Tag Archives: youtube

Showcases

New York City 2011 Christmas Windows

New York City retail stores are known for the grand and highly imaginative window displays they unveil every Christmas season. I spent my first two autumns in New York City working on some of them. I did not work on them this year, though some colleagues of mine did. One of my former coworkers shot the following videos. You can find more videos searching on YouTube, but what makes these great is that they start off in the workshop showing the constructing phase, and moves to the inside of the windows showing the assembly before showing the final result.

First up is perhaps the lynchpin of NYC Christmas windows: Macy’s.

Macy’s is certainly the most well-known of the annual Christmas windows in New York City, but Saks Fifth Avenue does a good show as well.

Finally, we have the Lord & Taylor windows.

Useful Sites

My Links Friday

Mary Robinette Kowal tells us we almost didn’t have the Muppets, and lays out four ways the world of puppets would be different if not for Jim Henson.

Saul Griffith brings us a curriculum of toys. He categorizes the different ways a child can learn to make things and to interact with the physical world, then suggests toys and games which will help grow the skills in each of those categories. Looks like fun for adults, too!

The New York Times has a summary of the science, health and legal implications of e-cigarettes since their introduction. Giving them to an actor for use on stage of course raises additional concerns and considerations than when a private individual who already smokes uses them, but this article does a good job of laying out all the different governmental and scientific forces jockeying for a say in the future of e-cigarette use. If nothing else, this article should show you that the legality of using e-cigarettes on stage will probably remain ambiguous and evolving over the next several years.

Finally, enjoy this video of a wooden automaton who can pick up an arrow, draw it in a bow and fire it at a target:

News

2011 Tony Awards for Best Scenic Design

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Last night was the 65th Annual Tony Awards. As longtime readers of this blog know, there is no Tony Award for props, whether it’s props design or prop mastering (actually, there is very little recognition of the craft and labor of backstage theatre overall, but I digress). Instead, I will look at the Tony Award winners for Scenic Design, which encompasses the world of props.

Congratulations to Scott Pask, designer of The Book of Mormon, for his Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Musical. Scott is the designer for both Shakespeare in the Park shows this year, which began preview performances just this past week. I couldn’t find his acceptance speech online anywhere, so in lieu of that, here is a video in which he talks about the scenic design of The Book of Mormon.

You can also read a great feature on Playbill about the design of Book of Mormon, featuring a number of photographs of the sets as well as the scenic models.

The winner for Best Scenic Design of a Play went to Rae Smith for War Horse. I highlighted some video of the horse puppets from this show back in 2009 when it was still on the West End. It’s worth watching again, because the puppets are really, really cool. The link also has some information on the puppets’ creators, Handspring Puppet Company, which incidentally, won a Special Tony Award last night as well.

Her acceptance speech is online, though I can’t seem to embed it. You can browse to it from the Tony Awards video gallery though.

Showcases

Snake Puppet Test Video


Here is a great video showing puppet and effects tests for the “Goa’uld” aliens from Stargate SG-1, one of my favorite sci-fi television shows. This comes from the Steve Johnson FX channel on YouTube; I’ve linked to it before, but if you haven’t seen it yet, it has dozens of videos like this one to watch and enjoy.

We are three-quarters of the way through technical rehearsals of Shakespeare in the Park, so I’ll be back to a regular writing schedule soon. I also have some potentially exciting news coming up around the middle of the month. Stay tuned!