The pandemic has pushed musicians and performing artists in many directions. With theaters in the dark, I was pushed to write and score a silent film with shadow puppets. There was only one catch, I didn’t know any shadow puppets and puppet slams and puppet networking events were all closed down due to the pandemic. One year ago, the seemingly impossible task of finding and convincing a shadow puppet to collaborate with the Hiss began. I logged my progress daily. Here are the highlights.
February 3 😵💫
Deep discussions with puppets can go on for weeks, and this one did. Back and forth we went daily with emails. We talked about everything: wardrobe, physicality, hinge points, unicycles, feet/no feet, and then I explained the story and musical score to him and … crickets. Either he is still running for the hills or he is locked in a closet with piles of someone’s dirty laundry on his face. Saving the scary only made him more afraid of whatever else could be looming around the corner. I’ll give him until Friday and then I’ll go and dig him out.
February 5 💅🏾
I emailed a new puppet today. We’ve yet to discuss price, but after reading my work description I see there are four acts that need original choreography. I don’t know if puppets work by the act or by the show, but if it’s by act I’m sunk. If it’s by the show there’s a chance it could work. And I’ve yet to tell her she needs to wear a witch’s hat. That could break everything. She could turn me into a crow. Plan B, if the puppet gives me the finger, we perform the tunes as musicians with multiple camera angles and bring in Renée Sedliar as a guest performer at the end to reenact her Poison Circus mime performance of A SSShow of Hand(s). Plan B is cheating. I need a puppet.
February 8 🔪
I’m on the hunt for a new puppet. The previous puppet is now too busy dressing dolls and stringing up lights for a tea party to be bothered with my musical works. I emailed Antic in a Drain and reached out to a few puppet theater groups around the Bay, and one in Chicago (a member of Manual Cinema). We will see who bites, who’s style sticks out and who’s hungry for work. All these puppets I see are thin and gaunt. They must be hungry.
February 11 👀
People only want to work with you if they know you, or they know people who know you, or you bug them to the breaking point and they finally agree to meet you just to reject you. Cold calling or emailing or massaging is a long road, and only worth it if the talent is irreplaceable, cheap, and easy on the eyes. These puppets don’t know me from the inside of a mailbox. And they’re all hiding in their trunks during the pandemic, which has complicated everything. Now I have to get out a flashlight and peek in peoples’ windows. It’s creepy but worth it.
February 19 🎭
Toybox Theatre or just Toybox, whom I met through the Festival of Ghouls, and I talked on the phone a week ago for about an hour. After bragging about each other’s work we talked about partnering up on a new project, and about his possible eviction. Here is what stuck to the ceiling after so much spit-balling, blabber and side-of-mouth conversation. In his experience …
Virtual puppet shows are not the most engaging work of art, and you’re competing with existing content makers like Netflix and Disney+ so give it up or good luck.
Live fans are different from online fans; just because over a hundred people come out to your live show it doesn’t mean even a quarter will come out to your virtual show.
The most lucrative online shows are FREE donation-based vs. ticket-based. Again, pro content creators are online and on TV for cheaper now. Good luck.
Buildup to a show is of utmost importance. How large is yours? I’m talking about your online presence. Try Twitch or a FREE live show regularly like the Bindlestiff Open Stage Variety Show every Monday night, then reveal something big.
One-off virtual shows are hard to monetize because they are there and then they are gone; ghosts in the woods. It’s best to have an established presence either on YouTube or Twitch and grow your audience there.
Toybox is busy right now being evicted from his house, our partnership hangs in the balance. If only puppets were as good at moving as they are at spit-balling, he’d be done, his director hat would be put on and the “action” would begin. Wish us luck.
March 9 🎤
After seeing Tribal Baroque live in Golden Gate Park this weekend, I realized I’ve never wanted to do a virtual performance. That is why I have been dragging my face up and down the stairs. Tribal Baroque perform before the locked gates of that tunnel to the Conservatory of Flowers Wednesday through Sunday night at sunset. They put out a suitcase and take donations. It’s a beautiful thing to stumble upon after whizzing behind a tree; and the longer you’re there, and the more videos and pictures you take the more you feel obligated to donate. I still want to create a silent movie with live musical score, but I don’t want to do it virtually. I’m going to find a location in Oakland, very public, and perform it live three nights in a row and ask for donations. #OneHandedWitch
April 7 👺
Toybox emailed me today to say he’s still busy being evicted, and moving through June (It takes months to move?) and he won’t be able to work on my project until August, possibly … he has other commissioned projects that take priority. How dare him! We did work through the first vignette of the script together and his tips made it better. I’ll give him that. Thank you, Toybox if you’re reading this.
I emailed another puppet I know from Manual Cinema yesterday. I’ll give her a week to get back to me then I’ll start looking for a new collaborator. Puppets are proving harder to wrangle than circus performers.
April 9 💡
The storyboards for my short film #One-HandedWitch are a crack pipe away from being done, and I don’t have a puppet to direct, shoot, and star in it. Toybox is leaving me out to dry. And the intern for Manual Cinema has pedaled herself manually clear of me. As much as I’d love to do puppets, I may end up acting in this film myself, it would not be pretty but it would get done. On third thought, maybe it’s a collaboration with my illustrator Instagram “friend” from Ohio? Maybe there’s a way to combine my acting in the woods with his animated illustrations? I’m going to smoke this idea for the weekend and see how I feel on Monday.
April 10 🐜
I smoked that idea, or should I say, reread it just now because it did not stick in my head past the moment I wrote it, and … do bats drink tea? No, that idea won’t work. In my hunt to find a puppet who can direct and shoot this short film, I can ask for recommendations from people who reject me. Eventually, I’ll fall upon some downtrodden soul who is tired of eating ants and can do nothing but say yes. I can also mine YouTube. Some sucker might be up for their first “real” paying job. We’ll see how this week goes and how desperate I feel by Friday. Right now, I feel dehydrated but not desperate. I need tea.
April 22 🥸
I am a nose hair away from posting an ad for a puppet to Craigslist. I’ve never had much luck with Craigslist, but a friend suggested I give it a try. Per them, that’s where creative people find work. And it’s true, but who? I posted it. Tighten your brassiere.
April 23 🥊
Craigslist has coughed up a few responses. Nothing striking or overstimulating — my pants are still dry — but responses nonetheless. People want to work with me! I also spent an hour mining YouTube for shadow puppets where something caught my eye. I spent the next hour hunting down the maker only to find it was Manual Cinema. I screamed. Lizi is from Manual Cinema and we’re already talking. I said she didn’t want to work with me last week, but there was no money on the table. Well now, after seeing other puppets for drinks and picking their pockets, that has changed. I sent Lizi a sweeter offer. We’ll see if she bites.
I want shadow puppets and I’m willing to wait for them. My last composition teacher told me time and time again: “More inspired. Less driven. More obsessed. Less compulsive.” I’ve been compulsive with my puppet hunt. I’ve been driven to find someone, and that is the opposite of how I want to work. Give me inspiration and obsession. I can breathe for a minute and sip this kombucha. And the next time I’m acting compulsive or driven, someone backhand me, hard.
April 29 👹
Creature Theatre and I started working together on the One-Handed Witch silent film, I guess. I emailed them on a whim and then we started sending storyboards and music and more emails. Next thing I know we’re scheduling a face-to-face to go through all the details. It either feels like the girl you didn’t try to date, but did, and then you wind up wondering what the hell happened as you’re sitting down to eat dinner with her parents; and she’s smiling at you and rubbing your leg under the table like that scene in Back to the Future, or they’re a very helpful puppet. Am I stuck with these creatures? I hope so, but I don’t know.
May 17 🐈⬛
False alarm. Creature Theatre is a hand and rod puppet, and I’m looking for a shadow puppet and filmmaker. I got an excellent recommendation out of the whole experience, and I got to meet their cat(s).
May 18 🤡
I heard back from the shadow puppets in Seattle today, whom Creature Theatre recommended. Surprise, surprise they led with the usual questions, “What is your timing and budget?” Whenever I hear this from an artist right out of the gate, I can’t help but wonder if they’re really interested in the project. Now I don’t expect artists to be as excited about my work as I am, but half excited isn’t a lot, in fact it’s barely anything. I also stalked Instagram again and found a few shadowy people. I also noticed Joel Baker follows #shadowpuppet. I asked him for a recommendation and he recommended himself. He’s worked with Cirque Du Soleil and 7 Fingers. He must be desperate. We’re talking Thursday. I have no expectations, zero. I might even blow off the meeting, that’s how sure I am nothing’s going to happen. “Where’s your positivity in the cosmos, brother?” Stuff a puppet in it, Yanni.
May 24 🤹♀️
I found a shadow puppet to direct my silent film. The clown, Joel Baker. We talked via video chat yesterday and he is ripping, roaring and coughing with enthusiasm. I’m also paying a pretty penny for his services. If his shit doesn’t blow minds there will be a knife in the dark. Not really. Just a bat to the shin. I’m kidding. Only a choke hold. Too soon?
June 15 🎩
As the self-nominated Ringmaster of my own circus music shows, I hire the acts. After two staged theater works and counting I can say, I try to hire females, people of color and recent college graduates. Everyone else is too expensive and demanding. Exceptions may or may not include exceptional talent, the wheelchair bound or people with a freakish tolerance for the uncanny.
June 21–22 🐺
Having hired a white man shadow puppet for One-Handed Witch, and having not heard back from him in weeks, I’m beginning to wish I had stuck with my #1 recruiting rule, see above. Now all I have to do is wait and see if he’ll leap when it’s time to leap. He’s also the type of ambitious performer who will jump for a juicier project in a heartbeat leaving me holding the strings, literally. I should start mining for a backup shadow puppet. Where’s my pick and prospecting hat?
Within an hour of my previous post about the ambitious shadow puppet that I hired for my show, he messaged me to say he’d taken a job in France and wouldn’t be able to do my silent film and puppet show. I’m clairvoyante. Now I’m recruiting again. Now I’m stalking innocent puppets again. Now I’m foaming at the mouth again. #WhiteMenAreTheWorst
June 25 ☁
My shadow puppet filmmaker search is looking more and more bleak. Darkness is creeping in as the sun sets on this month and soon all will be covered in shadow. I’ve sent an extraordinary amount of cold emails to complete strangers with very little response, only the token, “This looks amazing, unfortunately I’m busy …” My circus “friends” who I’ve smothered with requests for help have turned out one recommendation. And my job post on Craigslist was wholly unsuccessful. As the final day grows ever nearer I’m leaning more toward just doing it myself. Set up a little studio in my garage and start filming shit. I mean if Rob Reich can create videos with multiple Rob Reichs playing musical instruments I can surely figure out how to record my shadow fighting a bear and riding a dragon. Six days and counting …
June 30 🫒
I’m courting two people for the shadow puppet gig at this very moment, and a third animator is coming over later for green olives out of a can. I gave myself until July 1 to make it happen and we’re on the cusp. I’ve been humping this since January. Two shadow puppets down and a third on the way. This one won’t get away. I have a contract and cuffs in my trunk. But if they do for some greasy reason, I have the animator in my back pocket fiddling with the can opener.
July 12 🐞
It’s been the life of a dozen flies since I’ve posted and a lot has happened. First the two shadow puppets I was courting fell through, sort of. One just went MIA and the other priced themselves out of the gig. They were interested and willing to do the work, but they were also busy and couldn’t cut into higher paying gigs. If the timeline was flexible and I had more coin in my purse they would have said yes. So I reached out to my illustrator/animator friend and asked him to come on board. He did. We started making plans and then I got cold feet. We were standing there at the altar, holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes and I froze. I made one last push for a shadow puppet, even emailed the first of the latest two, the one who went MIA, and luck-be-a-lady, she resurfaced. I guess she was dealing with a lot of death in her life, but she’s over it now and ready to work. And now we’re texting pictures of witches back and forth and I’m giving her feedback: “Oh and she needs boobs.” I’ll use my illustrator/animator friend as backup just in case someone else in 80 Bug’s life drops dead and she gets busy again.
July 13 ⚰️
80 Bug quit. She thought she could throw herself into this project and just forget about all the death and loss she’d experienced lately, but couldn’t do it and had to quit. RIP.
That’s three shadow puppet artists down. But wait a minute, I’ve got two more hanging around. One is in San Diego, CA. She came highly recommended and finally got back to me. I doubt I can afford her. The other is in Europe somewhere. I found this shadowy character on Instagram. I might be able to afford her and her friend. I’ll give them all until the end of the week to come through with something. If nothing happens I’ll have to quit shadow puppets for a season.
July 14 👠
I started working with new shadow puppets from Italy. They’re surprisingly excited to work on the One-Handed Witch silent film project. They’re young and hungry and terribly talented. And they only asked for a fifth more than my budget to do the work. It better be sexy as hell, like Gucci.
July 16 🎉
The Italian shadow puppets, Rita Deiola and Sara Draghi, who created the film Svegliati Europa signed the contract to create the One-Handed Witch silent film with shadow puppets. It’s affirmative, all the nonbelievers (including myself) can suck snow through their eyelids, because it’s happening: Samson Y Hiss + silent film + shadow puppets = One-Handed Witch.
August 25 🐲
In the hands of Rita and Sara, One-Handed Witch is coming alive. They are hitting their deadlines and delivering the eeriest shadow puppet art since the Nosferatu film storyboards. The witch is fiery and fierce, the dragon is wild and unwieldy and the bear looks like a pile of rocks — we need to do something about the bear.
February 1 🎬
One-Handed Witch, a silent film of savagery and survival, was written and scored by the Hiss. It was filmed by shadow puppet artists Rita Deiola and Sara Draghi in Italy. It will be screened with a live musical score performed by a band of witches, March 4–5 at PianoFight OAKLAND.
See you at the show.
-Samson
