I WANT TO PLAY!!! 

Pros and cons. I can only say that if I was in a different spot in life, I would be trying out. I'd probably be the first to be booted out due to lack of skill or something, but it would be fun for as long as it lasted. Best of fortune to you Arthur, I hope you get on the show, and that it lives up to your hopes. Just remember, I'm competing against you in my head, and rooting for you in reality-land.

You are wrong there Na, sorry. I know quite a few professionals who do actually watch shows that pertain to their industry.   The audience may not be wide but it is the one you want to be in front of. A person could say "Hey why preform at a puppetry festival? It is a limited audience."  True but it is your piers and often those are the ones that may offer a job opportunity down the line.

Well, *peers* may watch, but I don't think *piers* will

I'm generalising, but I really don't think the target would be the professionals; yes some will watch, but I'd bet when they pitched the show they didn't say "professional puppeteers are our audience" but "those interested in how special effects and costumiers and so on are our audience". Otherwise it's too narrow.

You mentioned something about the time frame for building looking short and that editing makes it look simple. The shows I've seen of this type yes are edited but they do give you a sense of how difficult it can be.  In regards to the time frame. We are dealing with what I call the Hollywood approach.  If you want to work out there you better be able to whip something up in a matter of days if not hours. If you can't you are not going to be working out there. Many people can do that and in fact thrive in such an environment. There are also a lot more resources available out there.  I've worked with "Hollywood" before. They where here in KC and they just could not understand why it would take two days to get such and such... "Can't you just drive over and get it?" They did not realize we where having to order and get things from other places.

Quite possibly you are right. It's easy for me to forget that things can happen faster in the US because there are far more resources, they are usually closer or require less shipping time, and there are often far more people with the skills you need in the area you live in. I can't see the show working here for those exact reasons: the number of people who know and work with robotics for instance would be far smaller and rely on more shipping issues.

I have to agree with that comment. We all have choices and for some this would be the right one.  I do think that minimum wage should be higher and I hate to see professionals like servers in restaurants having to rely on tips to make a living. Reality is that there are those who are going to work for that minimum wage and appreciate it because without it they would be out on the streets. I in no way blame them for that.

Our minimum wage makes yours look insanely small. I have nothing against people taking the risk, or doing something for free in exchange for the fun or whatever - heck, I did that last year with that music video. I'm just saying that a pervasive attitude exists across the board about art not being worth as much as everything else. (People can browse the Clients From Hell website and see numerous designers from all areas complaining of it) My point was less about those who do take the risk, and more about the trope that is "quick, get it before someone else does".

Na, I'm not sure how to take your response... You bring up some good points and some counter-arguments to things that I wasn’t making in the first place. I don’t know if I’m just communicating badly or I wasn’t clear that I’m trying to play Devil’s Advocate.

Nah, I'm playing devil's advocate too

I completely agree that the real winners are the host/judges/crew/etc. but I disagree about the audience. No TV executive would put money into and air a show that has a small concentrated audience that doesn’t want to buy into products or advertising. The show’s producer should be aiming for either (a) a large and broad audience, or (b) a small concentrated audience who could be sold products or advertising. If you’re right, I’d wager the show doesn’t last very long if it gets aired at all.

Yes, which is why I am suggesting that the broader audience is not professionals who would be considering hiring you, but the folk at home who like Yoda (the original) and wanted to know how it was done; but aren't necessarily going to run to the nearest shop to buy something. In other words: if you're going in the hopes of improving your career you're basically going for the contacts, and not the resulting views from the audience. It's why I compared it to Prototype This or Mythbusters: the people who watch are not the special effects people but the armchair and weekend builders.

Okay, I admit I may have made a stupid statement. Let’s make a distinction between Professionals and Hobbyists though. My comments we’re mainly based on Professionals meaning there can be plenty of opportunities for Hobbyists. Also why single out “the guy who makes puppets for his grand kids”? He was just one of three examples that I gave.

I didn't - it was an example just like yours. I'm currently kicked out of my house while renovations happen so I'm not spending a lot of time detailing every thought.

If you look at Shawn’s original post it states that they’re seeking applications from “puppeteers, special effects artists, creature creators, and character designers with skills including but not limited to puppetry, drawing, sculpting, painting, robotics, animatronics, fabrication, sewing and costume design” which means that they’re plenty of opportunities for the bubbly, quirky, annoying or overconfident individual with a different specialty and may not have much experience with puppets to get a spot over the trained professional.

Yes. I think the confusion lies not in who is *applying*. I've been talking about who is *watching*.

To clarify: about the people applying... The people applying will be more towards the professional, or at least the hobbyist who is dedicated enough to apply. There may be amateurs, but again, it's going to be a person with enough experience - aka confidence - to want to apply. Again, I also return you to the point about "it depends on where they look for people". If the producers are only contacting organisations or well-known bloggers, then they're not going to be trickling down to "the guy who makes puppets for their grandkids" (as an example) because you'd be surprised at how few people actually know about puppetry organisations (for example). As in, in order to trickle down to the person who has made puppets for their grandkids and has never even thought about joining a puppetry organisation, let alone knowing it exists, you have to approach contacting those people a different way.

*However*, that has nothing to do with my points about who is *watching*, which most definitely would be the person at home who has made a few puppets or has thought of doing it, or is just curious to see how movie magic works.

I don’t quite understand what you’re getting at here, and I think your comment of “naive” is unfair given that my original comment had nothing to do with how the show is made, it had to do with the risks of signing away your rights and the possible rewards or gains that might come a contestants way. Also, the show in question isn’t a talent show where you find a lot of audience voting system. Correct me if I’m wrong, but shows like MasterChef, The Block, America’s Next Top Model all use judge voting, and from what I understand this puppet series has a lot more in common with these than it does with the Idol’s and Got Talent shows which is why I phrased my comment the way I did.

We probably agree far more than you think, again I'm playing devil's advocate. My guess is that your risk/benefit says "it's probably worth it", and mine says "it's probably not worth it". And we are taking a grain of salt for both the risks and the benefits and just coming to a different conclusion.

As for the voting system... I like you think the most probable system will be judge voting. My point in using the other shows was again, example. The idea that people get voted off simply because they produced something that wasn't good enough is too simplistic, and my main point was that you may have produced perfectly fine work and still got kicked off due to various other reasons. Again, devil's advocate...

That was the point I was trying to make. If you don’t like the game then don’t play it, no one’s forcing anyone to play by the rules of TV producers. But I’m sure there’s going to be someone who wants to play.

I agree with you. I just think that it's not necessarily worth it, and there are many other ways of making contacts without signing away your work.

... This is the point where I mention that my business has pretty much crashed into the ground, that I am no good at marketing, and as an introvert I don't schmooze and have never gotten work simply by "having contacts". So the sum of it is: WTF do I know? 

Well, *peers* may watch, but I don't think *piers* will

  I knew I was going to get that one wrong! Some one really needs to come up with a spell check that can read my mind and know what I mean!  Heck I agonize over "well" and "will" every time I go to use one of them and why is it my fingers always want to type "thier" wrong... I mean "their".

That's ok. I'm jesting...

PS. Came home from King Kong, will post review asap.

PS. Came home from King Kong, will post review asap.

Whoo Hooo! Cool!

Meh... it's going to be a long one... you may be waiting a few hours.

I was going to do it but being a family guy with lots of bills it wasn't practice. I even had filled out the paperwork gathered my sample images and came up with a cool design I thought. Unfortunately the pay was only 400 a week before taxes. They were very nice and I understand with it being a start up they need to keep expenses down. It was disappointing though i would love to have been a part of it.

I thought about it. I've got the in-person personality in spades but with a kid now leaving for X months is not worth 'a chance' at 100 grand.

If they want to pay me 100 grand to leave my job and be on the show giving them legendary drama and sound bites I'm not hard to find! But for just a chance? No thanks.

The rights issue is a nonissue to me. That's pretty common on the reality show circuits nowadays. And if your only good creations are during the show, you are probably not winning anyways. True creatives can thrive in that environment and bang out original works day by day.


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True creatives can thrive in that environment and bang out original works day by day.

If only because I am in this particular headspace right now: are you a "true creative" if you're having an extended dry spell and/or creative block? Are you a "true creative" if you find stressful situations, enormous deadline pressure, and cameras in your face, to be creatively off-putting?