The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage
Puppet Maker, Puppet Tech
Two young people and their dæmons, with everything at stake, find themselves at the centre of a terrifying manhunt. In their care is a tiny child called Lyra Belacqua, and in that child lies the fate of the future. And as the waters rise around them, powerful adversaries conspire for mastery of Dust: salvation to some, the source of infinite corruption to others.
Bute Theatre - RWCMD (2022)
Director - Zoe Templeman-Young
Set and Costume Design - Amy Maguire Lewis
Puppetry Design - Alex Kay and Jodie Yates
Puppet making team - Apple Ding, Lily Gardner, Marcha Goodchild, Alex Kay Robyn Smart, Abi Stushnoff, Genevieve Norridge, Milly Williams, Nico Venables, Jodie Yates
Photos by Kirsten McTernan
Process
Working as part of a team of makers, we had 3 weeks to make and render 30 puppets with the aim of getting the finished puppets in the rehearsal room as soon as possible so that the actors would be able to practice puppeteering.
We all had separate roles and worked on every puppet collaboratively - I was mainly focused on making the legs and the mechs, cutting them out with the Jigsaw and working out the stopping points to ensure naturalistic movement.
On show days, we were ensuring that the puppets would go on stage at the right time, and that they were all in the right places for the actors, which meant running puppets through the wings as the actors regularly switched puppets throughout the show.
Cutting the paws out of birch ply
Jigsawing legs and feet bases
Assembling the snow leopard legs
Glueing all together!
3 layered leg stopper mech
Cutting holes in the legs following muscle forms to reduce weight
Testing legs against the body form
Cat legs
All of the cats with their legs
Mouse's body sculpt made from Foam Clay
Inner structure for the Hyena's body
Innser structure for the hyena's body
Forming and joining Hyena's body
Joining hyena's body with seatbelt strap
Buzzard head sculpt
Worbla form from sculpt
Kingfisher mid render
Kingfisher mid render
Dye samples to match all fabrics to
Freshly dyed fabrics
Dying everything!
Dying fabrics with Alex
Fully rendered Kingfisher
Testing out flight and puppeteering
Finished render on Kingfisher