So there’s 24 frames that make one second of film. It’s basically taking an inanimate object and moving it frame by frame. It’s been around since film was invented. So as we’ve just mentioned, it’s a cinematic art form. For people who need to hear this, we need to be reminded, can you just describe the basics of stop-motion animation? Miller: Well, let’s get to what you ended up doing because it’s really important and in some ways it seems like it hasn’t changed that much in 100-plus years. Hayns: They did, they did, yeah, and it’s interesting because that form of puppet making is live action and animatronic in a much bigger scale than what I ended up doing. Miller: But you saw them and they spoke to you? Okay, I’m coming here! He said that he was the first and only person that had ever made puppets at this place. I went to look around it and one of the previous students had a room full of Jim Henson-style Dark Crystal puppets. So I ended up sort of accidentally falling into, well, finding a course in Manchester, which was a film and tv course. And I started to look around to see if there were any courses in puppet making, which of course there aren’t very many courses in puppet making, you sort of get into puppet making either through arts courses or through media theater courses. How do I make this?’ So in my head that’s when I really sort of started to get an idea of an avenue to go with my career and training and art college, whatever. Because if you think about it, Dark Crystal, the puppets in that are very doll-like, and I’m just ‘oh wow, I want to make this. And when I watched that film, it changed my life. And one of those was Jim Henson’s Dark Crystal. In those days I went to the video shop and I got anything that had puppets on the front, on the cover. But then I suddenly realized I don’t know anything about puppets. They just, you know … it worked, my plan worked. So I went in the next day and went “what if I made puppets?’ And they loved it. But my shortcut to get around my art lecturers was thinking, I had this idea, ‘well wait a minute, puppets or an artistic form of doll’. So designing dolls, sculpting them, making them, making their clothes, which is actually what I ended up doing. So for me at that point in where I was at, it was going to be making ceramic headed dolls. Miller: What would it have meant to make dolls? So this was at the time that I was doing this foundation course, and I went in to see my art lecturers and said ‘I know what I’m gonna do with my life, I’m gonna make dolls.’ And they were really disappointed because they were these hippie fine artists, sort of abstract artist,s and they were like ‘no no no but your drawing skills and your painting skills, you can do more than making dolls and. It was tapping into everything that I thought I enjoyed doing and I was good at. So I kind of started to restore this doll and really enjoyed it. It got some things wrong with it and it needed some costume work on it. And I bought one of these when my dad bought me one of these dolls. And through that I was sort of like, I don’t want to get into antiques. So at the same time, my dad was really into antique collecting and antique dealing, and I got dragged along to antique fairs. I was like, ‘no, no, I want to do it all’. I was always kind of rebelling against that. Miller: It seems like both a benefit and a drawback in an academic setting where you’re going to, maybe they’re going to try to propel you to focus on one thing. Miller: Because you like all these different aspects of art and craft? So still I was quite confused as to what I wanted to sort of narrow in on. You get to sort of taste a little bit of every kind of art discipline, and I really enjoyed jewelry and I still enjoyed sewing. So I went off to do an art foundation course, which was all kinds of art. So trying to focus all of that into one particular area was really hard for me. I loved painting, drawing, sewing, all kinds of arts and crafts. So I was very lucky that my parents really encouraged the artistic side of my personality, and when it came to … so I sort of got through school and decided I wanted to go off to college, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Miller: So you say school, you mean grade school? I think back then, I don’t know whether I had a problem with concentration, or whether it was … anyway, I wasn’t great at academia. Many years ago, it kind of goes back to being at school and being really good at art, but struggling with some of the academia. The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:ĭave Miller: How did you get started in puppet making? Your browser does not support the audio element.
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