Hi All

Here's my new shadow puppet film 'The Upper Berth'
It's based on a classic ghost story by Francis Marion Crawford. I've mixed more live shadows with the puppets. I'd love any feedback. I've just finished it and may make a few more final edits. Did anyone find it scary/creepy? I hope so, anyway here it is



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https://youtu.be/aD2tAa8_Crk

Al the best
Richard
www.muckypuppets.blogspot.com

I like it! Creepy it was but not sure if I found it scary. Then again I am a horror and zombie fan so I may be immune. I always enjoy your work. I did find the use of live shadows in this one distracting. The live shadows did not seem to blend as well this time. Have you used "people shadows" before? Still a very good piece.

Thanks Shawn

It is my first people/puppets film so a bit of an experiment and a story I've wanted to film for a while. I'm glad it was creepy! It's quite hard to make something actually scary as I'm finding out. My feature film Wolfskin is well on the way, I'm hoping to finish the filming of it next year and I hope to have Suck-A-Thumb 3: Mother Sucker ready for Halloween. I'll post it here.

Cheers
Richard

After I posted my "review" I kept trying to think of why I found it distracting. I think maybe it was because you used both traditional shadow puppets and real people for the cast and often in the same shot is the reason. It also occurred to me that the live actors cast a softer silhouette then the puppets.  Maybe pulling the puppets away from the screen so their edges blurred some like the live actors would help.  Of course this is all just my take on it. Hopefully others will give you some feed back on the video and my comments won't influence them.

I think scary can be hard to do and especially in the YouTube format. I am not sure I would find some of the horror films I've seen on screen as scary if I watched them on a tiny box in a page.

P.S.  I went ahead and embedded the video. Maybe that will get some other reviews of it.

I love it, it creates a nice gothic athmosphare, spinechilling. The ghostscenes are really great, even if confusing. But I like to get confused by art. I also like the difference between the actors and the puppets. Can't wait for the next!

I love the idea and film itself. Great job thats for sure! Thanks for sharing

Thanks very much for your comments everyone. It's helping! I'm re-editing it a little so I'll re-post the latest version soon

I'm still not through with all your videos, but I love them! Where did you get the slaughter story idea? I know the brothers Grimm edited their stories and left some out, but I didn't think anybody would turn them into movies. Your are awesome- guess I have a new ADDICTION.

Hey Rikka

Thanks! It's great to hear you're enjoying them. The Slaughter idea is from the Brother's Grimm When Children played at Slaughter and it is one of the stories they took out of their first edition. I love the odd little stories, I've made a film of 'Frau Trude ' which is on youtube and 'The Tale of Mr. Fox' In production is a short called 'Spring-Heeled Jane' set in war time London and my 3rd Suck-A-Thumb film 'Mother Sucker' more will be online soon

Cheers
Richard x

I've started chasing friends to your channel. But of course: it is hard to understand for nonnative speakers since there is a lot of talking- music videos like the soul men are much easier ;-). I'm looking forward to see "mother sucker", I liked the trailer.