Hi Everyone.  

My name is Don, and I currently live in CT.  I've been visiting Puppets and Stuff for about 4 months now.  I've learned so much, and have made use of some of the information immediately, and have saved much to be used in later projects.  I've just registered today.  I thought it was time I introduced myself to the community.  

I've been working with puppets since around 1982 when I was in High School in MA and worked in my church's puppet ministry.  I've worked in lots of different creative veins (and have lived in many different states) since that time, but about 6 years ago I inherited our current church's children's ministry because of my experience with puppets.  

This year I lead a team and created a whole new children's program called "Faith Factory" and a live set to go with it.  We've refit a lot of our puppets into new roles.  One of my favorite creations so far, is our house puppet band: Gear Box (fitting the "factory" theme).  I wanted to let the community take a peak to see what we've created so far.  

This video features 5 puppeteers, and I'm proud to say that 2 of the best are my 19 year old son, and my 14 year old daughter.

I hope you enjoy it.  

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https://youtu.be/2eLPvGgQ-1w

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff .............. glad you decided to join us. I'm happy to see that you breathed new life into puppets that would otherwise been put in storage. I Loved the video very creative and I liked the song to. Look forward to seeing more of your teams work. Make yourself at home and if you need help just let us know. added the video to your post.

Billy D.

Welcome!!  And thanks for sharing your great video!  Very creative and well done!  I couldn't help but notice the creative use of pool noodles in your set!  I would never have thought of that!! My husband and I worked with our two sons for years on our puppet team and it was wonderful to have all those family memories!!  Glad that you have joined us here on P&S!  I can't wait to see more of your team's work!!

Welcome to PandS!  Love the video work! Very creative. Your puppet set is also great.  I was actually watching your video without sound here because the household is not all awake and I did not want to disturb the others. I made me really focus on the visuals.   That light wall behind the puppets on the upper level is pretty cool.  Is it something you purchased or made yourself?  I know you used green screen on many of the shots but pretty sure that part is "real".

Shawn I might be able to help with the light screen as a lighting designer it looks to me to be an led rope light with red,green,and blue leds by varying the intensity of the led output you can get approx 26 million different colours hues and shades. This rope light looks to be mounted behind a wire mesh, you can run these off a simple controller what I am not sure on is if it is a programmed or sound to light? Looking at the video again there appers to be a reflector at the back the type you get in a 4 flourescent tube fitting like they use in offices they have a concave recessed reflector that the tube sits in.

Great video Doré Creative Co am i on the right track though?

Have a look at www.powellled.com and all will become clearer.

Rope light has to be one of the coolest inventions ever! Back in the stone-age when I was a youngster it took millions of tiny light bulbs string together to get the same effect you can now get with rope lights. I used to get in trouble because I would steal all the Christmas lights from the house for productions.

Billy - Thanks for the welcome and adding the video.
LJ - Yeah, the pool noodles are a great way to add color, and the fact that they also work as cushions to protect the heads of puppeteers has been an added benefit.
Shawn - I spent 5 years working as a concert promoter in NYC and Southern New England.  I really wanted to give our "house band" the best lighting effects possible (within a small church budget of course). 

"Working.Lights" is very close.  The LED lights are a close cousin of "ropelights", but are brighter that most ropelight LED's I've seen..  These particular lights were made for automotive use (designed for 12v, and sealed in plastic tubes so they could be mounted underneath a car for road lighting effects.)  This particular kit came with (2) 48" lights, and (2) 36" lights.  They plug into a small controller board, and we wired a 12v transformer so it plugs into the wall outlet.  The kit cost us about $125.00.  This was the largest expense, but we knew this was the core effect.

We purchased (2) door length mirrors from Wal-mart for $5 each, and mounted them at a 90 degree angle to one another, and then strung the 2 48" light tubes to run in front of those mirrors.  Depending upon where you stand, you can really get that "infinity" from the reflection of all the lights.  Then we mounted that whole unit behind a regular 48" length flourescent light diffuser.  We mounted the whole unit horizontally.

The lighting in back was awesome, but it really overpowered the puppets and made them almost silhouetted.  So I took the remaining 36" tubes, and mounted them behind the fronts of both levels of the puppet stage.  This lights up the puppets at the same time the light box kicks in.

The cool thing is that the light kit came with a small remote control unit, so we can control the lights from our soundboard.  So the puppeteers are free to concentrate on their performance, and the sound guy / roadie can handle the effects.

This fall I really wanted to add a "cryo" effect, where bands shoot off huge column blasts of cryogenic nitrogen into the air at key moments in the song.  We couldn't afford "cryo" but I purchased a fog machine from craigslist for $50, and I use a couple of pvc pipes to gather, split and divert the fog into 2 columns at the front of the puppet stage.  It's a pretty close facsimile.  The kids love it, and their parents are amazed.  We have a lot of people in local bands who are jealous that our puppet band has a better light and effects show then their real bands do.

Next we are purchasing a couple of different colored LED's that point up from those tubes.  That way we can color the blasts of fog.

The fog machine is also great for other puppet skits.

Thanks again for the great welcome.

Its reasuring to know I was hedging my bets in the right direction, not ready to hang up my gaffer tape and maglite just yet (Maglite the best thing to come out of America, aprt from The Muppets long live Henson) With regards to using fog you might find that it will leave a greasy residue on your puppets after a while, have you considered using CO2 fire extinguishers? You still get the effect and its quick dispersing with no rsidue left behind.

I think I know, but what did you use to attach the props like mike and guitars to the hands of the puppets?  If it is what I think it is, it is very clever.

Shawn - Ach!  That was scotch tape...  the puppeteers went a little heavy with it for the filming.  It's not as apparent in real life.  Fishing line can work really well, but requires a bit of work and the ability to make strong knots. We normally use rubber bands because they can be applied quickly, and removed with similar speed.  As a bonus, nowadays it's quite easy to find colored rubber bands that match the color of the puppets skin.

Working.Lights - The current set of fog machines we use are water based, so the normal glazing caused by oil based machines should be lightened, but I'll definitely keep my eye on it.  Thanks.  An additional benefit to the smoke machine is that we have that machine wired with a long extension remote control, so our sound man actually triggers it.

After reading your suggestion for the fire extinguishers I was quickly excited because of how fast the blast could come out.  Definitely more closely resembling actual "cryo" blasts!...  but then I remembered how loud they would be.  In a filming situation it would be easy to remedy, but for our live performances, it would over power our small set.  They are pretty loud when they expel, right?  I guess I haven't operated more than one fire extinguisher in my life, so I don't really know.  What do you think?