And with puppets, especially in our company, we sort of demand a very high standard of puppetry, so it’s a real technical skill.
BRIAN HENSONAnd that was always my father’s favorite part about shooting as well. Often my dad would shoot very, very late, he was quite a workaholic, they would do 20, 20-hour shoots and stuff like that.
More Brian Henson Quotes
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Oh, well, I can’t tell you; it would be telling you the end. It’s a one-character lip-syncing because in the early days, that’s what my dad was doing.
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We took a show to the Aspen Comedy Festival, called “Puppet Up” at that point, and in Aspen we just did three shows, and in Aspen, there was a producer from the Edinborough Fringe Festival, who said, “Please come to Edinborough.”
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he puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it’s great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
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I have nothing really prepared,” and actually I say that, the show is not all improvising.
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To anyone who’s trying to be an artist, in any medium, it’s a very odd and lonely and nerve-wracking and scary process when you let anybody see what you’re working on.
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We wanted to premiere it in New York, because New York is sort of the home of the Jim Henson Company and it’s sort of the tone and flavor, always, of the puppet work that we’ve done traditionally. And that’s what brought us here and now we’re here.
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But the fact that most of the show you can’t be prepared for, you have no idea really what’s coming is initially very nerve wracking, by now, it’s kind of fun.
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You get used to it, you look forward to the adrenaline of the stage fright before you go out.
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My dad and mom were, they would take what were popular hits, and lip-sync to them with puppets and do a ridiculous story.
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We kind of lost a lot of that and puppeteers were sticking to the script and we thought everything needed to get a lot funnier, so we thought we would go to a good improv comedy instructor.
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The challenge is, well, there’s a huge challenge, which is when you’re improvising, you’re meant to sort of clear your mind completely, just be open and funny, and paying, you know, paying attention.
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Where does a character come from? Because a character, at the end of the day, a character will be the combination of the writing of the character, the voicing of the character, the personality of the character, and what the character looks like.
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I think it’s a lot richer than what we call fleshy improv, I think it’s very funny, puppet improv and fleshy improv.
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In the show, we have recreated two sketches that my dad had, or pieces that my dad had developed. One that he had developed with my mother, one that Frank Oz had developed with my dad. And these are old pieces from the ’50’s and ’60’s, and we’re going to develop more, too.
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I think in a creative effort, in any creative effort, you need to, people need to be able to be taking risks and if it turns out to be a mistake, if it turns out not to have been the right choice, that should be applauded, you know, by everybody, and it will come up with another plan.
BRIAN HENSON