On Wednesday, the 21st of October, I was introduced to the concept of Object Theatre. I’d obviously had heard of puppet animation before, but never though of Object Theatre being an actual thing other than me playing with my knife and fork at dinner as a kid, whilst waiting for mum to feed me. After Shaun and Steve having briefed the class on the assignment for the day, a new world of possibilities opened up before my eyes. I started looking around my room thinking of every object as a character and it was fascinating!
When assigned the sentence ‘Contestants struggle to answer the questions on a gameshow‘, my group and I went through a process of creating a short 60-90 second narrative based on it.
We chose to began by creating our own individual characters. I created ‘Gertrude’, a shy, extremely intelligent but overly stressed and self-conscious USB cable.
Baring in mind the need to create a story through character-based movement, sound, mood and atmosphere, this lanky, flexible, thin object seemed perfect to me to portray the awkwardness of Gertrude. I added wool threads to show Gertrude’s gentle personality, but also to amplify her range of movement when she becomes anxious. In addition, I also added the marker-painted eyes to evoke a mellow and beaten up emotion to her.
Gerturde- my puppet Screen Harvey- Filipa’s Puppet Moana- Ryz’s Puppet Box Holland- Alex’s Puppet
Finally, when everyone finished developing their characters, we proceeded to write a quick script, even though we all agreed to improvise at the time of our presentations. The script served as a base for the dialogue that was going to happen between everyone and also for sound queues. We brainstormed ideas having in mind game shows like Family Feud and Who wants to be a millionaire.
Our goal was to create a fun chaotic environment involving slightly adult humour and some drama between characters (all in 60 seconds).
After practicing for hours, we finally presented to class and got some pretty good feedback! Overall it was a super fun experience I’d definitely like to repeat. Who knows, maybe Object Theatre is here to stay!