Today on People Behind the Puppets
I am speaking to Matthew Robins!
Matthew makes shadow films, animations and he loves music!
Let's find out more!
Hello Matthew, I'm Angel.
Hello Angel nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too!
So, tell me, what got you into designing and making puppets?
Well I was at art school and after art school I had a little break where I toured around Europe with a travelling circus for a while.
Wow a circus!
Yeah so there was lots of juggling and stilts but I was doing the music. A little bit safer.
And I thought, I need to do my own show with music so I got my band together
and we started doing shows with lots of songs about dinosaurs and robots and things
and what I found was, people don't really listen.
So, I thought, I need to add some puppets to this and then people will listen.
So I started making shadow puppets. They're very easy to make.
Very portable and if you're like me, I don't have the skills to make things out of wood or metal. Whereas this is just cardboard.
So it's very easy, doesn't cost very much money and suddenly I added these to my show and audiences would pay attention.
What is it that you enjoy most about making puppets?
I would say for me it is, I like drawing and I like making things and I like getting messy, lots of glue and paint
so everything I make is very homemade like these are from some of my animated stop motion films
it's just, you know, the hair is made from an old mop, this is probably like a bit of an old coat or something, the face is papier mache
so it means I just get to kind of like mess around all day with this kind of stuff.
Tell me a bit more about stop motion animation.
Well stop motion animation is a version of puppetry where you don't see the puppeteer, well I mean hopefully you wouldn't anyway but,
you have these puppets and they've got little metal skeletons inside made out of some wire
what you would do is if I wanted this puppet to walk along the table, for example, I would have to
move it a little tiny bit like this, take a photograph
do it again, take a photograph.
You do this hundreds and hundreds of times, lots of tiny little movements and then when you play it back it looks like it's come to life.
Wow that sounds like it takes a long time.
It does take a long time yeah. I mean my films are music videos mostly so they're about 4 or 5 minutes but
recently I did a film that was 25 minutes and that took a few months.
Wow a few months! Gosh.
So when you are making and designing, what 3 things do you have to consider?
I would consider the story, the audience and is it going to make people laugh. These are things that are most important to me.
So in a way, there isn't a particular kind of puppet that I always want it to be I just think what's right for this story
so for example, you know, this is one of my characters Fly Boy, he's a shadow puppet.
Whereas these, this is another puppet from one of my films this a little 3D kind of model.
So I think what's going to be right for the story? What's going to make the audience laugh? How are they gonna feel a part of what I'm showing them?
So those are the things that I would always consider I think first of all.
Lots to think about there thank you.
There are a lot of different types of puppet. We've talked about stop motion animation but what's your favourite type?
I mean I would say the type I enjoy making the most are shadow puppets because it's very similar to drawing
so you can be very expressive. Like for example this dinosaur puppet that I'm going to demonstrate in a little bit.
It can have these tiny little feet that wouldn't support a dinosaur in real life.
No!
But because it's a shadow puppet, it's like a cartoon that comes to life.
So you can be very expressive and also as you can see you can be quite messy.
So if you get it wrong you can stick more bits on because when we see it as a shadow, it suddenly looks very magical and clean and tidy.
Well why don't we take a look?
Ok so, let's, yeah I'll show you this in action.
So here we can see the little shadow now on this nice bit of cloth which you've probably got at home. It's just a curtain.
So, it's just the little moving mouthpiece and then
here
turn it around
it's tail
So then, you can put on a little show for your family.
The dinosaur creeping.
*Roar!*
Well, that really looks like something our viewers can try at home.
Well yeah I mean it's pretty easy. This is made out of things that we've all got around the house, hopefully.
Cardboard. I mean this is a bit of blue card from the art shop but if you've got a Cornflakes packet, something like that.
I don't know if Angels eat Cornflakes.
Mmm, sometimes.
Barbeque skewers.
Oh we eat barbeques.
(Matthew laughs)
That's the mechanism. These are little paper fasteners that are the hinge on the jaw there.
Yeah and as you saw in the little demonstration I was just using the torch bit of my phone as the light source and just an old sheet or a curtain.
So it's very homemade.
Yeah and you've got a little sheep down there as well what's that all about?
This is from one of the stop motion animation projects I made this is for a musician called Passenger.
So, I mean this is, you know you could make this yourself at home it'll take a little bit more time.
This is a little, inside the sheep is a little wire body
and then I've just stuck papier mache around his legs and the head is made of papier mache and then, ok if you watch this.
Head comes off!
Because in stop motion you want things to happen, you want things to look like they're alive but if you make the puppets like me out of papier mache
you can't really move it around too much, it's quite solid. So, I've got this angry sheep's head.
Woah!
So in the scene with this sheep, he's attacking a wolf so you've got this gentle little sheep
and then I'll take a photo, move it, take a photo like I described
and then suddenly it's going to lunge forward at the wolf so I would take the head out
put this new one in. Whoops. Also the ears come off so it means I've got
there's a little hole through there can you see that?
Oh yeah.
So I stick that in so that also means I can kind of move the ear around as well so you get all these little bits of movement.
But you have to do it yourself you have to move it, then take a photo, move it, take a photo. Animation's quite a slow process.
Yeah.
So then I would stick this in the little hole like that and I would probably put a bit of Blu Tack in otherwise it's gonna fall out.
So suddenly you've got an angry sheep.
Oh yes very angry!
So it means you've got to plan ahead and it's a little bit like that with shadow puppets because you can't
you can't create distance very easily so like this sheep for example if I want it to look like it's suddenly far away from you, from the audience or from the camera
I would just move it far away, like that.
With a shadow puppet, if you move shadow puppets far away from the light source they're suddenly going to get quite blurry.
So earlier on I showed you Fly Boy. So here he is. This would be in quite a close up scene.
Because you've only got half the body there. He'll be talking to one of his friends like he's talking to you now.
And then so in the next scene I want to show the audience Fly Boy walking off in the distance.
I've got to make a tiny version, like that.
So it's always going to be the same distance from your light, from your torch, you see?
Wow.
Same with this, this is one of my characters Gravity. He's really happy here.
Yeah.
But, there's a bit in the story where Gravity isn't happy because he ate too much. Christmas dinner.
So, I can't make this puppet look sad because he's made of cardboard, nothing can move.
So what I do is I make a similar puppet
where he's looking sad, or angry. Then I just swap them round.
That is very interesting. Thank you so much Matthew.
Thank you for having me.
You're welcome!
If you want to make a puppet, a shadow puppet like Matthew's dinosaur, then you can download the instructions on our website.
Thanks for watching, see you next time, bye!