can involve the fact that Bottle Monster doesn’t have a nose. It was partially inspired by the “Where is my Hairbrush” song from Vegetales that someone once sent me.

Edit: You know, I wrote this post last night and didn’t bother to read it over until today. What I realized is that I give “would be fun” as the reason for writing the story for most (if not all) of the episodes. I guess that’s what it is. It has to be a fun idea for you. That’s how you write, especially with comedy.

Related post:
What inspired me to write each episode (6-10)
Episode 6: Dance, Dance, Dance
Episode 7: Big Dipper
Obscure UCLA Facts You Didn’t Know
Episode 8: Nobody’s Watching
Episode 9: WordCraft
Episode 10: Silent Sneeze

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We’ve reached episode 10! Ten is not that big of a number, but hey, it’s a milestone. Some of you (or maybe most of you) have wondered how I come up with these ideas for the episodes… well, maybe you can get some clues from this post but in general, a good thing to keep in mind, is: If somebody said “dude, it’d be so funny if so and so happens” or you have an idea that goes “hm, I wonder what it would be like if … so on so forth”, don’t just let it slip away. If you think about it some more, it just might develop into a story!

Here’s a summary of what inspired each episode. It can get quite long so I’m breaking them into two posts.

Episode 1: Making a Podcast
Well, this episode is really a set-up for the rest of the episodes. The purpose was to introduce the characters: Mac and Cheese who is the one that’s interested in putting together a podcast, and Bottle Monster who is the one that comes up with different ideas. Mac and Cheese is the sane guy that’s in charge of running the show smoothly, sort of a homage to how Kermit is the one holding the Muppets together, although it was not intentional. Bottle Monster is the whimsical one that has crazy ideas. To a degree, they are both my alter egos. This episode also sets up the format for the subsequent episodes, which is them answering viewer’s questions.

Episode 2: iBottle
This is written when iPhone came out and created buzz everywhere. Now, Bottle Monster’s original character design was that he solves every problem involving bottles somehow, so that was written into the story here. Today’s technology seem to have a tendency to want to integrate everything into a small device, so I was thinking, what if you have this really simple piece of item that can be used for many purposes too? And so, iBottle was born.

Episode 3: Crazy Names
This is the first episode that’s based on a question sent in by a real viewer. Sometimes I use real letters and sometimes I just make them up… whichever is easier to make the episode entertaining. I know I’d talk about why they are named so at some point, and this was a good opportunity. Bottle Monster’s childhood story was inspired by a Japanese folklore Momotaro-san which involves an old couple that picked up a giant peach from the river, cut it open and found a baby inside, and raised the kid who eventually became a hero in Japan. In fact, the Momotaro-san song was actually one of the very first song that I learned how to sing. My grandma’s generation lived through a period where Taiwan was governed by Japan so she taught me some Japanese songs when I was little, but this was the only song I remembered. I can still sing that song today. Ah, she was such a loving person.

Episode 4: Mr. Robottle
I drink a lot of water when I am at work. It not only keeps my hydrated, but also helps me think, so there are often quite a few empty bottles on my desk. One day I thought, hey, why don’t I build a robot out of the bottles? So I did. And then a few weeks later I thought, hey, I could use this guy in one of my episodes! And so it happened.

Episode 5: Amazing Grass
Bottle Monster, Bobby and Moostifer were originally built for the show The Elephant Room put on by LCC Theatre Company. I wrote a sketch called “Accent Elimination for Animals” and part of what Bobby Moostifer did in the sketch was singing to the tune of “Amazing Grace”. The lyrics go as follows: Amazing Grass, how sweet the lawn. It’s the food I like to chew…” When Myha wrote in a letter about losing weight, I thought it would be the perfect chance to introduce the two characters that like to talk about eating grass all the time. The original design was that they are the experts for everything that Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster go to when they don’t know something, though that device is really not used that often. When you are writing episodes week after week, it’s easy to deviate from your original design, but hey, that’s also part of the fun!

Related posts:
What inspired me to write each episode (6-10)
Episode 1: Making a Podcast
Episode 2: iBottle
Episode 3: Crazy Names
Episode 4: Mr. Robottle
Episode 5: Amazing Grass

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Episode 10 is here! This week, Bottle Monster keeps wanting to sneeze. Mac and Cheese, Bobby, and Moostifer try to help him find a cure through the power of… silent films.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (33MB)
mov format (11MB)

The music is Improbable by Kevin MacLeod. It’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

I considered using a sepia effect on the silent film part, but later decided against it. Also I tried rolling the credit for the first time instead of using still ones. It’s kinda cool. I discovered the rolling credit tool when I was editing. Otherwise I was considering possibly animating the rolling motion myself, but that proves to be unnecessary.

Oh yeah, and I was sneezing every now and then when I was making this film, but once I’m done, I stopped sneezing. Man, the human mind is powerful. Okay, maybe it’s just me.

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Spoiler about the upcoming episode ahead.

I was writing a script about sneezing (and yes, that’s the next episode of Puppet Kaos), so I started reading about it. Of course, the first stop is Wikipedia. I read about it a little bit and then started reading other sites about sneezing too. And guess what, after reading for a lil bit, I let out a sneeze. Oh wow, I didn’t know you can do that!

The next morning, I was still sneezing. I know many actors can cry on cue, but hm, I wonder if anyone can actually sneeze on cue. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe it was my mind. But start sneezing when I read about sneezing is just an interesting experience.

So, yeah, check back soon for the upcoming episode about sneezing!

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1) Brainstorm

If you have done anything creative, like writing a story, making a video, putting on a play, etc., you know that everything starts with an idea. Where did I get my ideas? It depends. I might be watching TV or just looking at something in the room and an idea just pops into my head. Sometimes I am having a conversation with someone, and I just randomly have an idea. A good way to come up with an idea is to ask “what if…?” A lot of times in a conversation someone would say “Haha, what if so and so happens, that would be fun.” Sometimes that just can be a good idea for a story! Don’t just let those slip by. Remember them and think of ways to develop them, if you think the idea is interesting enough and worth your time. Also, it helps a lot to brainstorm with a friend and bounce off ideas of each other. (Thanks, Rick!) Save them up because you might have tons of ideas one week but no ideas at all the next.

2) Writing the script

I like to just write on pieces of blank paper, instead of typing it up on my computer. One reason is that I don’t have a printer, but the primary reason is that ideas seem to flow better when I am using pen and paper. I’m guessing that it’s because I type faster than I write using a pen. So when I’m using a pen, I have more time to develop lines in my mind, rather than finishing a sentence fast and then stare at a (relatively) blank screen thinking, “alright, what next?” After I write the script, I would read it over again a few times and make changes to it. I will also time myself to get an idea of how long this is going to be and to find if there are parts that drag on too much.

3) Filming

It’s a good idea to storyboard first, that is, you design what each shot would look like and draw them out on paper. However, I usually don’t have that many different camera angles so I just put numbers or symbols next to the beginning of the lines to tell myself what kind of shot that is. This system works well, because so far it’s sort of an one-man-show and I don’t have that much to communicate with myself. And then with filming, it’s usually done with a tripod with the LCD panel of the camera turned my way so I can watch what I’m performing. I should probably get some kind of TV screen later because it’s not always easy to see the screen, especially if I’m performing behind a piece of prop or say, under a table. (That was a real problem when I filmed Episode 8 - Nobody’s Watching.) I usually do three takes of every line and pick the best take but that’s just a habit. It really wasn’t that necessary because the shots tend to come out pretty similar anyway.

4) Editing

After I film the footages, I captured them onto my computer from the camcorder. I use Adobe Premiere Pro for editing. I first put all the videos in order because I tend to film out of sequence to minimize set-up time for camera and props. I would also do compositions as necessary (such as green screen shots and split screen effects). Finally I look for music and graphics that I might want to use. I often use Creative Commons stuff because they are free, and you don’t need to ask for permissions to use them (the idea is that the license was already there along with the music or graphics). However, you do have to follow the rules indicated in the license, normally non-commercial, attribution and share-alike. So far I’ve been using mostly Kevin MacLeod’s music and pictures on Flickr albums that’s under Creative Commons licenses. After all the editing is done, I render the video out. This would be a huge DV file (.avi) and I will then use Quicktime Pro to compress the video down to a smaller size.

5) Posting

I usually post to Revver first because I am having problems converting to .mov files and need to use their service instead. After that, I upload to Youtube and then write a post here about it, including who’s involved in the production and a few random thoughts I have making the video.

So, that’s how I do it. If you have any thoughts, do leave me a comment. If you are making a podcast too, I’d love to see it and possibly learn how you do it!

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Episode 9 is here! Last time, in Episode 8 - Nobody’s Watching, Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster decided that they should teach English. Instead of teaching letters like Sesame Street and teaching vowels and consonants like Between the Lions, they decided to teach words with a second meaning that people don’t normally know about. The list of words include stereotype, lexicon, hamlet, listless, sidewalk and multiplication table.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (52MB)
mov format (18MB)

The background images for “stereotype” is “DAB Radios” by Salim Fadhley, for “lexicon” is “Lexus” by Der Kraken, and for “listless” is ” ‘Overflow’ effect at Shaw’s Supermarket” by happylilcoder. All three graphics are generously shared by their original author under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Speaking of Creative Commons, starting from this episode (because I’m too lazy to go back and change previous episodes), I’m going to release my videos under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, thus removing the “All rights reserved” label.

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If you are looking for a tutorial on how to make a puppet that has a movable mouth and hands that can actually grab things, this tutorial is for you! In this post, I’m going to talk about how to make Bottle Monster, who has a structure similar to that of Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, Avenue Q’s Trekkie Monster and The Muppet Show’s Rowlf. A lot of these puppets use furry fabric but of course, that’s not a requirement.

Note that Bottle Monster is a variation of my prototype Mac and Cheese. I will not go as much into details as I did in the tutorial on how to build Mac and Cheese (a moving mouth puppet with arm rods), so I strongly recommend you to take a look at that post if you haven’t. First, the materials:

Now, the steps: (The pictures match the number of steps. Click to enlarge.)

1) Draw your pattern onto the fabric: First draw your pattern onto the non-furry side of the fabric if you are using furry fabric because you will be flipping this inside out later. You want to first fold this piece of fabric in half, and then sew along the line you drew. And then cut it out (be careful, don’t cut the lines you’ve just sewn). At this point you should have some kind of giant bag made of fabric. Now flip it inside out. This would be the basic structure of the puppet.

Note that I have two types of patterns here. The one on top is the most straight forward way of doing it. Once you sew it and cut it, you pretty much already have the head, the body and the hands. However, if you didn’t buy enough fabric (I didn’t), then you can do it like the one at the bottom. The basic structure will lack the hands and you’ll make up for that by making two furry gloves that you will sew to the main structure when they are done. This is a little more work but it’s the way to go when you don’t have big enough fabric.

Also, make sure that you draw the hands way bigger than your actual hands. Why? This is because your fingers have some volume. If you just trace your hand instead of drawing it bigger, your fingers will not fit in the gloves when they are made. Also, in the process of sewing things and flipping it inside out, you lose some room too. So make sure you draw the gloves way bigger than your hand.

2) Make the mouth board: I cut out a piece of cardboard from the cereal box shown in the picture. (By the way, my ex-apartment-mate Scott said it’s very good cereal. I never tried it though.) And then cover this cardboard with a black piece of fabric. You can use felt or sheet foam if you want, but I just used a black T-shirt that I got from Rite-Aid for 2 bucks.

3) Cut a slit across the face to put the mouth board in: For maximum flexibility of the mouth, cut this slit about equal distance to the top and bottom of the face. Use some trials and errors to determine how wide this slit and how big the mouthboard should be. Before you actually glue them together, you can always make changes.

4) Glue the mouthboard in: Glue the mouthboard in. If you had done some experimenting in the previous step, the edge of the mouthboard should fit the edge of the open slit fairly well.

5) Put on the eyes: I drew these eyes on an index card, cut them out, and then glue them to the puppet. You can decorate it some more but I chose to keep it simple.

So that’s how you make a moving mouth puppet with glove hands! Now how do we operate this new puppet?

When this kind of puppet appear on TV, it’s usually operated by two puppeteers. One person will use his/her right hand to control the puppet’s mouth, and his/her left hand to control the puppets left hand, while another puppeteer uses his/her right hand to control the puppet’s right hand. But when you only have one puppeteer, you can go without the right hand. In fact, if you’ve noticed in our podcast, Bottle Monster almost never uses his right hand and I often put him on the right side of the screen as a result. What’s awesome about this kind of puppet is that his hands can actually hold things and have flexible gestures. That’s why in my podcasts, he’s usually the one holding a piece of paper reading questions from viewers.

Speaking of which, if you have a question for Mac and Cheese, Bottle Monster, Bobby and Moostifer to answer in our podcast, send an email to puppetkaos@gmail.com! Don’t be shy!

Related post:
How to make a moving mouth puppet with arm rods (Mac and Cheese)

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Before I post the tutorial on how to build Bottle Monster, here’s a few tips about glue gun usage, since hot glue is what’s used a lot for these kind of projects.

1. Get a low-temp gun: Hot glue guns come in three varieties: high temperature, low temperature, and dual temperature. High temp guns heat up to 380º F (195º C), and low temp guns heat up to about 250º F (120º C). Now, the low temp gun is more suitable for building puppets, because you’ll most likely be using it on fabrics, paper, or maybe plastic and foam. The high temp guns (and glue) get so hot that they might actual demage the materials you are using. Besides, low temp guns will hurt you less when you accidentally burn yourself. When you are using a dual temp gun, choose the low temp setting.

2. Have cold water nearby: Some might suggest having a bowl or cup of cold water nearby, so when you accidentally got glue on your hands, you can quickly dip your fingers in water to cool it down.

3. If you get glue on your finger, rub it against your thumb: Well, I haven’t seen anyone giving this tip, so it’s totally from my own experience. When you got glue on your finger, your first instinct might not be burning your thumb as well. However, if you rub your finger and thumb together with the glue in between, it will quickly harden. And guess what, it cools down in that process. And you can peel the glue off easily so it stops burning you. I actually found this trick to be more useful than water because it’s faster and you don’t get water all over.

4. Don’t ever touch the nozzle while it’s hot: I learned this the hard way when I burned my thumb on the hot glue gun nozzle. It was actually a careless mistake but it hurt.

5. If you burned yourself, take care of it: This should be pretty standard for any kind of burn: run it under cold water and keep it in cold water for a lil bit. Usually, the glue will not burn much if you use a low temp gun. It’s like getting a piece of food on you when you are cooking. It might hurt for a half second but then it’d be gone. Now, accidentally touching the nozzle would be like accidentally touching the pan/pot when you are cooking… it hurts more. But either way, glue guns aren’t likely to cause any severe damage that would not heal itself given some time.

Anyway, just be careful. And even if you burned yourself, it’s not likely to burn you too bad but it’s still an ouchies experience nevertheless. (What? You mean… “ouchies” is not a word?)

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