WELCOME BACKSTAGE!

(PHOTO: Marcel Flisiuk painting)

credit: marcelflisiuk.com

Welcome BACKSTAGE! To the paper moon, the cardboard sky, the safety pinned costume, nerves and hard work, tears, jealousy, and joy - the secrets behind the magic!

Face it - standing in front of an audience or class of any age - either live or virtually - may look easy to the uninitiated, but without serious time put into preparation, the wolves may either eat you alive or wander away into the forest. Through my new BACKSTAGE initiative, I offer to teachers, home schooling parents, teaching artists, and artists a diverse array of ideas for engaging children through arts integration, based on my years of experience as performing puppeteer and teaching artist for children and adults.

These will include lesson plans and connected videos to use right away, links to live recorded puppet theater with connected standards based activities, technical knowledge I have acquired, and sometimes my process-of-the-week. Also, depending on what I am doing at the moment, my own studio work as a puppeteer, and children’s writer and illustrator.

Since my shiny, new website launch coincides with world events no one was prepared for, I am going to begin by sharing what I’ve done since the lock down - as a significant learning curve was involved! This basic technical information should be useful for:

• performers or teaching artists considering going virtual

• teachers working virtually - to help present the same information to multiple classes

• artists of various genres seeking to get their work online

Here we go!

MY GOALS, March and April 2020:

IMMEDIATE: To offer free, alternative entertainment and creative activities to children and families suddenly stuck at home.

LONG TERM: not really any

PROCESS: I set up a hand puppet stage in my studio, in the large room where I present public shows for up to about 45 people, closing the blinds and using the stage lights.  I used my iPhone camera, balancing the camera vertically, on a chair on top of a table.

I started the camera and did one take of a 15 minute story I have performed many times. I did not use a mic. (I am pretty good at projecting my voice.)

I uploaded the video footage to iMovie, the video editing program that comes on a mac computer. The steps I used were to connect the iPhone via a cord to the computer, upload into Photos, then share it to my computer desktop, and then into iMovie. These steps take some time, so I worked on other projects during the uploading process. Perhaps this could be done with fewer steps, but this is what worked for me. I have not worked much with video, but did have an advantage in using iMovie because I use Adobe Illustrator a lot so I already understood thinking in layers for the editing process.

The first video looked terrible: yellowish and unclear images. The sound was OK.

Because the camera was placed vertically, a significant amount of cropping was needed in order to just show the horizontal stage proscenium. That much cropping and expanding affected the video image quality also. But the main problem was the lighting.

TAKE TWO:

I consulted with a photographer friend (rickolivier.com) by phone and he suggested using natural light. I also asked him if the problem was with the camera, as I do have an actual camera I could learn to use (Canon EOS Rebel T5). However, my very old iPhone had died fairIy recently and I had replaced it with a new budget iPhone SE and Rick said they have great cameras and it would be much easier for me, and equally effective, to use that.

I moved the stage into my office, a smaller room with large windows facing east.

I also realized I could place the iPhone horizontally, reducing the need to crop. And, I remembered I had a camera tripod. At first I used velcro and rubber bands to attach the phone to the tripod, and eventually, ordered an iPhone holder that screws onto the tripod. Trés professionnel!

I ended up recording four different 15 minute stories, each done in one take, so no editing needed. I also recorded four 15 minute mini puppet demonstration workshops, showing kids how to make puppets out of recycled stuff they could find around the house. For those, I just talked to the camera from behind a table set up also in the office, recording in the morning when light was best. The mini workshops needed a little more editing, but still very simple.

There are lots of free tutorials on every aspect of using iMovie, which I found by just googling the issue. I learned that iMovie videos over 15 minutes cannot be stored in iCloud, but only actually in the computer. Videos do require more space, so I tried to keep them under 15 minutes. However, once they are finished, edited, and posted on Youtube or Vimeo, it seemed to me they could just be stored on those platforms. I admit I have not deleted them yet from the computer, but I will as I become confident that they are safely stored somewhere.

I uploaded the videos as I finished them to my Youtube channel, which I was only vaguely aware that I had, as I have totally ignored it. I also posted notice of each upload on Facebook.

RESULTS: Youtube channel subscribers grew from 3 (for last 5 years) to 65 in two weeks. Every time I posted something new, I got more subscribers. Even Youtube was excited!

I know those are not huge numbers, but that does show that new material does get noticed. Besides Facebook, just this minimal neighborhood promotion.  And, indeed, I have not had a new subscriber since I stopped posting new videos.

Why did I stop? This was time consuming, and I suddenly had to turn my summer performance tour virtual in order to attempt to actually earn some income.

How did I do that? Join me in the next BACKSTAGE!

And feel free to post questions, comments! We’re all in this together!