[Folky guitar music]
Hi, I'm Lori, and I'm a puppeteer.
So for my  job i get to work with all different
kinds of puppets...
Some are glove puppets, some have rods,
some are shadows, some are string puppets, anything at all.
Before lockdown I was
working on a show called "Fragments"
and we were using shadow puppetry
to help stitch together
a really old story parts of which had
been lost.
Then the lockdown happened and I had to
start staying at home,
like I'm sure many of you did as well.
But as I was at home, I started thinking
about how everyday sometimes boring
objects
might make great puppets like...
a teddy bear for example...
or..
a tin can. Or even...
a flip-flop.
They all have different qualities.
So some are quite soft and flexible
some objects can make a noise or even
move on their own
and some of them you can actually move
and change the shape of turning it into
something
completely different
So in this video, I'm going to show you
how you can turn everyday objects into puppets
and you're going to need to
find some objects in your own home
so you're going to need to go on a
little hunt and see what you can find
see if you can get
a load of different stuff it doesn't
matter how weird it is or how different
all of the objects are.
So you can pause the video now and
see what you can find...
What did you find? What was the most
interesting object that you found?
You can tell me about it in the
comments.
Do you want to see what I found?
So when we're playing with objects
they can give us clues as to what kind
of character they're going to become.
So with this tin can I'm going to really
examine it
and think about what it looks like,
what it feels like, 
whether it makes a noise,
whether it has a smell, 
and in what different ways it can move.
It doesn't really squish
but it can move on its own or I can help it move.
But right now I would like to think
about an ancient Greek myth.
The show I was working on before lockdown
was all about an ancient Greek
story, so I've been reading lots of Greek myths.
And there's one that really stands
out to me: the myth of Danae
Danae's story is all about isolation and being
locked up and it's a little bit like
how I felt at the beginning of lockdown.
Now Danaei was a princess of Argos.
She was happy, 
she lived in a splendid palace with her father
but was sometimes lonely because she was
an only child
So what can I choose to play the part of
Danae?
ah maybe this
It's a little bit sharp.
And a bit noisy as well.
I'm not sure it's quite right for Danae.
Ah, maybe this fan.
you can almost start to imagine that
there's limbs
arms and legs.
It's quite flamboyant a little bit too
over the top for Danae, I think she's a
bit more down to earth.
I'm going to use this cloth
I can shape it to show where Danae's
face is.
and I'm going to start with three things
that i think are really helpful
when we're turning objects into puppets:
Breath, focus, and weight.
So i'm going to start
by sharing my breath with my puppet
you can see when I breathe it makes my
chest expand
and contract, makes my shoulder move my
breath goes all the way down my arm
into my hand and into my puppet
and that brings her to life
depending on how she's feeling her
breath might change
Now I'm thinking about giving her focus.
So my focus as a puppeteer
is going to be on the back of my
puppet's head because if I start moving
her around like this
my face is much more animated than hers is
and you're just going to be
distracted looking at me
so I'm going to concentrate on my puppet
and hopefully she will then become the
more interesting thing
and she might want to go and look at
something over here
i'm going to exaggerate it slightly just
so you can really see
what she's looking at and maybe what
she's thinking about
and then she might want to travel I
might need to think about
how she's going to move around my stage
so I'm going to give her weight
or the illusion of weight.
The cloth is actually really light
but I want to make it look like she's
walking like a human
and when we walk we have to shift our
weight a little bit from side to side
so i'm gonna see if i can do that a
little bit
with my puppet
For some puppets they might be
fantastical creatures and you might want
them to fly through the air
but with Danae I'm going to try and keep
her as human as possible
so if she wants to jump up onto
something she's going to look at it first
she's going to make that decision she's
going to prepare
and then when she jumps
she needs to land again at the end.
So see if you can choose one of your
objects to play the part of princess Danae.
Think about those three things: breath, focus and weight
and just have a little play around.
See if you can bring
your puppet to life
You can pause the video now and have a go.
[guitar strumming]
Next, I need to choose an object to play
the part of King Acrisius.
Now this being thousands of years ago
the king thought
he could only give his throne to a son,
not a daughter
So he went to the oracle for help.
and the oracle told him that he would
never have a son but he would have a
grandson
but unfortunately that grandson would
grow up to kill the king
Now the king is not happy about this at
all.
In fact, he's a very selfish king and he's angry
and scared
I'm going to choose this hammer to play
the king
it's cold it's hard and it's heavy
just like him and i'm going to start
with those three useful points we talked
about earlier
breath focus and weight.
Now the hammer has a really useful shape
it looks to me like the king has a
really big nose and slick back hair
which is really good for his focus.
So I can make it really obvious
what he's looking at and every time he
moves his head it's like he's having a
new thought
[sharp breaths]
[growling]
[sharp panting]
hmmm....
[heavy grunts]
I wonder what it's like if we give the
king a voice
now you can try any voice you like is it
going to be a deep voice a croaky voice
does he talk really fast or really slow?
[deep voice] "Oh I can't believe it..."
"that Danae... how...
what am I going to do? I uh.. no.. uh.."
"must think of something... uh
hmm... what can I do?
"The oracle must be wrong this cannot be!"
So the king comes up with a plan.
He's going to lock Danae in an
underground chamber
to make sure that she can never have a
son to grow up and kill him.
I wonder what happens when we bring the
two characters in together.
How can I show, maybe even with no words
at all,
that the king is threatening Danae?
And what if she tries to fight back?
"No!"
Have a play around with your two objects.
and see the different ways they can interact.
Think about the body language:
How can I show the emotions that the two different characters are feeling?
But in ancient Greece a prophecy can't
be stopped that easily.
Zeus, the king of the gods, visits Danae
in the chamber
in the form of golden rain and gives her
a baby.
That baby is called Perseus.
So...
I'm going to choose this.
Remember: breath, focus and weight
[baby squeeks]
[fast panting]
I'm going to see how my Danae puppet is
going to treat baby Perseus
You can try it too. Choose something to
be the baby and then see if they can
play together.
You can pause it now if you want to experiment.
I'm gonna have a go.
When king Acrisius finds out that Danae
has had a baby son
he is furious. Let's have a look at that
moment when he finds out.
The king locks Danae and Perseus in a
chest and sends them out to sea.
[fast guitar strumming]
Now everything we've been doing so far
has happened down on the ground
but now that we're in the sea I'm going
to lift it up a little bit higher
so I can think about the movement
of the water.
Meanwhile on an island nearby some
fishing folk are busy at work
Now for this, I need something to show
lots of characters at the same time
so I'm going to use my fingers
but I'm going to dress them up a little bit.
"huuh"
"Err.. Hellooo?"
"Hey..."
"oh hello, ha ha"
"Hey.... hey"
"Ho... ha ha"
[grunting]
"Heeave"
"Hoik... ah..."
"Heave.... "
[sigh]
"Heeeave..."
[sigh]
"Huuh..."
"Huuuuh..."
"Hoooaaaa"
"Huuhh?"
"Oh, er..."
"Nnnnngh..."
"aaaahh"
"brrrrrrr"
oh
one of the fishing folk invite Danae and Perseus
into his home
"Hup"
"Huh"
"oooh... hello..."
[giggle]
so Danae has somewhere safe to bring up
Perseus
and she's never bothered by the king
again.
So, I've used a range of objects to bring
this story to life
and you can do the same with any objects
and any story at all.
Now turning objects into puppets is fun
but making a puppet is also fun
and if you watch my next video i'm going to
show you how to make an ancient Greek
monster puppet.
And, if you want to take this even further
you can watch my friend Jess's video
she's going to show you how to make some
amazing shadowy backgrounds.
And I would love to see the puppets that
you've made as well so please send us
pictures you can email them
or you can tweet them and we'll put them
on the Potential Difference website.
Thank you so much for watching.
Bye
Huup oh
ooh
weeee
Weeeeeee
