- Look at me.
- Okay honey.
- Why you no look at me anymore?
- I am looking.
- You, I'm over here.
- I know, but look on the T.V. I'm looking at ya.
- Oh yes, very good.
(laughter)
- I understand everything.
(mystical music)
- Puppetry's a funny art because you don't
really notice it, unless it's wrong.
So in anything, in theater, or in film or television,
if it's wrong you're like
"that thing looks weird, he's just broke his neck
the way he looked round there."
So but when it's right you shouldn't think about it,
like Louis says, you shouldn't really think about puppets.
Once you've got in the zone of Dark Crystal,
when you watch episode one and you go
"Okay, that's how they are, that's how that tribe is
and that's how these guys are."
Then you forget that, hopefully,
and that all just falls away.
Like when you watch Nick Parks stuff, you know?
You don't go "Oh, well this is made out of plasticine."
You know, you just fall in, you buy into that world
like in cartoons or whatever.
- And we're so aware of the skeleton and the gravity.
You know, so like things shouldn't bend the wrong way
because that's an injury.
(laughter)
We're constantly aware of that.
- Yeah, we should show the polling.
Maybe it's because some of these points are better
to be illustrated with the real thing, right?
- You have the Skeksis, you have the Gelfling,
and also the Podlings as well.
- [Dave] Yeah, Podlings are great fun all day and all night.
Everyone loves a Podling. (laughter)
If you detail someone a Podling,
like "Hey, Fred, today you're a Podling."
They go "Yay.
- Cha-ching.
- All the Gelfling shots are hard, no question.
Everything about a Gelfling does is hard.
- [Warrick] It takes so much concentration.
- [Dave] Yeah, and stillness.
And then a Podling I light them up at show,
which we'll show you in a minute because
it's all big and broad and funny.
And Skeksis like pantover because they are again
big and you have to turn a Skeksis around and
look down the lense and it's terrifying.
And they're huge as well, that's the other thing.
The Empress is about 7'2", 7'3" once I'm in it and it's on.
Like, people come to the set and grown men,
they look at them like "Oh my God, it's terrifying."
(laughter)
- Because they're also up in the air.
- Because they have the memory from their childhood.
(laughter)
- All the nightmares come flooding back.
- We had two days in the Podling wayhouse which is
the Podling pub, and it was the best two days.
We just skipped around, singing and dancing and
there was like beer jugs with foam on top and
we were flinging the foam at each other and stuff.
- It was like a jamboree of like how many
site guys can we get in this scene, ya know?
Like, this guy's drunk, he falls over,
his wife punches him in the face, ya know.
So many things, they're not all in the show but
we did have such a giggle.
- [Warrick] But then because it's so much fun
you want to do it all the time.
So you guys can't see it, but we know that we're the
two Podlings over here and then in the reverse we're like
"Oh no, I'm doing that one."
So then we're over here doing this and then we're up there
doing the musicians, we're just all over the place.
- Yeah. But that's another weird thing, you talk to yourself
so there's sequences where, because we play
multiple characters in the show--
- [Chris] Like when Autumn talks to the Emperor.
- [Dave] Yeah, Autumn comes and talks to the Emperor
so there's this whole thing of like I must order the
shot where he's really thinking,
it's a very powerful moment in the show.
And then of course, you just get that off your sheet
and it's like half past 11 in the morning and you're like
"Whew, got that out of the way."
And then of course you got to flip it and get in the Emperor
and do the other side of that shot and talk to
somebody else standing in for you.
And it's just continuous, just relentless.
- And then you need therapy all night.
(laughter)
- [Chris] It looked heavy as well because when you're
inside the Skeksis as well you're strapped in essentially,
you have the monitor as well.
- They're very heavy. Like you said, we've got the straps
and we've got the everything.
So it keeps the body up, you don't have to hold the body up.
The body is just suspended in mid-air because
it's attached to your body.
And the head's heavy, and the head's just resting on
the back of your hand, because there's all the
animatronics inside there.
And then you get into the armor for the battle,
and the blades and the wings and stuff.
So yeah, like it's just to sweat you down.
We were sweating down to or knees some days.
(Chris laughs)
- [Dave] And also the other is a standard creature suit.
A standard creature suit is pretty hot, but this is because
of the beautiful design of Brian and beautiful
costume designers, you've got a cotton and then
a crinoline, then the fabric, then a gauze,
then like the great ruffs and the ruffles.
All the jewelry, the chains.
The Emperor has these heavy gloves and rings and
the cape, and everything.
- But all those textures are great in 4K.
- Yeah it looks great, yeah.
- It's worth it.
Like, I had to wait until I saw the series and
I was like "Okay yeah, it was worth it."
- Yeah it does, it looks cool but it's heavy.
And hot.
- So the Podlings are so much fun so we should
get some of that.
- Yeah, we should get some Podling time.
- [Dave] The first thing with puppets is eye focus,
where other puppets are looking.
So obviously we were goofing around earlier,
we're looking straight down the lense,
which is much more like live television puppetry.
- Hello, welcome to the Podling show.
- Welcome to the Podling show.
- Yeah, we're Podlings.
- Today I will cook for you.
- No don't, please.
- No?
- No.
- Okay fine.
- [Dave] So we don't use that in The Dark Crystal,
they never look down the lense obviously.
- [Warrick] No, because they live in the real world.
(laughter)
- But it's that thing of, well they talk to each other.
- Yes.
- Yes, so I'm looking at you now.
- Yes, you look at me.
- [Warrick] We cheat on the eye lines a hell of a lot
because this isn't interesting.
You know, seeing that profile of the character's
not interesting, so what I'm doing there is not interesting.
But what Dave's doing is showing you both of those eyes.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
So I'm talking to my wife but I'm talking weirdly,
kind of throwing my eyes around and then
if you see two eyes it brings the characters alive.
- You see we tilt the head ever so slightly
because in 2D it works well.
On the screen, it works well.
- Yeah, that's right.
And then weirdly sometimes because of the
prohibitive nature of set design on any production,
you can cheat it.
I mean, in reality I can be looking way pa--
like, if you look at where we are we're not
actually really looking at each other.
- Look at me.
- Okay, hunny.
- Why you no look at me anymore?
(laughter)
- I am looking at you.
- You, I'm over here.
- I know, look on the TV.
I am looking at you.
- Oh yes, very good.
(laughter)
I understand everything, yes.
- Okay so, what about near and far?
Near and far?
- Oh yeah,
- So stay foreground?
- Yeah.
- Okay, well you can run with this if you want
but just quickly.
Puppets, for some crazy reason, if I had a human being
here right now and I took them this far away,
they don't go that small.
But because the puppets are already small, smaller than a
human, you can put them there and we're the same size.
And then just two or three paces I look like I'm
20 feet away from him.
- How you shrinking?
- Oh no, I feel really weird like you look like a monster.
- Watch this, folks.
- Watch it on the TV, don't watch it in reality, okay?
- Watch it on the TV, oh shut up!
(laughter)
- It's a gag, watch on the screen.
Here we go.
- Okay, I start again.
Watch it on the TV, folks.
- Yeah, good.
I'm scared of you, you look big and scary
(puppet one roars, puppet two screams)
(audience laughs)
- (spits) Boney.
- Yeah, it's a optical illusion.
- [Dave] Yeah so, we play with depth of field all the time.
- So we're going to talk about walks--
- No, hang on.
Before we do that, little creature flies by.
Eye focus.
- This is really hard for me.
- Who's leading, you?
- No.
- Okay, I'll lead.
(laughter)
- [Dave] So all we're doing is we're going to follow
a little creature fly around the screen.
- Wow, look at it.
- And we're not really doing anything much,
but we're both looking in unison and that means..
- So pretty.
- Yes, isn't she beautiful?
- Can I eat it?
- No, don't eat it.
- Okay.
- I want to put a pin throuhg her and stick it on my wall.
(audience laughs)
That's what they do.
- Let's have it come through the middle,
right down the middle.
- Oh, oh (chomp) I couldn't resist.
(laughter)
- So but you can see that those movements are
very, very, very small.
Like again, lots of puppeteers who's thought..
(Podling choking)
- What's wrong with you?
(Podling vomits)
(laughter)
- Come on.
- Who is disgusting?
- Look at all these people are watching us,
we got to be professional.
- I very sorry.
- There's a thing of people put puppets on and go
(mumbles)
- Ah, that's great.
- Yeah, right? Thanks.
(audience laughs)
- But it's actually, it's very small.
Even sometimes Podlings are small.
Gelfling are very very small as we were saying a minute ago,
in their movements.
- You couldn't do any of this with a Gelfling,
you would not be laughing.
- I would be nervous or weird.
- [Warrick] You'd leave, I think.
(laughter)
- [Dave] So do you want to go to walks now?
- [Warrick] Yeah.
- [Dave] So we're going to talk about the walks.
This is a Gelfling walk on a Podling.
- I'm going to see if this works, because this is...
- [Dave] I don't think it will, but it will be fun.
We can fail together.
- It looks like I'm wearing a nappy.
- [Dave] That's Rian's walk
- [Warrick] I don't know if that works.
- [Dave] That is Rian's walk, but it looks weird
in a Podling.
- [Warrick] That's kind of what he does, and when he does it
it looks like the gravity is really there.
- [Dave] Yeah, it's just 'cause they're slightly taller.
- Which way's the exit?
(laughter)
- So, but then here is a standard muppet walk.
It's so important to think about the puppets feet
on the floor.
- To give us life.
- You know, well let's just walk through both together.
(Podling wife hums)
(audience laughs)
- I'm sorry.
I'm serious, come on do it again.
- No it's fine, it's fine.
But like, we've all decided where the floor is,
so if someone's gonna come in after you they're already--
- Oh yeah, so let's do it badly.
- Oh, you want to do it badly?
- Yeah.
- Oh, so I do?
- You're walking properly.
- Okay, I'm walking properly.
So I'm here, that's where I've decided the floor is.
Next character, what's going on with her?
(laughter)
What are you doing?
- Sorry, I was on my knees.
- So again, that's where we're talking about buffalo shoes
and apple boxes bringing everyone up to the same floor.
- And that is kind of the reason why you need the
best puppeteers and you need people who are really
dedicated to making the craft the best.
Because you can't afford to be starting a scene and
having people do that, and entering down here.
- [Dave] No.
What about waddle?
Do you have a waddle thing?
- Oh yeah, this is what I like to do.
To show off.
This impresses some people, not everybody.
(audience laughs, whistles)
- Oh yes, that's right.
- And sometimes you'll do your hands on your hips like that.
- Oh yeah, go ahead.
- Sometimes we do one hand each, but very often you have
like me here, I'm doing both hands.
- We're gonna be sassy now.
- Well we think, we haven't rehearsed this.
- It's Friday night, we're gonna get sassy.
(laughter)
- Like we rehearsed it.
Okay, lets go.
(audience laughs, cheers)
- Eh, baby.
(audience laughs loudly)
(applause)
- [Dave] The sassy walk, they like the sassy walk.