Eurofurence Information > Feedback
Opinion about this years pawpet show
Kazzador:
even with my bad command of English, I´ll try to give a personal feedback:
I think the PPS was better than the last years back, but the Show on EF 12 is still my personal favourit
cause of one reason:
I don´t like lovestories
The Show on EF 12 was filled with comedy
but after EF 12 it seemed to me, that the shows only focused on lovestories anymore
this year, the lovestory was just a side-story....and I liked it (just my personal opinion!)
I liked the idea behind the Story and I liked the pawpets
but there are some things I didn´t like:
biggest problem (for me)
The waiting time during the stage-reconstruction
I know, that it is nearly impossible to reconstruct the whole backdrop in such a short time (only solution would be, that all backdrops are already fastened above the stage and just get moved down when needed)
like last years, you "covered" this reconstruction-time with videoclips, but you didn´t even came close to fill the whole "waitingtime" with those vids
I know, that it is nearly impossible for you to plan those backdrop-changes, so you can´t know the exact time you have to fill
but this year, it took minutes between the end of the videos and the start of the next scene (and this at every "change of location")
Next problem (for me):
The swearing
for example as the dragon cursed his wife with "motherfucking bitch" I thought 2 things:
1. does it make sense to call a female person a "motherfucker"?
2. that wasn´t funny, it was embarrassing
next point (which was already mentioned in this thread)
in a lot of shots you´ve seen the pawpeteers
and not just those pawpeteers who had to lift their arm that high, that it is impossible to hide their heads
Next thing:
The scene with the regaining memory didn´t worked out (for me)
Cause of 2 points
1. the backdroppaintings with the fluorescent colours were seen on screen all the time like "wet spots" (there was always a heart shown on the screen :P)
2. the colours didn´t worked well even as the blacklight was on
the effect was a good try, but in my opinion, it failed (again! just MY opinion!.....if all the others say "it was perfect", I´m wrong)
and one last thing, which is just a little detail
Some characters yelled at each other
so far no problem but....
If an actor got a microphon placed in front of his mouth, he shouldn´t scream
Cause if he/she yells into this micro, it doesn´t sound like an angry yell
it just sounds like.......how can I explain that?.....it sounds like a combination out of "ouch! not that loud! now my ears hurt" and "what have you said? I couldn´t understand a word"
It´s like somebody screams directly into your ear
a possible way to avoid that (even if it is complicate):
Get a stagehand with hand-microphone
and at the one moment the char has to yell, shut down the headset of this person and place the hand-micro in about 1 meter distance to the yelling person
Now everyone will hear, that the person screams, but will still understand what he´s saying
Don´t know if this realy works, but yelling into the headset didn´t work eighter :P
and a last time
this is just my opinion
you did a great job with the PPS and I enjoyed it
and as long as it´s imposible to please all of your audience, it´s great to see, that you still try it year after year after year
thank you for that
Cheetah:
--- Quote from: Kazzador on 23.08.2011, 13:34:34 ---The waiting time during the stage-reconstruction
--- End quote ---
I have to agree with this one. The waiting times tend to be rather long. But the problem lies within the nature of that stage. Have you tried changing backdrops on a 10-meter-stage without any actual theatre-like infrastructure? And we did have some elements in the show that required us to tilt backdrops forward (so we can have doors in them). All this requires time ... and it's incredibly hard to estimate how much time it will take if you never get to try it until the con! So I'm very sorry, we're working hard on making the pauses short, but good looking scenes, with multiple levels of backdrops and stuff, takes a lot of time to setup.
Of course we could simplify it, and just put up flat backdrops and have no depth in the scenes at all. That would speed things up. Or we could have scrapped the firemen-chase-scene which required the panels to be tilted to have actual doors you can run through. That would also have sped things up a lot. But then ... those were all pretty cool things, and they come at the price of having to wait, and it's incredibly hard to find a balance between good looks and setup time if you never get to TRY the setup before the con.
--- Quote ---for example as the dragon cursed his wife with "motherfucking bitch" I thought 2 things:
1. does it make sense to call a female person a "motherfucker"?
2. that wasn´t funny, it was embarrassing
--- End quote ---
It was not supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be tragic.
What would you say, if your wife, who's just confessed to having betrayed you for 12 years is torturing you while threatening to kill your daughter? We thought it was pretty fitting. It was very personal, very close, and it was a character defining moment, too ... cai-lung is someone who is usually all subdued, calm and gentle. Seeing him explode like that showed just how much he loved his daughter, and just how desperate he was in this situation. It takes a lot to make a lung dragon lose it like that!
So, it was not random swearing. It was intentionally written that way. I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.
--- Quote ---next point (which was already mentioned in this thread)
in a lot of shots you´ve seen the pawpeteers
and not just those pawpeteers who had to lift their arm that high, that it is impossible to hide their heads
--- End quote ---
As I said during my introduction: That was by design. You were not supposed to look at them :) The four-legged creatures (tigers and dragons) forced us to lower the edge of the stage so that sometimes you'd see the scalp of a puppeteer. That was the only way we could make the tigers walk with their paws on the "ground", instead of appearing halfway hidden behind the edge of the stage like the anthro puppets.
It's something we realized when it was already to late ... we will probably not use four-legged puppets in any future shows. It was an experiment, and we learned from it.
--- Quote ---Next thing:
The scene with the regaining memory didn´t worked out (for me)
Cause of 2 points
1. the backdroppaintings with the fluorescent colours were seen on screen all the time like "wet spots" (there was always a heart shown on the screen :P)
2. the colours didn´t worked well even as the blacklight was on
--- End quote ---
Yes, you are right. There was an error in the light programming. The scene lighting did not work out as planned. The scene was supposed to start out in monochrome blue (in which the UV paint would have been invisible), then the UV light was supposed to turn on revealing the symbols, then the rush of moving white light into the audience when they touch, and then the sun was supposed to slowly come up during the music. A glitch in the programming of the light desk caused the white backdrop lights to be on from the start, ruining the effect. We screwed this one up. Sorry. Shit happens. It annoyed me quite a bit, as it took quite some of the emotional impact away that this scene was supposed to have. But oh well. This stuff is insanely complex. With no off-site technical rehearsal, stuff like this is always pretty much hit-or-miss.
--- Quote ---a possible way to avoid that (even if it is complicate):
Get a stagehand with hand-microphone
and at the one moment the char has to yell, shut down the headset of this person and place the hand-micro in about 1 meter distance to the yelling person
--- End quote ---
Thanks for trying to be constructive, I appreciate this. I'll leave it at saying: It's not as simple as you think it is :)
--- Quote ---you did a great job with the PPS and I enjoyed it
and as long as it´s imposible to please all of your audience, it´s great to see, that you still try it year after year after year
thank you for that
--- End quote ---
You're very welcome! And thanks for your feedback.
Keidran:
When you talk about shortening the building times between scenes why not make them longer?
If you make the intermission videos longer you could have a bit more time to build the stages and catch a breath.
So the viewer doesn't have to wait for actual content to happen and the team has a bit more time.
I know that this would probably lead to the fact that some people could think that the show focuses on the Intermission.
But I think it'd be better that way than waiting after the video is over and then nothing happens for several minutes.
btw I loved that Call of Duty parody with the town map xD
lynard:
--- Quote from: Keidran on 23.08.2011, 16:06:58 ---When you talk about shortening the building times between scenes why not make them longer?
--- End quote ---
It took quite a while to create all those videos (they are preproduced). And as mentioned before we could test the complete setup on Wednesday night. You simply cannot change the videos onsite again ;)
Keidran:
--- Quote from: lynard on 23.08.2011, 18:18:14 ---
--- Quote from: Keidran on 23.08.2011, 16:06:58 ---When you talk about shortening the building times between scenes why not make them longer?
--- End quote ---
It took quite a while to create all those videos (they are preproduced). And as mentioned before we could test the complete setup on Wednesday night. You simply cannot change the videos onsite again ;)
--- End quote ---
Yah this years PPS was very rushed I know that x3 It was more like a suggestion for next year.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version