Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I try to emulate his approach of really get the most out of people by allowing them to experiment and certainly allowing people to make mistakes.
Brian Henson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
People
Experiments
Mistakes
Certainly
Approach
Mistake
Trying
Emulate
Really
Experiment
Make
Allowing
More quotes by 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
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
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
I was already sort of mixing my science physics enthusiasm with entertainment and directing and puppetry.
Brian Henson
And it should be something that only that group of people could've made with everybody invested.
Brian Henson
You get used to it, you look forward to the adrenaline of the stage fright before you go out.
Brian Henson
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.
Brian Henson
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
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
The first show that my dad and my mom did together was for, was a comedy series, a short form that went in the middle of late-night news, and then through all of their career, it was always the Ed Sullivan Show, it was a variety act, my dad was on the Jimmy Dean Show for a few years.
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
People would say to him, When you finish a movie, did it come out as good as you thought it was going to? Or, Did it come out the way you intended it to come out?
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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