Week 20th - 24th October

Over the weekend I discussed with Simon how we would make the peeing mechanism for Manny. For the shot, he will be standing on the edge of the building with his back to the camera, and a stream of pee will be visible between his legs as the sun is rising. We decided that making a tube run up the front of his leg and to the crotch area was best, with a bottle attached at the other end filled with apple juice. We got some aquarium tubing, an empty bottle and a garden watering spike that attaches onto bottles. 

When I arrived Monday morning I started straight away with rigging the peeing mech for Manny. I pinned the tube up his left leg using bent pins to make them like staples. I also took the main rod out of Manny and put two long pieces of piano wire up through his legs so that I could later stick those into the set and Manny would stand free without a rod and a puppeteer holding him up. Once I had done this I took it through to the Old Library and Simon and I tested it out. We found that the stream of pee didn't look very natural, so I put a chunk of polystyrene that was on the floor into the tube to break the stream up a bit. I also cut a small slit in the end of the tube. This looked a lot better.

Once the set had been finished I rigged Glenn into place for the wide shot. I had to cut a small channel in the polystyrene wall to make room for his rod so that he sat properly on the wall and didn't just float. After lunch I puppeteered Glenn's arms, Hedley was puppeteering Glenns head. 

Sara our production designer being Godzilla.. and also applying some moss to the set!

Once this shot had finished I took Glenn out and rigged Manny into place. I attached a cup to the set to catch the 'pee'. I also pinned his arms into place and stuck two more pieces of piano wire into his body to puppeteer him with. The only action he was going to do is swaying slightly.

When I'd finished rigging Manny in place, I puppeteered his body while Vicky squeezed the bottle of 'pee' to come out of the tube... much to her disgust!  

On Tuesday I de rigged Manny and then helped strike the set. Afterwards, I had to take the rods out of all of the puppets apart from Manny and Glenn. We had to give them to Lex, our costume designer so that she could put them all in their new costumes ready for the final scenes of the film! After lunch I went through the animatic with Simon and discussed how many more heads and wigs I need to make. Priority was doing a new Manny wig for Wednesday, but to save time I casted a new head first and then while that was setting I did Manny's wig. Once the wig was finished I demoulded the head and powdered it with talc to make it matte. Before I left I had time to put the main rod back into Manny and prep Glenn for Wednesday's shoot. 

Wednesday morning there was a lot of time spent on getting the angle right with the wall and rigging the puppets into place, but once that was done I was puppeteering with Hedley and Simon. Thursday I changed he heads on both Manny and Glenn for the next shot so that they were showing a different expression. I was puppeteering with Hedley and Simon again, and over lunch I casted a new pair of arms for Glenn. Friday was much the same, but I did some wigs over lunch instead of casting! 

We didn't manage to get the last shot that was scheduled for this week, which is just Manny on his own looking down. He will need to be rigged on a magic arm at an angle. We will be able to do this very quickly on Monday morning before the next set up.