Jonny And Will

0:07[Applause]

0:14hi guys yeah thanks for having us I'm Johnny I'm will and we are directors and puppet making puppeteer guys and we've gonna show you show you a few things that we've done over the years.

0:35And then talk about a couple of sort of specific projects before we do that.

0:37So we talked about how we met yeah we met a Wimbledon School of Art when we did a degree course it was a making course called technical arts interpretation where we got to make props and sets so we come from a very making background but we've both been super interested in making films and creating characters and we just sort of did that at college instead of what we were supposed to be doing all of dissertations and stuff we just made films that was it we specialized in that yeah we both always been interested in that sort of thing.

1:08And I'd been making puppets since I was a little boy weirdly and then sort of found of course that I could carry on carry on doing it we haven't got it there's a photo of Johnny when he's about four years old in his cot yeah after we after college have to say I'm a Zowie dug into the Johnny and will archive so you don't quite know what's going to pop up hopefully nothing too embarrassing although that's yeah that was those college days where we sort of yeah spent most of time working on one puppet film with all these sort of aliens in a restaurant that never quite got finished but it was it was good fun yeah when we left College Rhys up a little kind of production company just making weird films and exploring creating characters and doing in camera techniques a point where everything was CGI and everyone said you're in the wrong business they were doing puppets for you gotta be doing some computer animation and creating things in CGI we sort of stuck to our guns and always like that handcrafted handmade feel you make designing characters and trying to see what we could do the magic of like in camera trickery there's our stressed as weird blue ninjas which we spend quite a lot of time dressed up as unnecessarily it turns out we can always judge a post guy by the weather who they get in that or not but yeah as real said we always like the kind of hand made side of things and and feel like it's always got a sort of charm to it where you can sort of tell that it's kind of handmade and in camera stuff we've always been drawn to that yeah kind of at college and things then we shared a studio together and made little weird films and things and kind of gradually wormed their way into various art departments and working on music videos and adverts and things.

2:53And then and sort of got in with blink productions and then ultimately got signed as directors with them because we were always kind of going on about our own ideas and things we wanted to do that's a good point we've always had we've ended up working in advertising that pays the bills and it's great we've got to explore and meet loads of people and do loads of interesting things that we've never normally got it's a really nice world to be in when your self coming up with ideas but we've always had an eye on just doing doing our own stuff that's always been the sort of aim write writing things and creating characters ourselves we've got together a little little taste a real for you guys put that on so you can see some of the stuff we've been up to over the last few years ♪

5:20[Applause]

5:26thank you yeah.

5:29So you can see we've done sort of all sorts of stuff over the years from tiny little mice to giant dinosaurs and so of every every jobs totally different so it was you know fun and sort of inspiring stuff that we get to sort of try every time we do something like puppeteer sausage walking along you think the last time we're ever going to work we just be so lucky in the phone will ring we said we need another sausage so luckily been so nice we've been really busy which is priesthood for but it's been fun we thought we thought we'd talk about a project we've been working on recently or the last couple years we spent quite a lot of time in Australia actually lucky enough to direct some commercials for IKEA where the idea was to bring their products to life. And I guess they're sort of family dynamic so work out what what product products had some specific characters and what products would go together it was really nice of working with the client and the agency in choosing what to put in the adverts and stuff as a present just not being told what to do so we're still looking at how lamps move and how aprons work and all around and what would make good characters so sort of getting quite involved with the sort of ideas behind the what's in there nice sort of challenge as well because we obviously we make sort of characters and sort of more things with eyes and stuff whereas it's quite nice to do some objects and just sort of get this get a rug okay has this rug gonna walk along and just bring in bringing their objects to life and bringing yeah with IKEA particularly it was like pretty much every you know it was all just bringing their their products to life yeah.

7:06So there wasn't you know it was just working out had some sort of rig things rather than build things from scratch but but yeah it's really good fun just bringing total character to things and yeah we did we did a little run of them.

7:19So there was a sort of rug which was we'll show you now. And then. There was a few other ones we'll show you some air behind the scenes stuff as well yes we just picked one out to play you ♪

8:12the best day is the everyday I keep [Applause]

8:25bringing objects to life although we saw you know make characters as well with eyes as Johnny said this of listened to character into them yeah and so with jobs like this with advertising things particularly we're often in this or pitching process will them because it's quite a quick-fire way of doing things but all the way that we do things sort of making things. And sort of fabricating stuff is quite quick to knock things together so often with it with adverts and things in the pitching process we'll make test characters and sort of try things out and do little movement tests and things which can often be sort of invaluable really in terms of getting people to understand how you know you can get character out of these things and bring a bit charm and sort of personality to stuff that when it's just words on a page you know you don't quite know what you're going to get so this is now the sort of test that we did just shot in our studio for one of these really hard you can tell someone it would be a dancing apron it's going to be great and you draw the apron.

9:26So imagine it dancing until you kind of shoot it's even a rough test on the iPhone and send off. That's often the thing that kind of wins the jobs or gets people inspired about what it could potentially become.

9:35So this is this is a rough test for and one of those IKEA things and that ended up being really similar to the the final ad ♪

10:32super crude but they really gave the agency a sense of like potential and stuff so yes nice we call those and when we do map out our ideas and it's very rough that we've coined the term shittim attics which is all something yeah yeah. So as well as vert izing we've kind of always had our own ideas for just characters and TV shows and sort of films and whatever.

10:59So yeah we're kind of always chipping away at developing those sort of things as well as advertising and one thing that we're sort of doing at the moment is we've got a commission for the BBC to make some little shows for kids basically for iPlayer which is stuff that we've been sort of writing and making and we just sort of like doing it all really.

11:20So we sort of work on that at the moment but unfortunately we can't sort of show you anything I'll tell you anything about it.

11:26But it's coming up soon but something else that we did a few years ago was another sort of kids thing for Cartoon Network called the grumpy King which again was something that we sort of came up with we actually pitched it to them as idents cuz they were they wanted to my dance and we sort of pitched the MIS idea and they they really liked it and said can you turn it into so yeah we got to it was like a dream project really we got to sort of write it and come up with the staff and make the puppets and sort of yeah yeah do everything really.

12:01So there's a few behind-the-scenes shots here it was the sort of idea was this gestured well this guy I'll get him out in a sec there's this jester character who's basically trying to entertain this grumpy King who's not having any of it. And it was just a chance to do some we kind of wanted to make like mmm sort of like I guess sort of Tom and Jerry Bugs Bunny sort of cartoons with puppets and be able to sort of go a bit weird with it I suppose and some of those good projects we for work you just get to watch loads of cartoons which is really cool but it's been really what's really great we shot them all and just watching but I've took them into my kids primary school just watching kids react to them it's really nice because I think they're so used to seeing we never set out to make kids stuff that was never all that we do puppets it was never sort of crossed our minds that kids might like puppets and stuff but yeah whenever we shown them to kids they really respond well to because they're so used to seeing everything kind of looks the same like that flash animated kind of cartoons and stuff and even with the puppet stuff that's on telly it's always very zany and crazy and lots of fast-moving manic puppets so I think when we showed them the grumpy King which is actually quite subtle and weirdly dark sit in medieval times respond to it really really well.

13:15And it's intrigued by it. And so all the puppets are kind of handmade fabricated foam rubber things.

13:25And then with little sort of brake cable II things to do eyebrows and stuff like that. So that was the sort of starting point really was starting with this guy familiar son of those so he was the kind of main guy and then we and then we liked the idea of the king being quite big and powerful and this sort of this big present so he ended up being pretty massive really.

13:48And we had when he had sort of real hands in his hands so he could pick things up and that in turn meant that he was pretty big that's their video inside of the king's head again this was a thing with it wasn't going to have any words and it was going to be a sort of be able to play in any country so we just wanted to do it sort of visual and with sound effects and music. And we figured am a big king with the big fluffy wiggly mustache was quite cool so the kids were so this is like yes it's all very it's all handmade and hat we always find with puppets and things the more hands on you are the more sort of sensitive the performances really I guess we spent years simplifying things down to literally a sock start with a million eyebrows and eyelids that move and things like that and actually it's the simpler was on screen the better always seems to be that way what we like yeah. So with this got this this thing here that looks pretty weird is the inside of the king's head so he's it's basically me just sort of with this guy in my hand but with one hand up here and the other hand here and thumb sort of controlling his eyes so the fingers it sort of do is browse and then the other thing is do is mustache and yes I'm just gonna keep playing this with anyone just these eyes it's great so we've them sort of wrap up now.

15:21But this will play you an episode of the grumpy king they're only short and we picked this one out because we really liked it it's about. And it got nominated for children ♪

16:20[Applause]

17:05[Laughter]

18:15thank you very much [Applause]