Puppet Kaos -

Wow, haven’t posted a new video for two months! This, of course has a lot to do with Christmas. Before Christmas, we had a lot of work to finish and we couldn’t really go on vacation until we finished them. So yeah, I was working hard, making money instead of putting together videos. And then I went home for Christmas, away from all my video making stuff. And then after I came back from Christmas I was just lazy… not so great of an excuse. Anyway, here is an episode that I wrote, recorded, and filmed before Christmas, but couldn’t finish editing in time. Now that I’ve wrapped it up, enjoy!

In this episode, Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster answer questions about tofu and soy milk using shadow puppets. It was my first attempt at making and filming shadow puppetry! Did it turn out perfect? No. But it was fun to do nevertheless.

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m4v format (24MB)
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The background music is Joy to the World arranged by Christopher Baker. It’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 1.0 Generic. No, he didn’t write it but he did arrange and produce it. The original Joy to the World is by Isaac Watts and Lowell Mason. And of course, the lyrics is by moi.

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Episode 13 is here. The new puppet is still not named. Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster suggests that tis the season to be Charlie. And they sing, cuz eh, it’s Christmas and everybody is happy. This introduction is not making much sense. If you watch the video, it probably will make slightly more sense. No guarantees though.

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The music is Deck the Halls by Kevin MacLeod. It’s licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. No, he didn’t write it but he did arrange and produce it. The music was made up by some ancient Welsh dude while the lyrics were written by me. Just look how stupid the lyrics is and you wouldn’t even think someone else wrote it.

By the way, Kevin made a bunch of holiday sing-alongs. You can download them at his website Incompetech.

Oh yeah, here is Charlie the Unicorn if you haven’t seen it.

PS. I just realized that there’s a typo in the video, but, eh, too late to change it now.

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This week, Lapu the Coyote that Cares comes on the show to talk about the upcoming LCC show “Enchant This”. Meanwhile, Mac and Cheese is on vacation leaving only Bottle Monster to host the show.

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When I was in UCLA, I joined a theatre company called Lapu the Coyote that Cares. It’s a student-run theatre company that produces their original shows. All the scripts are written by its cast members, and the directing and acting are all done within the group. I’ve seen many student theatre companies on campus but this was the only one that’s consistently putting on shows every single quarter. My college life would’ve been really different without LCC cuz it was such a big part of my college life. I love being silly and I love being creative. I have really random ideas that just need to go somewhere. This group certainly encouraged creativity, and I learned a lot about making visions come true. It taught me a lot about taking an idea and then somehow turn it into a project and then finally a product. The product might be good, might be bad, but what matters is, it gets done.

Up till the previous show, I was performing with LCC. This is my first show as “the wise alumni that come to see the show”. Who knows how the show will turn out to be? But that doesn’t change my love for student productions. Maybe I’ll write more about that later. For now, here’s the show information:

LCC presents…
Enchant This!
A night of drama, comedy, and improv.

Date:
Monday, November 19th and Tuesday, November 20th
Time:Doors open at 6:30pm, Show starts at 7:00pm
Location: Northwest Campus Auditorium (near Sproul Hall)
Price: FREE! Just show up! Bring your friends!

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Episode 12 is here! This week, Mac and Cheese is confused about daylight saving time and daylight saving accounts. Bottle Monster educates him about the importance of saving daylight.

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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.

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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!

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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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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.

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m4v format (33MB)
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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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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.

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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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Episode 8 is here! Mac and Cheese, Bottle Monster, Bobby and Moostifer sit down to have a meeting because more people are watching Grey’s Anatomy, Law and Order: SVU, and American Idol than Puppet Kaos. They all brainstorm and come up with ideas. And finally they have a trailer for the possible new fall show line-up.

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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.

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This week, instead of a regular episode, we decided to do something experimental. For the first time, we didn’t write any lines before we start filming, and for the first time, we are taking this outdoors. Also this is my first collaboration with my friend Rick Lee, who is a performer / improv-er that I’ve always been a fan of. So without further ado, here’s the video:

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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.

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Episode 7 is here! In this episode, Mac and Cheese and Bottle Monster realized that the Big Dipper in the sky was broken. They decided to fix it… somehow. And this episode tells you about their attempt to fix the Big Dipper, so the people that are relying on it to find the North Star (Polaris) to find directions won’t get lost. Oh yeah, this episode references Episode 2: iBottle and Episode 4: Mr. Robottle. If you haven’t seen them, it would be good to check them out.

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m4v format (43MB)
mov format (12MB)

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

In terms of editing, this episode was quite a monster. It has quite a few items that I needed to animate. There’s quite a few places where I need to make sure the animations and puppetry work together. And a lot of the footages I filmed this time are not that great so it takes a lot of fixing. And also when I made so many references to previous episodes, I had to dig through a bunch of footages. Ah, quite some work, but I like a challenge.

Yeah, I know there’s a continuity but I’m too lazy to go back and fix it, so I am just going to hope that you don’t spot it. I actually expected this episode to come out over 4 minutes but it didn’t. I feel like the pacing is a little off. Certain things, especially the musical montage was a little rushed. But hey, you learn from mistakes. It’s still an entertaining episode, I thought, but I need to be critical to make these things better!

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 4: Mr. Robottle (for the firing at the sky reference)
Episode 3: Crazy Names (for recurring character Bottle Monster’s Mom)
Episode 2: iBottle (for the usage of iBottle and mentioning of Captain Jack)

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