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The premise of the contest was that they provided the green screen footages of Brad Paisley singing the song, and you can use the footages in your video any way you like. I was glad that I participated, because I’ve always wanted to try these things:

1. make a music video
2. purchase and learn to use a sewing machine
3. build more new puppets
4. build puppets that are humans (as opposed to “monsters” and animals)
5. build puppets that have shoulders made out of foam and cloth them
6. build puppets with hair made out of yarn
7. try out new lighting set-up
8. enter a contest
9. overlay several different green screen shots

And somehow making this video has all those elements! Of course, that’s also because I consciously attempt to try out a new technique every time I make a new video, but so many of them at once? That hasn’t happened before. So yeah, it was definitely a good experience. And I hope you all have as much fun watching it as I have making it!

In this episode, Mac and Cheese is having a hard time falling asleep. Bottle Monster suggests sheep-counting as possible remedy. And then… I think it would be more fun to watch the video and find out for yourself instead of having me tell you.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch Insomnia on Youtube.
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m4v format (22MB)
mov format (7MB)

I actually got the idea for this episode when I was sort of dozing off. Also, filming this one made me realized something: it’s probably a good idea to get a small TV to use as a monitor. See, with the bed scenes, I was operating one puppet on each hand. And that can get pretty awkward already… especially when Mac and Cheese was in bed and Bottle Monster was supposed to be on the side. AND I had to twist my back and neck just enough so that I could actually see the camera’s tiny LCD screen. Since I like to find the easy way out, I think I should probably get a monitor so I don’t have to look at that small screen. Heck, it’s easier than becoming a contortionist!

In case you are wondering what’s that book Bottle Monster was reading, it’s Marisa Haedike‘s What Are You Going to Be Today, Olive?

The tracks used are Earnest and Hamster March, both by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported.

PS. What’s a little odd is, the video and audio are slightly off in the two downloadable files. But when I uploaded the file to Youtube, it seems to be free of that problem. Weird.

Previous episodes:
Episode 15: Godfather Nightmares
Episode 14: Tofu
Epiodse 13: Tis the Season to be Charlie

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Baaaaah, Behhhh. In this tutorial, we’ll talk about how to build Bobby, a moving mouth sheep puppet with arm rods. Bobby is based on the prototype Mac and Cheese which we’ve talked about how to build earlier. It is structurally very similar except with more decorations. The major difference is that the mouth is built seperately and then attached to the outside instead of inserted inside. This tutorial is therefore going to focus on the things that’s different from the prototype.

Here’s a list of materials used, followed by the steps:

1. Build the basic structure: Like how we built Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster, you want to fold the fabric over, trace the pattern, sew it up, and flip it over. For more detailed instructions please look at step 1-5 of the How to build Mac and Cheese tutorial.

2. Build the mouth: First we need to cut cardboard into the shape of a mouth board (pic 2a), and then we glue felt on it so it doesn’t look like a piece of cardboard. In the last two puppets we used black fabric for the mouth. This time I thought I would try red felt for a change.

And now it’s time for the exterior portion of the mouth. In pic 2b, you can see that I started gluing some fabric to make the jaw. In pic 2c, you can see the jaw is done. In pic 2d, the upper part is also done. Notice that you are only gluing the edges of the fabric. You want to have space between the fabric and the cardboard. You are creating pockets so that you can put your hand inside to manipulate the mouth. Also it makes the mouth look more three dimensional. The mouth part is done by now. Sure, it doesn’t look like a sheep yet, but already you have a mouth to play with!

3. Glue jaw to the bottom of the face: In the previous two tutorials, we cut a slit across the head/face portion of the basic structure and then put in the mouth. This time, we have not only the mouth but also the face to put in. So we cut out a circle instead of just a slit. Now you want to glue the the jaw to the lower portion of the circle. There should be space between the upper portion of the circle and the upper portion of the mouth, because we still need to put in the rest of the face, such as eyes.

4. Put in the upper half of the face: This will be the flat part of the face (unlike the mouth, which is the protruding part). First cut out a piece somewhat larger than the area you are covering (pic 4a). And then glue the top of the fabric to the top portion of the circle cut out (pic 4b). And once you are done, glue the side to the side of the circle, and the bottom of the fabric to the top of the mouth. By now, the basic structure, the mouth we made earlier, and this new piece of fabric we put in to be the mouth should all be connected. Then we put in the eyes. Now we basically the head done (pic 4d).

For the last two puppets I draw eyes on index cards and then cut them out. This time I decided to try something different. In pic 4c you see these plastic craft/stuffed animal eyes that you can purchase at craft stores. The way you install it is simple. First drill a hole wherever you want the eye installed. Stick the screw looking part (the black piece in this picture) into the hole, and hold the washer looking part (the white piece) behind the hole so the two pieces fit together, sandwiching the fabric (which is the face) in between. Please make sure you already planned out where the eyes are going to go, because once these things are installed, it’s very hard to get them off without breaking things.

5. Put in the ears: First cut out the ear shape out of the fur babric (pic 5a). And then you can glue on a smaller piece that’s not furry to create the inside of the ear (pic 5b). Of course, this is not required but this gives the puppet more personality (or sheeponality). Before I installed the ears, I first decided to pinch parts of the back of the head (pic 5c) and sew them together. This is to make the head smaller. In the last two puppets, the head space is shared by some polyfil and the mouth board. However, with this puppet, the mouth protrudes and doesn’t take up head space. That’s why I am making the head smaller. And then you can glue on the ears. When you are done, you have something like pic 5d. And all that’s left to do is put on the arms.

6. Make the arms and rods: First make the arms. The arms are just two tubes made from two strips of fabric folded over and sewn together. Sew or glue these two tubes onto the main body of the puppet and stuff in some polyfill to give it some volume (muscles, if you will). Pic 6a wasn’t quite clear so you’ll have to use your imagination.

And then you want to drill a hole towards the end of the arm (near where the hand/hoof will be). This is for the rod to go through (pic 6b). Then we make the arm rod. I glued a piece of cardboard on top of a bamboo skewer so the rod would stay in place (pic 6c). Then you want to put the rod through the hole we’ve just drilled (pic 6d). And finally we take a piece of fabric to seal the arm tube. This has two purposes. One is to give it the hand/hoof look. And another was to seal that piece of cardboard in so our rod doesn’t slide out of the tube. And now you are done!

Oh wait, one more step. The head might be a little empty at this point, and when you touch the top of the head, it just sinks in. All you have to do is make a little pouch/bag, put some polyfill in it, and stick it into the head. I don’t even seal it, because sometimes I would like to take the bag out to adjust the amount and shape.

And that’s how you build Bobby!

More puppet building tutorials:
How to make a moving mouth puppet with arm rods (Mac and Cheese)
How to make a moving mouth puppet with glove hands (Bottle Monster)

List of videos Bobby has appeared in so far:
Episode 12: Daylight Saving
Episode 11: The Truth Behind Halloween
Episode 10: Silent Sneeze
Episode 9: Wordcraft
Episode 8: Nobody’s Watching
Video Special: Obscure UCLA Facts You Did Not Know
Episode 6: Dance, Dance, Dance
Episode 5: Amazing Grass

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (40MB)
mov format (15MB)

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
Office Buildings	Bobby’s narration background	Sylvain Racicot	CC Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
bank at night	Moostifer night vitamin background	Carsten Tolkmit	CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
A car drives by in the night	Moostifer’s solar power car	Ben Watkin	CC Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
A discovery	Dinasaurs talking	Denise Chan	CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic
Comet McNaught	Comet	Steve Crane	CC Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

This is also the first episode filmed during day time (except the outdoor UCLA video) using natural daylight, which fits the theme, although it’s not intentional. In fact, I didn’t realize that until just now. Filming in the dark certainly has some weirdness associated with it.

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.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
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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.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
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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.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
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m4v format (38MB)
mov format (14MB)

The announcer for the trailer segment of the video is my friend and co-worker Alvin Lam. He’s an actor who’s been on CBS’s “The Unit”. In this podcast episode, you only hear his voice. To watch him, check out episode “Freefall” (Season 2, Episode 22) of “The Unit” where he played a spoiled Thai prince. Many thanks to his highness for voicing over our little puppet show.

The music is Welcome to the Show by Kevin MacLeod. It’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

The background picture used in the “Who’s Smarter than a Chair” shot was by “Sports Chair” by Jeff Kramer. It’s also licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

If you have any thoughts, feel free to leave me a comment. Also remember that you can have new posts emailed to you or subscribe via iTunes.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
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Or download Quicktime movies here:
m4v format (78MB)
mov format (45MB)

It was a fun experience and experiment. The way this episode worked was like this: Rick and I both thought up ideas seperately beforehand, and then when we met up, we just developed the ideas a little more or went straight to filming. We did not write any lines and when we were done filming the ideas we came up with, we just walked around and looked for whatever that inspired us. Nhi joined us halfway and helped us film some scenes too.

I really enjoyed having the luxury of working with people that can just improvise. You don’t need to tell them what to say, and you don’t need to tell them where to point the camera. Also, I normally do three takes for each shot in regular episodes, but in this video, we just did one take for pretty much everything. Everything was more spontaneous. That actually made editing a lot easier. And collaborations are definitely more fun than me sitting in front of the camera talking to myself, haha. So thanks again, Rick and Nhi!

Yeah, I know some hands are showing and some heads are visible in the shots. Some shots looked a little odd, but whatever. It was fun that way.

If you can’t see the embedded video,
Click here to watch it on YouTube.
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m4v format (37MB)
mov format (15MB)

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

If you have any thoughts, feel free to leave me a comment. Also remember that you can have new posts emailed to you or subscribe via iTunes.

Related posts:
Episode 5: Amazing Grass
Episode 4: Mr. Robottle
Episode 3: Crazy Names
Episode 2: iBottle