Tobincorporated: Caltech's Greatest Creation: The Making of Audrey II (Part 3: Pod 3)

Pod 3

Unfortunately it was around this point that we fell monstrously behind and had to pull some major overtime to get the plants built, so I don’t have as many pictures. I’ll try and describe everything adequately.

Open and close. Sensing a pattern here? Well, it’s just as important now as ever
Range of motion. Pod 3 really has to emote and essentially dance, and that’s mostly going to come from being able to twist and move its pod around.
Waggle roots. Pod 3 can also gesticulate using its roots, which it gets to unfurl during Feed Me.
Eat. Finally, we get to see Audrey 2 eat someone. Pod 3 has to be able to swallow Orin’s various pieces on stage.

Now things get fun. Audrey 2 starts talking (and singing) with Pod 3, which means the puppeteer and the voice are going to have to sync with each other to make it look right. The puppeteer will have to learn the voice’s cadence exactly, and the voice will have to perform consistently, with the same pacing every night.

When it comes to building Pod 3, we have the following vision in mind: unlike with a hand puppet, each jaw is controlled by an entire arm of the puppeteer (top jaw by the left arm, bottom jaw by the right arm for us), grabbing onto handles near the top. The range of motion of the pod is then determined by the shoulder strength, grip, and back flexibility of the puppeteer. The roots are just the puppeteer’s legs, which start crossed, and are then let out mid-song.

The precise size of Pod 3 can vary, but its width is constrained by how far you want the plant to move. Our plant was a little bit fat, so it couldn’t roll from side to side as much as we may have liked. Of course, that extra size helped to make the plant bigger and more intimidating, rivaling the size of many productions’ Pod 4.

The hinge for the pod’s jaw is around the puppeteer’s stomach level, meaning the puppeteer’s shoulder sticks into the mouth area. It might not seem like it would work, but this can be easily covered with more mouth fabric though.

Pod 3 is large enough that we couldn’t use a papier-mache skeleton anymore, or it would crumble under its own weight. For Pod 3 and 4, we needed a legitimate armature. 1/8” pencil rod steel provided a sturdy but light and flexible frame. Each jaw started with a simple ovaloid for the gums, plus a single semi-circle longways for the upper pallet (like a spine). Handles were then added to the ends, welded directly to the armature. At the base (where the puppeteer sticks into the plant), a hole was cut out of the armature and replaced with some extra support around the sides. Then we just added hinges at the base, and we had a functioning skeleton of the puppet.

So that's what an X-Ray of Pod 3 looks like.

Now here's the trick for making the body--we used foam. Medium weight poly open-cell foam. Foam is light enough to not add too much weight for the puppeteer, but strong enough to retain its shape. We cut it into strips and laid it over the frame. By cutting them relatively thin (which for us was about 4 inches), we were able to make the body relatively round and smooth, and we could cut and sand the corners. Here's the second part of the hint: an electric kitchen knife. Cuts through foam like butter.

We used various methods to tie the ends to the frame: staples, wire, tape. We didn't really think that one too far ahead. Then we used spray adhesives to attach each strip of foam to the adjacent strip.

Notice the triangular beak we added to make it look cool.

It took us a godawful amount of time to figure out how to use the spray adhesive. I think it had something to do with waiting for it to half-dry before sticking pieces together

For a plantlike skin, we went with green felt to match the paint on pods 1 and 2. Of course, if we just wrapped the felt around the armature, it would look like, well, like we wrapped felt around an armature. We then sewed the felt on top of the foam.

All our various adhesives drying in a well-ventilated area.

For warts, we cut out some small pieces of foam and glued them onto the skin. We colored the warts similar colors to spots we put on pods 1 and 2, for continuity of look. The leaves could be simply wrapped onto the armature, glued down, or sewed down and desire. A simple tube of green fabric was sewed on to the base of the pod to act as a stem. And once again, the last part of the pod we added was the mouth fabric, simply sewing sheets onto the mouth lining.

As always, mouth fabric goes onto the pod last.

For the roots, we used brown leggings and fashioned some thorns from a similar brown material. The thorns were made by cutting triangles of fabric, folding them around so they were cone-shaped, and stuffing them with batting. Then we just sewed them onto the leggings. The best places for thorns are at the knees and ankles, to cover up the puppeteer’s joints. Having long “feet” helps to make the roots look better, and we just strapped those onto the leggings with velcro, and covered the velcro with leaves. We also made a few extra big tubes, stuffed with batting, for a few extra thorns to stick out of the plant.

The swallowing mechanism for us was a simple hole for the throat. Closing the mouth around the body parts and shaking the plant, as if it were chewing, was usually enough to pull the viscera into the pod. When it wasn’t, a little simulated peristalsis, by rubbing one hand against the fabric to help push the parts down was enough. If this doesn’t work for you, many productions make a little tongue, out of red fabric, to cover one arm and used to pull food in.

Audrey 2 gets his first decent meal.

Finally, Pod 3 needs somewhere to rest. We got a large steal pot, a chair, and some belts. We cut the legs of the chair, so it was only about 10” tall, bolted it into the pot, and strapped the puppeteer in like with a seatbelt.