a contest where the scientist or teachers must explain a flame

Michael Faraday gave a lecture at Harvard "The Chemical History of a Candle" that covers the subject of flames well.  I think Science is pretty exciting all by itself.  Science and puppets....divine.

I know nothing about shadow puppets and even less about the lighting.  When you said fibers I wondered if they were fiber optics. Tiny lights behind unlit screen seems like it might look like stars in space.

I did not realize the color and lines on figure could show up thru the screen. That was interesting how you flipped the goddess figure over so smoothly. Nice to see how it works from behind the screen. Can't wait to see how it developes.

Last night I just saw a new report that kind of relates to what you are trying to do here.  Alan Alda from "Mash" fame is actually really into Science. [etc]

I see what you are doing as relating to what he wants to do because you are taking science and making it interesting and entertaining.

Yeah I've known about him working as an advocate of science for a while. Never paid any attention to it really, as I've been reading all sorts of things that have been unrelated. (I'm a huge fan of MASH so I really should look more at what he's been doing) As it happens, he's just one of many (many) people out there who's making entertaining projects about science. There's a lot of artists out there suprisingly too - musicians, people on Etsy, bakers. You can actually buy lab-themed cookie cutters!   But yeah this is the way Puppets in Melbourne is heading now, with my new look for the business. It doesn't apply to School of Puppetry though. Lots of science-themed stuff.

PS. The script has been updated with your suggestion if you want to look at it. More feedback is always welcome.

Haha, what a great idea. Sometimes I thought that language teacher were pretty good at communicating, but didn't know what they were talking about. While science teachers really knew what they were talking about, but they didn't always find a way to put this information in other peoples brains...

Yeah, I can barely remember half the stuff I learned in school. Surprisingly remember a bit of chemistry and a lot of psych classes... but very little specific about biology or physics. But then, science and maths were never my strong points. I think teachers have a very tough time trying to make something interesting when they're usually stuck teaching from textbooks. My most remembered classes were the ones where we did experiments and/or watched the teacher do some.

I know nothing about shadow puppets and even less about the lighting.  When you said fibers I wondered if they were fiber optics. Tiny lights behind unlit screen seems like it might look like stars in space.

I did not realize the color and lines on figure could show up thru the screen. That was interesting how you flipped the goddess figure over so smoothly. Nice to see how it works from behind the screen. Can't wait to see how it developes.

I never used the word 'fibers'. Not sure what you're referring to... Can you quote the comment you're referring to?

Yes, the colours work well if done right. It really just requires a thin material for the puppet and bright colours (painted, watercolours, pens, whatever). This technique is traditional in the Greek and Chinese styles of shadow puppetry.

The 'flipping' is also something done in Asian shadow puppetry, although I've developed my own technique for doing it. I really love it too

Science and puppets... divine.

I agree. And I may have to steal that for a tagline

Na,
Yes I like the changes. I think you are getting there. I am sure that more well come as you make the elements and work with them.  At least that is how it works with me.

I don't think you ever mentioned fibers in your post but I do see where Snail got that idea. In fact as you mentioned cable control I kind of saw the same thing in my mind. I envisioned a bunch of wires or fibers inside of a tube that where then pushed out to break a part.

"the speck will be on a sort of cable-control, imagine like a telescopic wire with the speck on one "

I guess I was imagining fiber optics for the telescopic wire when you have multiple specks come from the tube.  Like this fiber light.
http://www.xump.com/science/BlueFiberOpticLight.cfm?SID=12&gclid=CLCk6cPag68CFeRdTAoduS503g

Yeah no I meant telescopic in the sense of this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/31151-telescopic-pointer-600mm-length/dp/B000J6879G

LEDs or fiber optics are not something I can afford, nor is it something I even thought of. I've seen various cable-control ideas though that use a similar telescopic device. Technically speaking, I don't even know how well it would work as I have to find a way to keep the inner wires from entangling inside the tube. I couldn't get it to load, but it could be Hobey Ford's site has some useful pdf files for rod/cable-control for this purpose.

Latest update:
http://www.puppetsinmelbourne.com.au/blog.php/2012/03/29/storyboards-and-scripting

I've made a few minor edits to the script to improve weak areas in the action (mainly because of it being a solo performance and my inability to do more than I want).

Additionally, I worked up some basic storyboards to help me figure out how the puppets will work and make sure I'm not screwing up somewhere. Note the storyboards appear from right-left, top-bottom. The images are easier to see on Flickr itself, so click the links for a better view. I won't bother explaining it all as I've done that on my blog.


IMG_7506 by puppetsinmelb, on Flickr


IMG_7508 by puppetsinmelb, on Flickr

Wow you are really doing this the right way! I bet you are one of the only people who has ever done story boards for their puppet show. Nice!

Well normally I wouldn't bother, but I wanted to try and figure out how I was going to build everything before diving in... because the scenery is going to have to do some fancy stuff, I'll likely have to build my screen with some sort of a frame in order to house everything. There are two options: work on a table-top which means I only need the screen/frame, and not a stand/legs; or work with a stand, which allows me to also move scenery up and down behind the scenes.

As you can see, storyboarding the whole thing makes figuring out what to build much easier. Normally I have a pretty good idea in my head of how things will work, but this time the way the scenery works - and the lack of extra hands - means I need to be extra sure I'm not wasting time/materials building something in an unecessary way.

Hopefully today I can start on my prototype and work out some more kinks.

Somehow I'm just discovering this thread.  Your process is fascinating to watch, Na!