There are few names as instantly recognizable in the world of puppetry as “Henson”.  I  mean we say that name, and you’re instantly thinking of the Muppets, right?  Trying to find  the right words to adequately explain what the Muppets and films of the Hensons have meant to me, to my family, to EVERYONE is difficult.

Dragon Con in Atlanta Georgia over Labor Day weekend celebrated it’s 30th anniversary this year, bringing in some fabulous guests and panels to keep the party going. Over the last several years, the amount of puppetry interest has skyrocketed at the event, creating the need for it’s very own track and several panels to fulfill the desires of fans. This year, they brought in the Chairman of the Jim Henson Company, Mr. Brian Henson.  I was absolutely beside myself with excitement, getting the chance to interview the voice of Hoggle from Labyrinth, the director of Muppets Christmas Carol AND Muppets Treasure Island  is not something you get to do everyday.

(Feature image borrowed from Preston Burt at GeekDad.com)

Brian touched on pretty much every subject you’d hope, from his upcoming adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men” to the long rumored Farscape film project.

***

Brian Henson:  *looking at the table of audio recorders*  Okay guys, recorders are getting REALLY cool.

Question: What can you tell us about the “Wee Free Men” project?

*voice from the back of the room, Brian’s manager*  NOT A LOT.

Brian: Well, I’ve always loved the books. Initially, Sam Raimi optioned it, and there was a period there were I was hoping we could do it.  But then we got together with Terry’s company about a year and a half ago, and we’re currently developing the script.  That’s where we’re at, and it’ll take awhile, because Terry’s tone of writing is quite unique. It’s hard to capture that without the prose to work with, it’s tricky, so it’ll take us awhile to get it right.  But we’re VERY excited.

Q: You were talking in your panel about the various shoulder heights and ‘bouncing shoulders’, sounds like puppetry has a lot of unique challenges. Are there other bits the average person doesn’t know about that you can tell us a little about?

Brian: We have our show PuppetOff, a show on stage but it’s to camera, it’s now at the Venetian in Vegas.  All the puppets are build to be light weight and easy to use, and soft, so you can hold them up and work them longer. The Sesame Street and Muppet Show characters are built much the same, for a lot of shooting. But when we do things like Dark Crystal, or these bigger movies, like Little Shop of Horrors…I mean I did FeedMe, the “Feed Me” plant, and it was in front of me and weighed probably 170 lbs. It had counterweights and all but BOY was that hard work. For Little Shop we had the Manchester United trainer with us two puppeteers who were in the ‘heavy positions’, and we would come in every morning almost on crutches, and these trainers would work on us and then we’d be fine. So you’d do the work for the day, go home and sleep, and come back in in the morning going ‘oh great, now I’m paralyzed again.’ But yes, some of them are REALLY physically demanding, but mostly only when they’re the big giant movie characters.

Q: When you’re looking at technology today verses when you did Pilot from Farscape, if you had to rebuild Pilot from the ground up right now, do you think the technology of the past 15 years would make a better result or would it be pretty much the same?

Brian: I think whats happening now is this love and return to animatronics. People love seeing ALL animatronics.  When we were first doing animatronics, we were trying to make the most perfect illusion as we possibly could, but looking back it’s a very imperfect illusion.  Whereas 3D animation is a more perfect illusion, but people seem to like the imperfect more if it’s puppetry. With something like The Muppets, theres no perfection to the illusion at all, if you pull their arms off, there will be fluff in there not blood. Some of the stuff we’re developing will be ALL practical, and it’ll be great because we’re no longer trying to chase the target of the perfect illusion of life. If we do Farscape again, and we ARE working towards that, you’ll see more of what we’re calling hybrid animatronics, which they’re doing a lot of on the new Star Wars as well. Having the physical character there to play the scenes, then dropping in effects like lip movements and eye movements later. Studio execs want one or the other, they don’t want both.  They want to know, “is it a lot of preproduction and then you deliver?” or “production where you shoot tomorrow, but then are in post forever”.

Q: Speaking of Farscape….can you maybe talk a little about where you are with that?  Will there be more Farscape, and are there any impediments with that?

Brian: Impediments?  It’s always hard to make ANYTHING. No, there haven’t been impediments, we just have a very very high bar. We are working and working and working on it, working towards the same goal I’ve been saying, a movie.  And the movie is what we’re developing. BUT, we’re not slated for production.  Yet. We’re still working on the script.

We’ll have part two of the interview up soon, stay tuned!

And, start planning your trip for DragonCon 2017!

ABOUT >> Mary Anne Butler
  • ACCOUNT NAME >> Mab
  • BIO >> Mary Anne Butler (Mab) is a reporter and photographer from San Francisco California. She is a lifelong geek, huge music nerd, occasionally cosplays at conventions, does Renaissance Faires, and in general lives the life of a True Believer. She may be short, but she makes up for it with a loud voice.
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