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[Thygrrr]

Chipping in two more cents before I sign off: I loooooved the 2032 Hong Kong setting! :-)

[ysegrim]

Null has so many character details... like how he's a black hat hacker but a white rabbit (which come out of black hats) ...

Whew, I never got that reference. I always thought this was a reference to Matrix, «Follow the White Rabbit» (which is, of course, a reference to Alice in Wonderland). I'm sure there is still dozens of references in the show I never got ...

And my prize for the Most Surprising Stage Effect goes to -- the Elevator. With the Tron-style avatar erasure a close runner-up.

[Quincy the Raccoon]

So this was the Pawpetshow? I must say I was very impressed by it. The poking out of some of the heads from some puppetplayers did not bother me at all, it just gave me a special feel (I dunno what). But the story was good, a bit futuristic and a bit 'now', a mix of both. I just adored those raccoons() with the nerf-guns 

The scene by the tree with hearts was bit cheesy, but allright. (how did they do that?)

Overall, it was (for me too!) not too long and not too short! And NULL: you are the greatest rabbit ever! 

[Druon]

Let me start by saying that I liked the pawpet-show very much. My thanks go to all the puppeteers, techies and stagehands involved in the production.

Among the new puppets I especially liked the rabbit, for me he is something like the Doc Brown of the hacking underground. Props and backdrops had several nice touches and I especially liked the cavern in the dragon's nest with that water pool and the lampions illuminating the area.

The story itself was just of the right size, what turned it so long where the times needed for preparing the stage. Even with those nice interlude scenes/videos available, it still took quite a while (and I am not blaming anyone, as the team has no chance to work on that very stage during the rest of the year). With that in mind I would suggest going for a shorter story, so that with breaks and preparations the time remains under four hours. Also I noticed that the story never revisited one place, instead showing off quite a lot of different backdrops. Sometimes less is more: While the backdrops are nice, I am much more into it for the story and giving the puppets more screen – eh – stage time. 

I agree with some others that the show as a whole was a lot more serious than I anticipated and hoped for. I don't want to do you guys any injustice here: In itself it was a pretty good story. But after having seen Bitter Lake the other evening, I was hoping for something to balance out the mood. That movie was beautiful, but sad and serious. So I went into the show looking more for delightful comedy and humor.

[Rua Whitepaw]

I really liked the show, it was very well made and the story was very good too. I was reminded of the game 'Deus Ex' which has some parts of the story that are very similar. The balance between humour and seriousness was right, I didn't really think it was too serious. In fact I think the EF pawpetshow is quite unique that way because it uses a medium for serious storytelling that's usually reserved just for comedy.

At first I thought that the scenes in the little room where Null was hiding were prerecorded. But then I noticed he actually waited for the applause to stop, which really surprised me, and then of course at the end they confirmed that it was all live. It was really well done!

[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 )
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


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]

The waiting time during the stage-reconstruction

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 )
2. the colours didn´t worked well even as the blacklight was on

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.

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

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

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

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]

When you talk about shortening the building times between scenes why not make them longer?

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]

When you talk about shortening the building times between scenes why not make them longer?

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

Yah this years PPS was very rushed I know that x3 It was more like a suggestion for next year.

[lynard]

Yah this years PPS was very rushed I know that x3 It was more like a suggestion for next year.

Don't worry, reading through all those feedback helps improving (hopefully) 

[Dhary Montecore]

After thinking VERY hard about something I didn't like about the show I actually found two things!! Oh, the show was sooo bad because of those two things!!

First: There was no ending-song! Up to EF 15 the ending songs were just great and it was so beautiful to listen to them during the year! I want those great endings back!

Second (Please ignore this critique, because I'm just to sensitive here): Violence. This year was good in that regard, not too much, but I really disliked the unnecessary violence in the show of EF 15.

So, bad bad show! ;3


Now seriously: Even without a epic theme-song this show rocked so hard! And thank you a thousand times, that you didn't kill any of the main characters. That made the show perfect for me. :3

[Elfasi]

Well, I think I will add my feedback to the mix.  Let me start by saying I very nearly skipped going to the pawpet show this year.  My first Eurofurence was EF14, and I missed the pawpet show due to being ill.  I've regretted that many times since, and tried to make up for it by going to the pawpet show at EF15 and EF16.  The new Maritim hotel certainly makes the experience of attending the pawpet show a much more pleasant one, with perfect views and no real seating problems.

But, and I say this with the greatest respect to the Pawpet show team, some of whom are my personal friends...  I'd nearly had enough.  I'd nearly given up on seeing it one more time this year.  The biggest problem the Pawpet show seems to have, is how long it lasts.  Last year felt like the final straw at over 5 hours, together with starting delays.  Time at a furry convention, especially Eurofurence, is incredibly precious.  Time to meet all the wonderful people I only see once a year, time to see the incredibly talented events and panels people put on.  But 5 prime time hours, an entire evening gone, was just too much taken away from the precious time I want for everything else and everyone else.

This year it feels like that problem was finally reigned in a little.  After the delay, by my count, the show lasted around 3 hours.  This still feels a little long, but far far less burdensome.  I don't feel such an awful conflict between wanting to see the pawpet show, and not wanting to lose out on so much time with my friends.  The delay starting the show was shorter, the delay between scenes was shorter, the overall show was shorter.  Bravo and keep it up!

Now onto what I found awesome about the show, and how it compares to previous years.

• The new characters and puppets felt so damn fresh, it was wonderful.  Maybe the old characters can come back some day too, but I certainly welcome this kind of injection of vitality into the formula.  Forgive me for forgetting the names, but the white rabbit, awesome, the rat, awesome, the tigers, amazingly awesome (sorry to hear they're probably a 1-time only experiment), the dragon, bloody fantastic!
• New stage effects, another great injection of vitality and freshness.  Fursuiters in the audience, new lighting programs that extend beyond the stage, elevator simulations, TRON sets, NERF guns, firefighting Dalmatians, and all the interstitial and accompanying video sequences on the screens (and the white rabbit's awesome secret den he spent most of the time in).
• The writing feels new and fresh.  The white rabbit especially was an especially colourful and zany and very memorable character.  Great voice talent too!  But the whole story felt more tight, more drama and suspense, less serious and heavy, and yeah it did prod my emotions.
• The videos covering the scene changes were very good, a great variety, lots of humour, and I'd suggest if those scene changes really can't get any faster, it couldn't hurt to make those videos longer.
• The musical choices were nicely done, and pretty funny at times!
• I absolutely love that the sponsors got what was essentially a treasure hunt this year with the encrypted USB stick (the secrets revealed as part of the Pawpet show).  That really makes us feel special, and really draws us into the story too.  What a great idea!  Reminds me a little of the zombie innoculations and cards they were handing out at EF14.  Please do more of this.
• Nerd humour FTW.

I could list the niggles and problems I had, but honestly, it's nothing that hasn't already been said, and nothing that big.  Bottom line, the pawpet show pulled back from the brink for me this year, way more enjoyable than it's been for me in the past, and I'm really excited to see what future innovations you guys come up with.  Thank you all for the amazing work you seem to put in all year, all for my entertainment.

[skyhoof]

In my opinion, the EF17 PPS was great, from a technical view. (Disregarding that the pawpeteers were visible a lot, but this was well commented before this posting)
You had gread ideas how to do some special-effects like animating the elevator, that was really great!

But this year the storywriting was awful!
Sorry, i realy dislike to use such hard words, but this PPS was the first one, that bored me.
I was realy pissed after the show, thinking about the fact that the PPS allways has been one reason why i stated EF allways as the best con i've seen.
This year, PPS sucked that mutch, i felt really unhappy for the rest of the evening.

I've seen PPS of EF 7, 8, 14, 15, 16 and now 17.
Until EF16 the PPS had a verry good balance between emotions and humor.
In this years PPS i missed both.

I remember a lot of funny scenes in the PPS mentioned above. Even from the PPS 10 Years ago ...
Hell, i loughed until it hurts at EF8 when the cristalball told "the ghost you've called is temporary not avalible"
And i cryed nearly until an half hour after the show when poke had to leave his love in "Dreamcatchers" at EF14.

But for this year, it's hard to me to remember a really funny part, and the show was just 3 days ago.
The funnyest parts of this years PPS were the szene in the house of the rat (l allready forgott his name), the screen telling "this video isn't avalible outside of china" and whenn Null said "Hello World - I allways wanted to say that" ... They made me giggle a bit.
This is not enough by far.
Not one szene touched my heart, and large parts of the storry were forseeable.

The show even had not a lot to do with this EFs topic "Kung Fur Hussle".
Well okay, the storry took place in HongKong, and we've seen one kick ... but where was the real action?

I don't tell you this to say something like "you sucked".
I tell you this to help, making such mistakes not again, next year.
Please focus more on storrywriting next year!
Cheetah and Eisfuchs, you're verry talented in that. You've proven this a lot in the years before.
What PPS needs is more drama and a lot more humor.
You've done that really awesome in the past, and i'm shure you can do it again.
Just hear what people disliked this year.

[ysegrim]

I really, really liked the new puppets, esp. the large ones. Even for this being the first time you play these puppets, many scenes (the big leap during the fight, the dragon nailing down the tigress, etc) were absolutely impressive, and I can't wait to see what you will do with these puppets with another full year of experience! Please don't abandon the concept. By the way, it was also great to finally see a reasonable size difference between a tiger and a rat ...

Null and Void were adorable (even though the style of their puppets did not match in some way ...). The Null Box: absolutly great.


Regarding the story: It took me quite some time to get into it -- without any known characters, the PPS did not feel that much like "coming home" as in previous years. Also, I really liked the "one-gag-a-minute" openings in the last couple of shows, despite their serious story -- I kind of missed it in this show. Also, both the scene where Void got his memory back, and Null's monologue at the end drifted a tiny bit towards pathos.

This being said: it was just awesome to watch this year's show again, and it felt good to be a tiny, tiny cog in the wheel while still being able to enjoy every second of the show. Thanks!