Wyatt Cenac Embraces his Inner Puppet

Tonight, Wyatt Cenac steps out of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and into our hearts.  Well, I don't know about our hearts, but certainly into our shop.  Okay that was months ago,  but, boy, did we have fun!  After we built the puppet versions of Jon Stewart, John Oliver and Mr. Cenac back in October, Wyatt stopped by for a tour.  What a gracious guy--and a real puppet sympathizer, so we like that!  Tonight I finally understand it, though.  The discovery of his puppet self seems to have been a real epiphany for him.  Go Wyatt!  There's no shame in it.  I look forward the day when we get all our news from puppet journalists.  Heck, we're already getting it from comedians.

My thanks to Mary Brehmer, Isabelle Dufour, Anna Paniccia, Michael Bush, Jean Marie Keevins, Diana Schoenbrun and Stephen Rotandaro for working all weekend to meet the deadline.  It was challenging, but we really had fun cranking these out--and even more fun watching those guys perform their own puppets!  (Although, I'd like to point out the work of James Godwin who picked up the puppeteering for Wyatt in Washington DC yesterday--nice work, James!)

We'll miss watching Wyatt on the Daily Show, but wish him the best of luck in all of his future endeavors.

Artist Diana Schoenbrun built puppet Wyatt.

Artist and performer James Godwin with puppet Wyatt in Washington D.C.

See?  Check it out--he's really there!

Imagine Dragons: "Radioactive"

Just yesterday we all got together in the shop to watch the music video for “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons as released on YouTube.  Despite Hurricane Sandy, which arrived the first day of shooting, it came out really well.  I want to commend John Lathan and Cisco Newman of Syndrome for their fortitude, vision and style and for inviting us to be a part of it.

I also wanted to thank the team of artists in our workshop, specifically  Henri Ewaskio, Isabelle Dufour, Steph Cathro, Michael Bush, Diana Schoenbrun and James Godwin for their beautiful work on such a short schedule.  (If you read my previous post, this is the mess we left behind before the storm.)

Also of note are the great performances behind the puppets by Michael Schupbach, Carole D’Agostino and Michael Bush.  They suffered quite a pummeling during the shoot and laughed all the way through.  The work is never finished until the cameras roll, and you guys topped it off expertly!

Here’s the video...

...and some photos...