Thursday was International Puppet Day, and I celebrated it by contributing some video to a virtual “Puppet Parade” on YouTube. We were traveling last weekend, so this was video that I put together Sunday afternoon once we were back. The requirements were to send in video of your puppet “marching” as a part of a grander, global parade. They had to move from left to right. I tried to record some footage at my mom’s, but it was super cold and windy, plus I moved the puppets in the wrong direction. That footage has been scrapped. It was a lot easier to film in my kitchen in front of a green screen.
I chose a wide shot of the Shepherd Community Library as a background for the green screen, because I felt it would help create the illusion that the puppets were marching down the street, and it would help identify where I live. I made clips with several puppets in case one or two didn’t work out. One advantage is that with the wooden floor in the kitchen, and the wheeled stool i got for Christmas, I could simply “glide” pass the camera while moving my puppet, and it helped to add to the feeling that they were moving. Otherwise, I would have needed to stretch my body quite a bit to move them across the screen.
Editing was super easy, because I just needed to trim out the parts I didn’t need, and I removed the audio. I felt like the rules were that the video needed to be silent, so I muted it just to be safe. Also, you could hear my stool rolling across floor.
I felt like it was a pretty neat project to participate in, and looking forward to contributing video in the future.
