SUMMITUPDATE April 2012 Adam Elliot on the set of Mary and Max. Adam Elliot ‘Chunky Wonky’ Clayography In Conversation with Peter Wilson Adam Elliot is an independent stop- handcrafted object. Elliot does not use motion animation writer and director based digital additions or computer generated in Melbourne. His five films have collectively imagery to enhance his visual aesthetic. participated in over six hundred film Adam Elliot Pictures, produce the films festivals and have received over one adhering to the French auteur methodology. hundred awards, including an Oscar® for Each film has been voiced by notable Harvie Krumpet and the Annecy Cristal for actors including, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mary and Max. Toni Collette, Geoffrey Rush, Eric Bana, In conversation with Peter Wilson, William McInnes and Barry Humphries. Adam Elliot will discourse on his auteur Elliot is also a voting member of the methodology and his “chunky wonky” Academy of Motion Picture Arts and aesthetic. Based loosely on his family and Sciences and in 1999 was awarded The friends, each of Elliot’s films has a Young Achiever of the Year for Victoria. bittersweet nature to them which, Elliot calls This session will provide an intriguing a Clayography - clay animated biography. insight into the work practices and vision of Utilising a large team of animators and a singular artist and an Australian icon. model makers each film takes several years Excerpts from some of Elliot’s films will be to complete. shown during the discussion. Elliot is noted for his use of traditional 'in-camera' techniques, which means every prop, set and character is a 'real' miniature 1 4th National Puppetry & Animatronics Summit, VCA, 5 - 8 July 2012. Left: Director and animator Anthony Lucas with an image from his April 2012 film The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello. UPDATE SUMMIT Anthony Lucas A Toolbox for Visual Storytelling Workshop Presentation Using his claymation film Slim Pickings as a model, of animation Lucas affectionately calls the Anthony Lucas will provide a humourous and ‘Shadowlands’ – “a silhouette world of spindly figures fascinating insight into the process of writing and dwarfed by bleak landscapes and Jules Verne creating a storyboard for a visual narrative. The machines”. technique applies as much to theatre as to film and will His first live action short My Rabbit Hoppy, made be useful for anybody interested in visual dramaturgy. entirely by the Lucas Family in their back yard, was Anthony Lucas’s silhouette animated short film, selected for competition at Cannes Film Festival in The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper 2008. Lucas is currently writing a feature script based Morello was nominated for an Oscar® at the 2005 on his ABC3 short series, My Strange Pet which will Academy Awards. Jasper Morello uses a unique style feature puppetry and animation. Andrew Young (Canada) Principles of Great Puppetry Workshop Presentation This fast paced multimedia presentation attempts to answer the question “how to do you take your puppetry from ‘good’ to ‘great'?" by exploring the connections between different puppetry traditions around the world and explaining the basic principles that are fundamental to creating believable, relate-able and (above all else) entertaining puppet performances. Andrew Young is a Canadian puppeteer and independent filmmaker who has designed, directed and taught puppetry throughout Canada, the United States, Chile, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, and South Africa. He is the Creative Director of Unraku, a collective of multi disciplinary artists in Canada who collaboratively produce puppetry for film and theatre and the author of the popular daily PuppetVision Blog. Andrew is also currently he is directing PuppetVision: The Movie, a feature length documentary about puppeteers and puppetry around the world. 2 4th National Puppetry & Animatronics Summit, VCA, 5 - 8 July 2012. April 2012 UPDATE SUMMIT Above: Sarah Kriegler and her animal muse Clancy. Right: Picasso and Lump (photo by David Douglas Duncan). Sarah Kriegler Picasso and His Dog Play-reading and Design Discussion One fine spring morning in 1957, Lump arrived. Sarah Kriegler is an award winning puppeteer and Lump was an elongated sausage dog with floppy ears co-director of Lemony S Puppet Theatre. She trained and an inquisitive nature. As he leapt out of the car of at the V.C.A, School of Drama (Animateuring), and photographer David Douglas Duncan, he looked Teatro San Martin puppet school, B.A, Argentina. With around at the Villa of Pablo Picasso and then into the Lemony S, Sarah has created many works including deep, brown eyes of Picasso himself and he decided Foxy’s House of Horror, One Night The Dog, and he was home. From this first meeting, a deep love was Apples and Ladders which has toured nationally and forged between Picasso and Lump. Lump was also an internationally. Kriegler’s television credits include artistic inspiration for Picasso, appearing in fifty-four of Horace and Tina, Downtown, Farscape and Naff FM. his works. Theirs was a heart connection, deep and She also guest puppeteered on the feature film Where devoted. In a perfect ending, perhaps not content with the Wild Things Are. During 2011, Kriegler toured to life on earth without each other, both died in the same Rome, Italy with Apples and Ladders. year. At present, she is developing a large-scale puppet Picasso and His Dog is a new puppet work for work for children as well as a contemporary opera for children and their families by Lemony S Puppet adults which explores social disorder through Theatre, exploring the animal muse in art and the puppetry, real-time animation and new music. During extraordinary bond between people and their animals. 2012, Kriegler will direct Lemony S’ newest work The Please join Sarah Kriegler and Lemony S creatives for Liechtenstein Nursing Home Massacre as well as a reading and design discussion of this new work. developing Picasso and His Dog. 3 4th National Puppetry & Animatronics Summit, VCA, 5 - 8 July 2012. Jennifer Pfeiffer Phenomenology of puppetry - the April 2012 dramaturgy of working across UPDATE cultures Thesis Completion Seminar Does puppetry communicate SUMMIT across cultural divides? Jennifer Pfeiffer presents the results of her PhD practice-led research with traditional Indian shadow puppeteer, A. Selvaraja, Chennai in a ten week residency in Ballarat. Pfeiffer came to know her fellow The studio process revealed University of Melbourne, she has artist and of his very different life common vocabularies for using trained in physical theatre and and beliefs. She speaks of the puppets through existing work as Japanese performance styles, and initial conversation. The with diverse puppetry influences challenges the project presented: of communication, of exchange, and contemporary performance and training. Her current research of identifying common themes. produced from the residency, The practice is spurred by her interest in Pfeiffer explains how the Window, provided an example of cross-cultural performance. Pfeiffer philosophical discipline of how different puppetry forms can sit also works for the World Puppetry together coherently and provide Organisation, UNIMA, where she is phenomenology, privileging lived experience and embodiment, layered and multiple readings a member of the International presented the best way of looking through dramaturgy inspired by Executive Committee, and at the question, a method for shared experiences. President of the UNIMA Asia-Pacific testing it, and for working together. Jennifer Pfeiffer has worked as Commission. She first met A. a puppeteer/writer/designer for over Selvaraja in Chennai, 2005, while on Her documentation maps the process, and provides the framing twenty years. Graduating with a BA the UNIMA business of inspecting for analysis. Hons and a Creative MA from The his Tsunami damaged puppets. Luke Rogers Otto the Octopus Workshop Presentation A presentation on the short but exciting industry experience of Luke Rogers, with a focus on the design process of his parade puppet Otto the Octopus. It will feature a short demonstration of the large eight-legged puppet, to be carried with the assistance of a group of volunteer puppeteers. After the showing, the puppeteers will dismantle and set the puppet as an installation piece, and Rogers will briefly discuss Frater Creative's upcoming approach to the visual and theatre arts. Luke Rogers is from Kalangadoo, and studied a Diploma of a Theatre Arts at the University of Ballarat. He completed his industry placement on Jennifer Pfeiffer's The Window and The Becken Project's Illuminated by Fire productions, and works with The Village and Port MacDonnell Bayside festivals. Rogers moved to Melbourne to complete the final year of professional actor training at Verve Studios, and recently launched a visual and theatre arts production label, Frater Creative. He is interested in utilising his studies in animal science when next considering the physiology and movements of puppets. 4 4th National Puppetry & Animatronics Summit, VCA, 5 - 8 July 2012. Gary Friedman Puppetry for TV and the Web Workshop Presentation April 2012 This 90 minute session by Gary "Ever since I can remember, Friedman is suitable for film-makers, 'puppetry' has played an important performers, puppeteers, educators and role in my life. As a young child I UPDATE others interested in learning about was already using puppetry to puppetry for the screen. Friedman will communicate messages to my discuss the basics of puppetry for film peers and community. As an adult, and television and it's use on the web. I get inspired most by discovering SUMMIT He will also demonstrate simple the work of my students and manipulation and directing for the finding new talent in the next camera. The audience will have an generation of puppeteers, who use opportunity to perform a few short their art to inspire, stimulate scenarios with a TV puppet, projected change and communicate simultaneously onto a large screen.