My goal for this story is to teach the audience the importance of not abusing your power. Puppet shows are great for teaching young children life lessons, so making the backgrounds all colorful, setting the story in a fantasy setting, and giving the main character a very specific voice is what makes this show reminiscent of the ones shown to preschoolers. The purpose this serves is to make this show mean it is for teaching something.
My inspiration for the methods I used to bring the Foolish Knight to life mainly came from the puppet breathing and expression techniques I learned in class from a puppeteer from Rough House Theatre. Making my hand puppet move at all times, even if it is with very small movements such as breathing, makes a big difference compared to just putting it on my hand and keeping it still until it needs to do something, like walk.
I chose the story to take place in a medieval kingdom because it was not uncommon at the time to see knights abusing their power over the poor citizens living in nearby villages. With this in mind, I decided to take these historical occurrences and simplify the basics of how and what happens when they take place into a four-minute puppet show representing the similar problems we face in the present.
Writing the overall story was not very difficult. I knew what I wanted to happen in the show and the purpose each special moment serves. I did struggle with polishing the script. I tend to make things sound more complicated than they really are, along with including words that are not needed in a sentence. However, it turned out well in my opinion. The original plan was to read the whole script as I control some of the puppets, but found that I could only put my focus into one of those things, narrating and puppeteering, while I do both. This caused either sloppy puppeteering or narrating with lots of stutters. I resolved this by having my mom do all of the talking as I control the puppets. My mom also controlled some of the puppets herself because I needed an extra set of hands.
Finally, a show cannot be performed without a stage. I took different colored softcore foamboards and colored some scenery onto them to make the backgrounds for each scene. My mom also suggested the medieval music to play for the first half of the show to add to its theme. The setup was not the most comfortable for my arms as I tried to control the puppets from below where the camera can't see me. I also had to be careful with the backgrounds because they could be knocked over really easily. In the end, after a few previous attempts, I think we filmed a pretty good run of the show with an iPhone in the center of a ring light. This was a fun project and I am happy with its outcome. I hope you enjoyed it!
Welcome to the second Action Project for Stories. For this AP, we were instructed to write a fable. A fable consists of a protagonist, antagonist, symbol, and lesson to teach the reader. The underlying lesson is one of the main identifying factors of a fable. Also, all of the characters in fables are animal-based. Animals help the reader to understand the traits of each character. The protagonist of this story is a mouse named Remey. He has nightmares and is afraid of anything bigger and stronger than he is. The antagonists of the story are his fears getting in the way of him making new friends. The lesson and symbols of the story are something you are going to find out yourselves - they are things with deeper meanings that I do not want to spoil for you. Do not worry! This story will be easy to understand. I really enjoyed making it, so hope you enjoy reading it. Illustrated by "SN" Once upon a time, there was a mouse named Remey. Remey had a hard time making frie
Our class recently completed H2O: Unit 1 (71%). In this unit, we learned about the challenges people face to acquire fresh, potable water. In many developing countries, including areas of the United States, people struggle for access to this vital resource. The mission of the first H2O Field Experience was to carry water 0.2 miles from the Chicago River back to GCE Lab School. During the experience, my body felt incredibly sore trying to navigate the bumpy sidewalks with heavy buckets on wheels. Pushing the large buckets over cracks proved to be difficult. Psychologically, I became frustrated about how slow I was moving and how heavy and awkward the buckets were. The most challenging part of this External Investigation was when the buckets fell over three separate times, spilling much of my original water supply. I started the experience with 10 gallons of water (2 five gallon buckets), and ended with only 3.5 gallons of water. Less than half of what I originally collected. I estimat
Welcome to my second Action Project blog for Population class. In this unit, we studied how species thrive in their natural habitats and how their special traits allow them to do so. A Field Experience to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum taught us about many different landscapes and the animals that live in them. The purpose of this AP was to discover if a certain species or organism could survive in a habitat different from it's own. The species I chose to study was the Chinese Water Dragon, also known by it's scientific name Physignathus cocincinus. I, hypothetically, altered the Chinese Water Dragon's tropical Asian climate by drying it out. I made inferences about how this change would impact the species and how it would survive in this new climate. ---------------- Chinese Water Dragons are beautiful green lizards reminiscent iguanas, only smaller. They originate from the tropical environments of Asia, but can also be found at nearby pet stores around the
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