And… I’m back.
Josiane Keller – 私の窓からの眺め view from my window (2015)
There are cats in the neighbour’s garden that make a lot of noise…
Josiane Keller – 屋根の上の猫 cat on the roof (2015)
This took time, I admit it. But now I am in full drive (- “drive”? anyways), here some images of the development of the puppet of the wood cutter (as you may notice, I found out it is called “wood cutter” and not “wood chopper”, although “wood chopper” certainly sounds very manly, too):
Josiane Keller “wood cutter” (2015)
I had to fight with this one, besides that it took time to get into whatever it is called, gear, drive, anyways, and I had to rewire the whole guy at least one and half times. His arms are a tic too long if one wanted to be picky, and he cannot quite stand by himself, I have to do something about that hair string that is so wild, and I still need to make straw sandals and a cloak and a hat,as one essential part of the story plays in winter, and since he is just new born I would’t want him to freeze to death straight away, as he is too cute (we will get to that point later on once more), but for a first puppet in this style not bad, don’t you think? Only time will tell if he is as good as he look and can deal with the troubles of life without keeling over of breaking a leg. It’s all a learning curve.
By the way: the tiny article in the magazine with the BUNRAKU puppet on the third picture is something special. It is in Puppetry International Issue #37 an article by Jyana S. Browne on OPERA AOI, who combined traditional bunraku puppetry 文楽人形 with high tech media, in fact using VOCALOID software program.
You can read the article here online:
http://www.unima-usa.org/publications/toc/37_selections.html
Every hardcore traditionalist Japanese person would make a face at that, in fact the main puppeteer himself, 吉田幸助 Kosuke Yoshida, stated in an interview he did at first exactly this, but the outcome must be magical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xtAPnEFiaU
I have not seen it yet (but I am determined to get my hands on it, or even better, meet the artists), but if you were last year in London maybe you have, at HYPER JAPAN 2014.
Here is the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydpw4nmu1RU
and here is a link to their site:
Also very interesting the underlying traditional story from the 源氏物語 Genji Monogatari (The Tale of the Genji) and the version they created based on it:
http://www.opera-aoi.com/story.html
*Meanwhile I had the chance to discuss with the composer of the sound and his manager wife, who seem to have the rights over the film, and see the movie in low res, as we were discussing possibilities showing it perhaps at the upcoming event in December. It was quite interesting, he is originally a game designer. That seems quite obvious from the music the way it is fitted to the puppetry, and perhaps that would be also my main critique in the work, so it seems more fit for a computer game than actual 3D puppet craft, where my personal main objective is always to make it seem “alive”, instead of high tech, and too often the two contradict each other.
But the puppetry and puppets were certainly gorgeous; if you want to learn more about bunraku, here the website of the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka, who played for this piece, and where Mr. Yoshida (who explains in the video) is a head puppeteer, (in the literal sense, as he is operating the head of the puppets) and where you can see shows:
http://www.ntj.jac.go.jp/english/access/facilities_04.html
and here more info on bunraku in English: