When the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) decided a video would help young children and their families understand the process of bone marrow transplants, they conducted an Internet search for the right production partner. After considering candidates from across the country, they settled on Images in Motion of Sonoma.
“They chose us because we had experience with children and puppets,” said co-owner Lee Armstrong. “Puppets are friendly. They don’t scare children. That’s very important when the kids are going through such a harrowing time.
“The bone marrow transplant process is very long – it takes an average of a year or more – and the NMDP wanted something that the kids would watch, not a dry medical video.”
The same concept applies to corporate training films. Puppets can be used effectively to introduce concepts that are then explained in detail by live people, frequently in alternating segments.
“Puppets are great for training,” Armstrong said. “They can be a fun example that gets across a point in a memorable way.”
Although best known locally for their puppetry, Armstrong and co-owner Kamela Portuges-Robbins also sculpt toy prototypes, create masks and costumes and do illustration. Three years ago, after two decades in the business, they began focusing more on offering a full spectrum of video-related services, including production design, script writing, animation, puppet and set construction and lighting, costume and graphic design. “We do entire video productions,” said Armstrong. “We can build the set, shoot the video, edit it and add animation.”
Clients have ranged from advertising agencies such as Addwater2 to wineries to Dr. Dean Edell. In the past, the company has done work for Disney, Leapfrog Toys and other major concerns. Sometimes all a client wants is some shots taken in front of the green screen to go on a Web site, but the majority of the gigs are considerably more complex.
Most of the action takes place in Images in Motion’s studio tucked into a hillside in Boyes Hot Springs. The cavernous 30-by-30-by-15-foot space behind Armstrong’s house has everything required – from lights, monitors and sound equipment to props and a huge green background screen – to go from pre- to post-production.
“It’s called turnkey video,” Armstrong said.
Last week, the company was shooting a commercial for Barbados about good manners. Like many other clients, the folks in Barbados liked what they saw on Images in Motion’s Web site and contacted them out of the blue.
On hand for the shoot was a motley crew of sound technicians and other support staff, as well as Images in Motion’s lighting guru, Bill Ferguson, who met Armstrong 20 years ago when both were working in Toronto on television shows such as “Fraggle Rock,” among other projects.
“Bill lights things like the Olympics and the economic summits,” said Armstrong, who, like Ferguson, grew up in Nova Scotia.
The setting was simple: a bright blue table set in front of the green screen. Armstrong, Portuges-Robbins and another puppeteer were crouched below the table, out of camera range. Wearing baseball caps outfitted with mini-microphones, they held the puppets aloft while they went through their paces –time and time again.
Observing an instructional puppet video being filmed can be somewhat akin to watching paint dry. Like movie shoots and court trials, sequences are often presented out of order. But seeing the puppets come alive through the puppeteers’ manipulations and hearing their clever adaptation of characters’ voices was entertaining.
Portuges-Robbins did an impressive imitation of a strict island schoolteacher determined to keep her minions in line. She has mastered many voices, from a pirate to a tiger, said Armstrong, adding, “But I’ve used the same one for 30 years.”
Later that afternoon, the crew headed downtown to the Barking Dog to shoot a segment on location, something they rarely do. In the end, it took two days of filming to produce a video that would be edited down to 15 or 20 minutes.
To streamline the production process, the client and Images in Motion agree on the concept, story line and script in advance. Clients receive pictures of the puppets being built; usually some give-and-take is involved. For instance, Portuges-Robbins had to tweak the main Barbados manners video character, a pig, to her satisfaction.
Why a pig in the first place? “To show that even pigs can have good manners,” she said.
Constructing a puppet can be a highly personal undertaking, for a variety of reasons. “We like control,” said Armstrong. “If we build the puppet, we know it will work. Some puppets are built by builders, not by puppeteers.” In that case, the puppets may be hard to manipulate, or too heavy or cumbersome to hold for very long.
As in other endeavors, size matters. Armstrong once worked for Shari Lewis, specifically because she had the small hands Lewis’s puppets required.
Over the decades, Images in Motion has earned many Emmys and other awards, but none is as cherished as the solid silver statuette of Smokey the Bear bestowed by the U.S. Forest Service. And that says a lot about their attitude towards the L.A. scene. Although they’ve worked there, it’s just not the place for them. They both moved to Sonoma in 1991.
“The industry has changed in the 20 years we’ve been working together,” said Portuges-Robbins. “Los Angeles is where everything happens. There’s not as much film happening and very little production is done here.
“But we love living in Sonoma.”
For more information on Images in Motion, visit the Web site at imagesmedia.com.
