FEATURE
FILMS
The Rise of Skywalker
STAR WARS Episode 7
MAZ KANATA
I am thrilled that MAZ was my main character in this movie.
I voiced her live on set and performed her facials and lip sync.
Lupita Nyong'o who played her in the previous films then re-voiced her once production was complete.
To puppeteer the awesome MAZ animatronic I once again had my hands in Matt Dentons
Micromagic Performance System.
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I have used Matts world class system on countless projects now.
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It was director JJ Abrams choice to have Maz be an animatronic in this film.
He wanted her actually physically 'there' on set, in front of camera alongside the other actors.
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So JJ got his wish in Ep7.
And the most complex animatronic the Star Wars franchise had ever envisioned was finally made a reality. And I got to play with it !
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That had been his wish years earlier when Maz made her first appearance.
But at the time it was a near impossible task to build her. But since then, servos got smaller.
Small enough to be able to control each of her fingers .
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I'm controlling mouth and face, Matt Denton on his own System working the eyes.
You can see the joy on JJs face as we demo Maz for him for the very first time on May 4th ( yup - 'Star Wars Day' )
Me and Matt controlled MAZ for all her facials and lip-sync.
The lovely CLAIRE ROI HARVEY gave Maz everything else.
The animatronics torso, arms, hands, fingers, neck and head all followed exactly what Claire did in her motion control suit.
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Between the three of us, we breathed life into her, much to the amusement of cast and crew as you can see. Great Fun!
All the Creatures for this movie including Maz, were built by The NEAL SCANLAN STUDIO. I first met Neal during our time at Hensons. Then I was lucky enough to work him on Babe 2 in Australia. Then I had to wait 20 years to do so again on SOLO then Ep7. He is a fantastic motivator and always surrounds himself with the best in the biz. Thanks for letting me come and play Neal !
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Between the three of us, we breathed life into her, much to the amusement of cast and crew as you can see. Great Fun!
A major player in Neals team is Gustav Hoegen, affectionately known all around the workshops and on set as 'GUZZIE'.
He made the animatronic head portion of Maz.
Guzzie also made Panox which I had the equal pleasure to operate in 'Solo".
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His Animatronics always perform superbly.
They don't just move : they have character and soul built in to all the servo functions.
Cheers Guzzie !
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Two Star Wars films had asked if I'd wanted to come and puppeteer with them.
Twice I had to say no because I was already filming a kids TV show in Vienna.
This time they phoned and said - 'We guess you are in Vienna, but thought we'd ask anyway ..."
Luckily this time I was free to join the fun in a galaxy far, far away ...yay !
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SOLO
A Star Wars Story
My main character in this Han Solo origins movie was a character called PANOX - better known as SIX EYES for obvious reasons.
Derek Arnold was the immensely talented, performer inside the costume taking the full weight of the Animatronic head/mask on top of his own head.
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As well as being a skilled costume performer, Derek is also extremely calm and patient not only with the whole shooting process, but with whoever he is creating the performance with.
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In this case me on facials and lip-sync and Matt Denton in charge of all six eyes.
And as usual we performed it all using Matts amazing Hand control System.
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Neal Scanlan Studios built all the creatures, character effects and droids.
So nice to work with Neal again after a twenty year hiatus since Babe 2.
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But a huge Thank You to ALL the guys and gals in the Creature Workshop who build such lovely toys for us puppeteers to play with.
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Six-Eyes was another masterpiece of animatronic building from the totally unflappable Guzzie.
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Movie wise this was the last big shout for the Henson Creature Shop in the UK .
Not so long after this production the whole Camden site was shut down, and management withdrew back to the States.
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A slap in the face for UK builders and performers
The end of an era.
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But for now it's Vogons, Vogons, VOGONS all the way !
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HITCHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
Pretty much all us performers on the Creature Effects team have worked together a fair bit over the years.
When not performing your 'main' character, it's always 'all hands to the pump' assisting where you can on other creatures. All good fun.
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Seriously Ugly and absolutely ENOURMOUS.
The performers inside had room for fans, drinks bottles, torches and magazines for between takes. These Creatures were massive !
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Although I performed various Vogon Soldiers in a few scenes, my main character was COMMANDER KWALTZ who was in charge of the Council of War Room.
With such huge Creatures, their scenery and environments had to equally massive too.
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Vogon-world was a bleak, dark, dull, concrete dystopia.
The brilliantly designed sets were uninviting and drab to work in.
Vogons lead a dull dull life.
Unlike puppeteers who get to have a lot of fun.
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The Henson Creature shop did a sterling job making a whole army of Vogons.
Most were like glorified sports mascot costumes, all padding, but with no animatronics.
But there was a host of 'featured' main characters like Kwaltz with full animatronic heads.
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The film even spawned some action figures.
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I was given an early Kwaltz : but there was no box .
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And as everyone knows it's the boxes that make them valuable.
All the creatures were dubbed by
famous name actors once the movie was edited.
But I voiced and
lip-synced Kwaltz
during the shoot at
Elstree Studios .
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Thankfully animatronics were not controlled using the Henson Mk2 'Waldo' handsets.
I think even the Creature Shop had realised by this time just how clunky and outdated they were.
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Instead they hired in Matt Dentons wonderful 'Micromagic' hand controls. Much better!
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How I wish I had a less blury copy of this final photo.
Left to Right :
Rob Tygner
Phil Eason
Yours Truly
Mark Jefferis
Sadly we lost Phil far too early a few years ago.
A generous and talented performer.
Sorely missed.
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Rob Tygner was the performer actually inside the Big Kwaltz puppet.
It was the largest in the film and hard work to get the head turning and focusing.
Like being in a Smart-Car inside twelve mattresses, it certainly didn't 'turn on a sixpence' or steer worth a darn. But good old Rob did an amazing job.
HARRY HILL THE MOVIE !
This one was just straight up Bonkers FUN.
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ABU HAMSTER was a super simple little glove puppet, but with a lip sync mouth.
Built by the multi talented Scott Brooker. Scott knows me as a regular film and TV puppeteer, but also as a Punch and Judy Man.
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With ABU being a glove puppet he knew I'd have all the bases covered.
To be fair, I would have chosen me for this project too.
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I already knew Harry was a great comedian. But I gained extra respect for the man during this. Seeing him at work first hand, was a lesson in total professionalism.
His physical and facial comedic timing is really polished, he works hard at it and is a connoisseur of the early film greats like Chaplin and Harold Lloyd.
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But the icing on the cake for me was getting to meet and work with JULIE WALTERS.
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What an absolute treat!
It was a 'buddies on an adventure' film.
And it was just us three against the world :
Nan, ABU and Harry.
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I had never been No3 on a call-sheet before.
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My name even flashed up on the opening credits.
It all felt very big time. Even if the locations were all very low-key UK backwaters - oh and Blackpool.
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Nans knitting and crotchet work was everywhere on set, all over their luggage and in the clapped out car. It was a constant design theme in the movie.
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Being a movie, there were several different versions of the Abu puppet.
A left hand and a right handed version for different shots.
A stunt one for throwing, another extra stunt for messy work, like being sick.
Shhhhh ... don't tell anyone, I've got one at home. It's OK, I didn't steal him, Harry gave him to me. On my honour m'lord.
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Our director, and guide through this merry mayhem, was STEVE BENDELACK.
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Lovely cameo appearances too.
The great Jim Broadbent playing a Cleaning Lady at the Nuclear Power Station, just a total joy.
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With Nans crotchet work as a major design theme, the production had planned to use a genuine touring Women's Institute display of knitted fish and sea creatures for the movies underwater song sequence.
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Funny and 'low-tech' on purpose.
Well that was the plan.
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Sadly when the fish arrived they were all a bit smaller and more 'low-tech' than everyone had envisioned.
So I stepped into the breach and created some puppets and scenery that were 'low-tech' but in the right way.
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The finished result was better than I had dared to hope. It still looked like it belonged in 'Harrys World', but was charming and polished too.
They gave me an extra 'End-Credit' for the underwater sequence too.
That was nice.
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ALICE IN WONDERLAND
A made for television adaptation by Hallmark, the absolute masters of that genre.
Aired in two long episodes, in total it ran for nearly three hours.
The production boasted a stellar cast of A-list stars.
Jim Henson Creature shop provided the non human characters.
And may I say it was a pretty stellar cast of puppeteers too.
I was desperate to be a part of this when I first got wind of it while wrapping up shooting on Babe 2 in Sydney.
It looked like the productions would clash, but somehow things worked out ...Phew!
And I was overjoyed to be cast as THE WHITE RABBIT.
Meeting a fellow White Rabbit at EuroDisney Paris. "Oh my ears and whiskers! ... I'm LATE !"
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KIRAN SHAW was inside the
diminutive White Rabbit costume.
A little guy - but one powerhouse of a performer !
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TINA MARJORINO
starred as Alice.
Surrounded as she was was by such accomplished screen performers, she held her own brilliantly.
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Are you playing along with "Where's Wally?"
He was the March Hare.
Performing was done via the Henson's Mk2 "Waldo" performance system.
We live voiced our characters on set, and in a wonderful departure from how things normally go : we were all asked into the dubbing suite to provide the final voices.
Dubbing is always necessary, as the clunks and clicks from the hand controls seldom allow for clear sound recording.
So when dubbing is needed anyway, productions often use loop - group actors, just because that's what they always do.
But our director, the lovely Nick Willing, was insistent that all the Henson Puppeteers voice their own characters.
He was brave, but also right.
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There is an online poll asking people to vote on the best White Rabbit voice from all twelve movie versions, including the Disney Classic.
Currently I am ranking third out of twelve.
So Thank you Nick !
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Meeting a fellow White Rabbit
at EuroDisney Paris.
"Oh my ears and whiskers!
... I'm LATE !"
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BABE 2
A Pig in the City
....Or as we affectionately called it on the shoot "Pork in New York"
This was an entire year of working in Australia.
Mostly at the studios in Sydney.
But also five long weeks way out of town in a tiny place called Barrel.
At Barrel they recreated the farm from the first movie. How the guys filmed entirely there on the first film I will never know .
By the last few days, we were climbing the walls to get back to Sydney.
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This was the project that saw NEAL SCANLAN leave Hensons and set up his own company.
The best and brightest puppet makers and animatronics builders, unsurprisingly chose to follow him.
Animatronic creatures foreground, the dogs in the background of shot are real.
That is what this movie did so well : seamlessly mix the two onscreen.
Having won an Oscar for his work on the first Babe movie, Neal certainly knew how to build animatronics that were resistant to the rigours of filming - yet remained highly performable.
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There were so many realistic looking creatures for this movie, the workshop team was enormous. Yet there were only four UK puppeteers, plus four auditioned and hired in Australia, to do all the performing. We were kept busy!
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At the end of the first movie our piggy earned his collar from the farmer.
For the animatronics workshop that was a game changer on the second film.
It meant they could hide a neck join under the collar strap.
During "Babe1" if a servo blew, or the head needed any kind of repair, first the silicone flesh needed cutting with a scalpel to remove the head.
After a repair, the join needed gluing and repainting, then bristles hand punched in to disguise the cut.
All this gruelling work had to be done overnight before the next days filming.
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The luxury of having interchangeable heads actually meant that on Babe 2 we had four pig heads.
Neal Scanlan Studios developed its own hand control system for this film called the 'PAC' System. It was the most ergonomic & responsive system I have ever used.
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Someone has managed to get hold of a 'palm/thumb' stick from the PAC system when they were broken up and put in a skip.
From this one part you can see the quality of the build.
Big Thanks to Barny Harrison who found these pics from Australia.
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Four UK Puppeteers and four PAC Systems in a row.
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While we filmed at the old Agricultural Showgrounds in Sydney they were in the process of being converted into what are now the shiny new FOX STUDIOS.
Huge cattle halls and hangers served as our studio stages.
And there was so much unused land, that a whole backlot set was constructed for Babe 2, complete with canal system and waterways.
MICKEY ROONEY gave an amazing performance as the clapped out sideshow clown FUGGLY FLOOM
One afternoon I was sat next to Mr. Rooney for a couple of hours, performing the puppet version of his faithful orangutan Butler.
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We were there long enough to get beyond polite smalltalk. So I took the opportunity do something that back at Drama School, I could only have dreamed of.
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I told Mickey Rooney that my class at Bristol had been dubbed 'The Mickey Roonies'.
Because we acted, we sang, we danced and would fearlessly try our hands at anything that was thrown our way.
The great man was actually very moved by that. A precious moment indeed.
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Another shot with two real animals and two puppets.
Onscreen for real - no split screen trickery.
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Thank you Neal for the chance to have worked on this movie and see Australia. And to experience what a wonderful vibrant city Sydney is.
A huge shout out of thanks to Rob Tygner at Hensons for taking a chance on me for this movie.
My first time having a decent sized role in a film.
Also my first time of using a hand control system to live-time operate an animatronic creature.
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It was a massive learning curve.
But something I found I not only enjoyed, but also had quite an aptitude for.
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So Cheers Rob.
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NEVERENDING STORY 3
Me on the Creature Shop Mk 2 "Waldo" hand control system.
Clunky, but not a bad place to start learning.
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The guy inside the Bark Troll costume, with the heavy animatronic head on his shoulders, was a fellow Spitting Image Puppeteer
KEVIN BRADSHAW.
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My character Bark Troll and Baby Rock Chewer were the hapless 'Good-Guys' helping Bastian through this whimsical adventure.
Leading the gang of Baddies was a very young JACK BLACK in his first big film role. He's done rather well for himself since.
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SNOW QUEEN
Nine years after Neverending Story I once again spent a few glorious weeks in the stunning city of Vancouver.
Hallmark are the World leaders in making 'made for television' Fantasy Films with high production values.
This was no exception.
Bridget Fonda lead the cast.Hensons provided the creatures, the most formidable of which was an eight foot tall realistic looking POLAR BEAR.
Bridget Fonda face to face with her guardian Polar Bear.
Bear was an amazingly intricate animatronic head that sat above suit performer Dans own head. Dan was already over six foot three tall, making Bear eight feet tall when stood upright. An impressive sight.
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Hensons Creature shop Crew with the films director David Wu.
This made for TV movie was filmed at locations all round the World.
But our Polar Bear scenes were all shot in Vancouver where the impressive Snow Queens Ice Palace set had been constructed in a converted warehouse.
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When we arrived the set was still dark wood. It had already been filmed on as the Hotel in the earlier part of the film.
The Snow Queens Palace was as if the hotel had been put in a deep freeze for 100 years.
While we rehearsed the bear for a week, an army of set dressers first painted the set white, then covered it in snow and icicles.
It was astounding workmanship.
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This movie was such a big break for me.
Not only a gift of a role, and getting to learn a new skillset.
But also some wonderful travel.
Interiors were shot at the iconic Babblesburg Studios just outside Berlin.
And city exterior locations were all around Vancouver.
With more 'wild' exteriors being filmed a couple of hours away in Whistler.
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BRITISH COLUMBIA IS GORGEOUS !
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Animatronics were performed livetime using the Mk 2 'Waldo' Hand Control System.
I keep using a crop of this same photo to represent working on this system.
I have so few backstage photos as cameras were not allowed on so many shoots.
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But this actaully was Snow Queen - you can see the polar bear head on a stand.
Our Polar Bear carries the defeated Snow Queen off to safety, before transforming back into the handsome Snow Prince.
Dan Payne was so easy to work with on Bear He got a nice bonus for wearing the hot, heavy, and uncomfortable bear suit. Production decided not to look for another actor the play the bear transformed into a Prince ...but used Dan instead.
He was good looking fellah and did a great job.
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Sadly this one went straight to video. You can't win 'em all !
However we did get a cinema crew screening at Londons Barbican Centre.
TALES of the RIVERBANK
John Henderson directed at Spitting Image several season.
Ever patient and calm, with a finely tuned creative eye.
Always a pleasure, never a chore.
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Here's a couple of 'dodgy looking weasels' ...and some puppets !
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Hehe, nope, it's me and my 'brother-from-another-mother' the much loved and sorely missed PHIL EASON.
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We filmed this the Spitting Image way : voices recorded in advance, with us lip syncing the puppets to the track in the studio.
RODERICK RAT was my character and he was voiced by Steve Cougan.
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All the puppets were made by ASYLUM.
Click their logo to go to their website.
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It seems someone is selling the puppet after finding it in a skip.
All puppets look lifeless without a hand inside .. but poor Roderick looks like road-kill.
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What a fab bunch of puppeteers to work with.
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And one of the nicest Directors ever to film puppets.
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A legend in the puppetry world :
The lovely and talented SUE DACRE.
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LABYRINTH
I had done some television work, but this was my first time in a real film studio.
ELSTREE STUDIOS were much larger, as back then, they hadn't sold off half their land to build houses and the huge supermarket that is now their neighbour.
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There were more sound stages, scenic workshops and a decent sized back lot too. But the biggest studio space was, and still is, the George Lucas Stage.
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It's the one where the BBC now film strictly Come Dancing.
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I was not not part of the group that did the whole film. I was not that long out of Bristol and still making a name for myself.
But I was in the gang that shot the big final homecoming scene with all the creatures in Sarahs Bedroom.
And also the big battle scene in the Goblin Village.
The Village was a massive and beautiful set of polystyrene and plaster houses overlooked by Jareds castle in the distance. It completely filled The George Lucas Stage. On first sight it took my breath away.
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"No cameras allowed in the Studio !
No photography on Set !" ... Sometimes you just have to break the rules.
Otherwise, decades later, you find you don't have any tangible memories.
I'm so glad I go this shot, even though I barely recognise myself with all that hair.
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The goblins were heavy . Even heavier than the Spitting Image puppets.
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Jim Henson was directing this himself, and like every time I encountered him as a director, he was patient, caring and hugely observant.
Such a keen visual eye. Nothing escaped his gaze.
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The Brian Froud designed Goblins and creatures were complete works of art.
So characterful - and yes heavy ! Did I mention heavy already !
Going back to Spitting Image puppets was a pleasure after these.
Suddenly they felt much lighter.
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LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS
This was my first time at PINEWOOD STUDIOS
I didn't drive at the time, and oh boy, are they hard to get to without a car.
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That aside, it was an amazing experience. As always, I was so impressed by the craftsmanship of the set building and painting.
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It also blew my mind that there were identical versions of the Flower Shop interior set on different sound stages. Each one adapted for different ways of shooting the ever growing plant 'AudreyTwo'
I was only there for a few weeks filming the climatic song "Mean Great Mother".
Our version of the set was built on the stage that has a huge water tank under part the floor. It was drained, but full of puppeteers pulling cables and levers to work all the plants roots and vines.
It was like being in a Submarine.
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This shot is burned into my memory ...this exact view was on our monitors for the best part of a day. Most of the branches had two elbow like 'joints'.
More featured 'gesturing' ones had four elbows and needed two puppeteers.
Even decades later, I know exactly which tentacle Chris Leith and I were operating.
One shoot day I got assigned to the singing 'pods'. I was super excited.
There were two branches, each with two pods .
One set of controls worked the mouth and tongue of both pods in unison.
We were thrust into shot to sing odd words in the chorus. And also 'ooohs and aahhs'
One take, we larked about and made the tongues go crazy.
Everyone laughed : and of course that's the take they used.
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The whole film is a huge testament to 'In camera' practical effects.
No CGI or A.I.
It was all proper Puppeteering. Well choreographed and brilliantly executed.
I am so proud to have been even a small part of this iconic masterpiece.
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