Here's a video I produced with the help of my churches puppet ministry.  It's a short telling of the bibles account of Solomon asking God for wisdom.  This story is part of a collection I'm putting together for a Vacation Bible School project.  It's kind of a test video for me, the final project I want to be much more professionally done.  It features five of the bug puppets from the Joshua JuneBug series:  Seth Slug, Prof. Inch, Adam Ant, Joshua JuneBug and Richelle Rhino Beetle.



Let me know what you think.

Jon

Jon,
I love it!  The story line is great.  I like the Betty Lukens background.  The lighting might need adjusted in the first half so that the characters stand out more.  I'd have an adult do the voice of God, or at least someone who's voice stands out amongst the others. The kids voices sound all the same, so if you can coach them to sound a little different from each other that would make the characters more distinct.  Your puppets film nicely.  They look great!  Wonderful project!!

Nice puppets! The background, gret for he scene. And is a nice script.

Would be great if all puppets christian script talk about the stories of the Bible (old testament) and from the new testament *(the good news of salvation througt our LORD JESUS CHRIST)

Good job

Miguel!

AMEN brother about puppets sharing the good news of Jesus!

PuppetLady - Yeah the children's voices tend to sound the same when their recorded, especially if you don't know the voice.  This particular recoding was for a presentation in the church so it was important for the partents and grandparents to hear their children's voices.  

For the final project I plan to use other people for the voices.  In fact I will be doing several of the voices my self.   I will keep it in mind when I'm working on the VBS videos to make sure each characters voice is recognizable.

Overall very well done and thought out.  I like the children voices they just need more coaching and encouragement to get "more" dramatic.  Since this is for younger kids they would really tune into hearing other "kids" voices with the puppets.  I agree that the god should have an adult style voice to make it stand out. 

You did great and it turned out great for your first attempt at such a project.

Daryl H

Jon

I'm not sure how this one got by me  I'm glad to see things moving along. Looking back at when you started on the first puppet and where you are today that is quite a accomplishment. I'm postive with plenty of practice as time goes by your puppeteers will do just fine. I think this is great video.............. with the kids and I love the idea of video vs live performance because it takes the direct pressure off the kids as you film them in a more relaxed situation. I do however think teaching live performance should still be practiced. Congratulations I think your team is shaping up nicely.
Question? When the kids watched it for the first time what was there comments about there performance? I just thought that would be a interesting point of view coming from kids.

Billy D.

Billy - I think they thought of it more as my project than theirs.  The kids thought it was nice and for the most part I think they had fun putting it together.  Their parents also thought it was nice, but no more so than the live performances our puppet team generally does.  The churches puppet team as been up and running for several years and I think this is the first video production they have done.  they have video taped their other performances but the perforamnce was live with a stage.  That experience was helpful but in other ways it was a hinderance.  You may have notice that one of the puppets  drifted out of the shot near the end.  That was actually one of the more experienced puppeteers.  But she wasn't used to having to watch a monitor to know if she was where she needed to be.  She was used to simply haivng to pay attention to where she was in relation to the other puppets.

I'll tell you one thing, from the directors perspective its a lot more work producing a video.  That being saidif you're picky and your puppeteers are patient with you, you cold put to gether a near perfect performance.  All the mistakes just get edittted out.  This one ended up being done entirely at the last minute so the quality is not there.  Better lighting experience and another 5 hours of shooting and three hours of audio recording and I could have had better video.  But it was a great experience and I learned a lot to put toward future producitons

Pastor Jon! What software program you used to edit your video?

Miguel!

Kudos to you Jon.  You are actually not only ministering to the audience, but to a group of kids as well.  How nice for them that you take the time couch them.  Keep us up to date on how your group is doing.

Pam