It was such an incredible honor to be able to work with Austin Albany, Jon Doss, David Hosay and all of the other wonderful people through Sublime Media.  We got together and discussed this idea with plenty of detail before submitting it to Wild Turkey for our grant.

I HAVE to stress how relieved I am that I think its going to be incredible.  I was so nervous about this project because the puppet we had designed was so foreign to me.  There were several techniques I had NEVER used or even had a clue how to pull off.  The first big road block was the beak. I can’t remember how many I ended up making before we found one we liked.  Plus, it ended up being covered in liquid spray rubber and then painted as opposed to traditional foam and fleece which limited mobility to almost nothing.  BUT, it looked great on camera.

The next big challenge was the eyes, or more specifically,the pupils.  They ended up being made in Illustrator and printed onto vinyl.

The hair style was something I had never touched either.  We bought a wig and had it professionally styled by the INCREDIBLE Regina Webb in Bowling Green.  She was so kind and helped us out so much.  Couldn’t have pulled that one off without her.

And there’s the wattle.  We kept going back and forth on how to build it.  (texture, color, size, etc.)  We settled on a large rubber party balloon!

When we were all ready to shoot, it started to rain.  There we are with the model we hired, the twenty or so extras, the lights and cameras set up and it was raining.  Fortunately the rain subsided and we had a great night of shooting!  Even if it did run until about 3:30 A.M.  All in all it was an incredible experience and really let me practice and play with my skills.  I do enjoy a challenge.