Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The Giant Puppet in Iceland

Ok so word is out.

It was me who made the marionette for the viral ads featured on YouTube.

Levis Marionette

I couldn't post anything on this before as the idea was to make people believe it actually happened, or at least get people talking about it.
Now, however, Andrew over at Puppetvision has found out and posted about this, as too has smallmassive theatre (Fiona Mannion) commenting on the giant puppets myspace so i figure it's ok to say something about the stunt.

The puppet was solid lime wood and had an opening/closing mouth but this wasn't used in the filming. He was about 24 inches tall.

Ronnie Le Drew was the chief puppeteer. I was on set for adjustments of the puppet and as an assistant puppeteer, however Ronnie (pictured) did such a superb job of the puppeteering I was only needed to help out for a few takes.

Below are a couple of pictures of Ronnie with the marionnette.

Levis Marionette



Levis Marionette

It was good to work with Ronnie as I learnt a lot from him, he had used my marionettes before but this was the first time we had met face to face. He has been a puppeteer for many years and has worked a lot with the Little Angel Theatre.

The filming was a long and exhausting day, more so for me as I had been working all of the previous night getting the marionette ready for the shoot.

Thankfully for you readers you shall not be seeing the picture of me in the skintight green suit.



5 comments:

Mary Robinette Kowal said...

Ah ha! I live in Reykjavik and when I first saw the footage on YouTube was stunned that I hadn't heard anything about it.

Even as we started to figure out that it was faked, I was still impressed with the marionette work. Nicely done. It's nice to know who to compliment now.

Anonymous said...

One Question i have before my mind can be soothed, why iceland of all places?

Anonymous said...

I remember first seeing these vids appear on Myspace and YouTube... you certainly caused a stir with them!

Well done! viral marketing at its best

Unknown said...

Incredible, yes! But how is this viral marketing? I mean, what is it selling?

Tony said...

Levis Jeans, makes more sense when you see the reveal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qaub5RijWE