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But initially when I was working with my dad, it was in special effects puppets with radio control and motors and puppet effects.
Brian Henson
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Brian Henson
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: November 3
Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Puppeteer
Screenwriter
Television Director
Television Producer
New York City
New York
Brian David Henson
Puppets
Motor
Dad
Radio
Effects
Control
Motors
Special
Puppet
Working
Initially
More quotes by Brian Henson
he puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it's great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
Brian Henson
At that point, I thought probably special effects, something like that, and indeed, the early days when I was working with my dad, after I left school, I only went to less than one year of college, and then I was transferring, and then I delayed my transfer, and I did a movie, and then another movie, and then I never finished college.
Brian Henson
Really, initially what I very quickly realized that I was loving about the show was, because it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would visit the sets where my dad was shooting with the other puppeteers.
Brian Henson
And then after the success at Melbourne Comedy Festival, then we regrouped back in LA and we went back into workshopping and decided to develop a proper show and that's when we started working on Stuffed and Unstrung, which is a much bigger and sharper version of Puppet Up.
Brian Henson
In many ways, I think it's easier in some ways, or it's more entertaining or more guaranteed to be entertaining than traditional improvising. Again, because you're not just you in your body.
Brian Henson
But curriculum-wise, I was drawn to the sciences and specifically to physics, and I really enjoyed it and I think for a little while there, I was really thinking my schooling would be in physics, that that was something I loved.
Brian Henson
You get used to it, you look forward to the adrenaline of the stage fright before you go out.
Brian Henson
It's really great to do one piece, I've Grown Accustomed To Your Face, my dad developed in 1956, when he was 20 years old, and it's great to do that piece again now and see that it still really works as well as it ever did.
Brian Henson
We're also irreverent, we have an irreverent attitude towards puppets, as well. So a lot of what we do is we're kind of making fun of the puppets for being puppets, even while we're doing it. And again, that all feeds into the absurdity of this show.
Brian Henson
And one of the funnest things was watching what they did before the director called action and after the director called cut. And they'd keep their hands in the puppets, they'd stay in character, and then they'd start goofing around with each other and be off of script, and it would get quite blue.
Brian Henson
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.
Brian Henson
It was actually what my dad did and with the Muppets, the years with the Muppets, it was really all targeted to adults. It was in a time when everything had to be safe for the whole family. But he was targeting adults.
Brian Henson
I was already sort of mixing my science physics enthusiasm with entertainment and directing and puppetry.
Brian Henson
So that's the challenge, you have a big technical aspect of what you're doing whilst you're creatively trying to improvise.
Brian Henson
First of all, you're improvising through a puppet, so you're not always yourself: you're a cow or you're a pig or you're an old woman, you know, whatever puppet you pick, or you're a demon, you know, whatever you pick up, that's what you get to be in the scene.
Brian Henson
We try to keep it a classy show, but it certainly is blue at times. And it all depends on the audience, sometimes we've have audiences that don't really want us to go too far in that direction.
Brian Henson
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.
Brian Henson
So while you're trying to improvise, you're also trying to puppeteer, you're doing everything that you need to do to perform a puppet in our style, for a camera.
Brian Henson
Patrick thought we should try to put an audience in front of one of the workshops, basically in front of the class and see how the performers rose to having an audience there, because he said, You know, it's a really interesting test, because sometimes it gets even funnier.
Brian Henson
And my dad's answer would be usually something to the affect of, A, it came out better than he imagined, but also, he said, No, it would be impossible for me to imagine the way it will come out. He said, Yes, I story-boarded it, I had a plan, but then I work with an army of great artists and I want all of them to create inside that creation.
Brian Henson
