Ok, so in my previous post I probably somewhat exaggerated the
secrecy involved in this project for dramatic effect, but the Athletes Parade
has been and gone now so I’m free to post to my heart’s content. For those who don’t know, the Athletes Parade
was a big event in London to mark the end of the Olympic Games, in which all
the British Olympic and Paralympic athletes paraded by on floats, various
important people made speeches, and the Red Arrows flew over Buckingham Palace
trailing red white and blue smoke to mark the occasion. All very nice indeed, however, the highlight
of the event was clearly the two lion puppets based on the British Olympic
Association &British Paralympic Association logos that headed up the parade. Obviously.
And I am of course in no way biased by the fact that I helped make them.
Aren’t they fantastic?
They were built by Kinetika, with Tony Mason and Iola Weir leading the
make, and I was lucky enough to get involved for a couple of weeks in their
Stratford studio. I’d previously met the
guys from Kinetika when they came to my university to help out with the
flag-making for the Weymouth procession (more on that later!) and they were
able to advise me on Helga’s construction too.
Working on the lions was really interesting. It’s amazing how creative you can be with
quite simple materials. The frames for
the lion heads were made entirely out of fibre glass and aluminium rods bent
and bolted or taped into position. These
were then covered in fabric, and mounted on a purpose built backpack to be worn
by the performer. These were built along
very similar lines to the backpack I made for Helga, except that instead of
plastazote foam heated and moulded to echo the contour of the back, aquaplast
was used in its place. This was a very
nifty material, quite rigid and plastic-y at room temperature, but when you
heated it up in boiling water it would become quite limp and flexible, and so
could be moulded over the back of a mannequin, returning to its original
rigidity in 5 or 10 minutes.
 |
| Covering not finished yet, so you get better look at the frame |
 |
| Inside of one of the lions from behind |
 |
| Backpack - the aquaplast was also used for those 2 white channels that the aluminium slots into |
The manes that flow out behind the lion heads and are held
up by other performers were a massive job in themselves. First getting the acres and acres of fabric
all cut out, then binding it all with white bias binding, then roding it all up
with fibre glass and nylon rods. Knowing
which rods to use seems to be an art form in and of itself, a whole ton of
difference will ride on whether you’ve used a 3 or a 3 ½ mm diameter rod when
it come to the movement of the mane in the end, and knowing which ones to use
seems just to come with experience.
I thought I’d leave you with a few photos of other things
that grabbed my attention from Kinetika’s studio whilst I was there. Enjoy!
 |
| (Hanging upside down from ceiling so I flipped the picture) |
Next post: Weymouth
Parade (Helga’s debut!)
No comments:
Post a Comment