How The Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge Was Born: An Interview with Cat Rock

Last year, Cat Rock, Izzy Bristow, and Helena Houghton came up with a brilliant plan to inspire creative people around the world with a puppet film challenge that must be completed in just 48 hours. The online event was such a success that Cat decided to bring it back this year and challenge anyone from anywhere to make a short puppet film over this August bank holiday weekend, 27th – 29th. We caught up with her to find out more.

Who are you and what inspired you to organise the Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge?

I’m Cat Rock, Resident Artist and Trustee of Puppet Place, and Co-Director of The House of Funny Noises. I am a puppeteer and puppet maker working in theatre and film, who loves the surreal and bizarre world of puppetry. I have had the pleasure of working with weird and wonderful characters, both puppet and human, and I am excited to see what the future holds for the puppet industry.

I started the Challenge last year in 2020 with help from the other soon to be members of the House of Funny Noises, Izzy Bristow and Helena Houghton. It was April and we were in the midst of the pandemic, staring longingly out of the window and looking at blank work calendars all round. It was a hard time for everyone. I know I was very lucky to be trapped in isolation with a house filled with creative puppet people. It sucked, but this gave us an opportunity – the first time ever – that we all had free time at the same time! So, Izzy brought to our attention that the LA Guild of Puppetry were doing a film project, making a puppet film in 48 hours. Well, time is the one thing we had last year, so we decided to enter.

I can’t tell how much fun and what a creative relief it was to just throw yourself into such a challenge. There’s no time to question, there’s no time to doubt, you just have to get stuck in and puppet, puppet, puppet! This was the first puppet film I had made as a group and not just as a hired puppeteer, and it was an amazing time. We made a film called ‘BELLY’ and I’m very proud of this weird and scrappy piece of puppet film. ‘BELLY’ did well, receiving an honourable mention and winning best of the Rocky Mountain Puppetry Guild, which Izzy is a part of.

After this we decided to form the House of Funny Noises and explore deeper into the world of puppet film. We are up to ten films now and recently completed a commission for the Beverley Puppet Festival. We gained so much out of taking part in the LA Puppetry Guilds project that I wanted to start one here in Bristol. Puppetry from the UK and Europe has such a different feel to it than a lot of American produced projects. I wanted to create a platform that would help get our stories and puppets out there, whilst also giving people a creative challenge during a very difficult time.

Thus the Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge was born!

Last year’s Challenge was a huge success with over 70 entries submitted from around the world! Why do you think people were so eager to take the challenge?

2020, what an interesting year (readers you can replace interesting with whichever cursing adjective you like!). I believe that so many people gravitated towards the Challenge because everyone was looking for a way to engage, communicate, and express with other people in a time where direct contact was not allowed. Even though you were more likely working by yourself or with those you lived with, by participating you were a part of something bigger, and that is what we needed, a connection to a larger thing that wasn’t plague related.

Photo by Arran Glasss

The Challenge provided people with an opportunity to do something practical, it was not a Zoom call, or staring into the abyss of the Netflix homepage, you had to get up and create and produce a fully formed thing. You got the enjoyment and adrenalin of working under pressure as well as coming up with your own story and creation. We received so many comments from people saying how much this short event helped them in the pandemic – having a goal, having a target, a reason to do something. It sparked people’s imagination and in the end 70 wonderful puppet films now exist because of it. People will always surprise you with their passion and talent.

Photo by Josh Elwell

What were your favourite entries from last year’s Challenge?

What were my favourite entries!? Oh, that’s a hard question, I loved so many. A few that stand out to me when I think back are “Little Red Parting Gift” by Anima Mundi Figurteater. I loved the story, action, characters, it’s one I could watch again and again. I also love “Switch” by Stooge Films; who doesn’t love puppet noir, so brilliantly shot and creative. I also have a place in my heart for “Why Am I A Stick?” by NonSuch productions. It’s a film about a man who turns into a stick! So bizarre yet done so well with wonderful puppets and props, I’d watch the feature of that one.

“Why Am I A Stick?” by NonSuch productions

One more I’d like to mention is “The Monstrosity of Time Travel” by SandyLang Co. I loved this one. Short, sweet, totally my jam. Unfortunately last year this film was actually not eligible for judging as it was a full stop motion piece… However, after seeing some of the amazing stop motion entries we have changed the boundaries for this year’s event, and fully stop motion films will be eligible in 2021!

What do you hope for this year’s Challenge?

This year we hope to be able to reach more participants and viewers, we want to expand the diversity of engagement, and become a more inclusive event. It will be a slow and steady progression, but we are on the right track. This year we hope to see even more amazing films and connect more puppet people with other creatives.

We also have a new thing happening this year. We are partnering with We The Curious in Bristol to bring the Finale of the Challenge to the Big Screen in Millennium Square. So all the films that make it into the Top Ten, the Honourable Mentions, and Award Winners will be shown on Sunday, 12th September at 7pm on one of Bristol’s biggest outdoors screens! Bringing puppets to the public!

We The Curious – Big Screen in Millennium Square, Bristol City Centre

In regards to what kind of puppetry can be used in the Challenge, all direct manipulation puppetry is accepted. So that means any kind of puppetry where someone directly moves the puppet to bring it to life. For example hand and rod puppet, object manipulation, strings and marionettes, stop motion, basically if you move it with your body, or you move it with a physical force it is accepted (for example wind dance puppets). The only type that is really excluded for the Challenge is computer generated animation and manipulation. These can feature in films, but there must be practical and direct puppetry elements.

We are excited to see what people do!

Photo by Ana Colomer

We hope that people will get a few things out of participating in the Challenge:

1) A fun challenge to be creative with puppets where people produce fully completed films.

2) The opportunity to see and engage with other puppet films and puppet creators from around the world.

3) A chance to get your creations in front of a wide audience and under the eyes of our panel of industry professionals.

Lockdowns may be lifting and things are very slowly returning to some resemblance of what was before, but there is always a place for creativity and puppets.

What does the future hold for the Challenge?

I want the Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge to become a well known and eagerly anticipated cultural event. I want the people of the South West to get involved and I want to see participation from all over the World. The goal is for the Challenge to become a self-sustaining exciting event that grows and produces amazing puppet films every year, eventually becoming an integral part of the Bristol Puppet Festival when it is able to return. This in turn could enable us to produce similar events creating more platforms on which puppet media can stand.

Another main aspiration of the Challenge is to grow its legacy. We want to do this by creating feature length anthologies of select films from the Challenge that could go on tour to puppet festivals, venues, and even reach out into communities who don’t have great access to the puppetry world, encouraging local community engagement. We might be starting our legacy this year, so keep your eyes peeled and please feel free to get in contact if you have a venue or organisation that would like to talk about the possibilities.

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The Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge will run this August bank holiday weekend, 27th – 29th, and is open to people of all ages and backgrounds, from absolute beginners to seasoned professionals. You must register in advance to join in with the fun and registration closes at 12:00pm (BST) on Friday 27th August. The Challenge is free to enter, but donations are warmly welcomed.

All films submitted will be screened online from 11th – 12th September, 2021, and the winning entries, selected by a team of top judges, will be screened at the Finale on Sunday 12th September, 2021, at 7:00pm (BST), both online and on the Big Screen in Bristol’s famous Millennium Square.

Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to flex your puppetry prowess on the silver screen – there will be prizes! Find out more at bristol48hpuppetfilmchallenge.co.uk and keep up to date with all the latest news about the Challenge on Facebook and Instagram.

Short, Sweet, & Sickening: An Interview with The House of Funny Noises

Founded by Izzy Bristow, Helena Houghton, and Cat Rock, The House of Funny Noises is a Bristol based film collective that aims to make short, sweet, and sickening puppet films and media. Working with friends and other local artists, in less than a year, they have produced and released six films. We caught up with them to find out how their year has gone, the challenges they faced, and what the future holds.

The House of Funny Noises. Filming the trailer ident for the Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge 2020.

How did The House of Funny Noises form, what are you all about, and what are the goals behind your collective?

Helena Houghton (HH): Initially, it started during the first lockdown, while we were all out of work with not a lot to do, we took part in the LA Guild of Puppetry’s 48 hour Film Project. We decided to play on hard mode and make everything! We were up at 2:00 AM till 2:00 AM two days later making BELLY and after that we just thought, ‘great, let’s keep doing this!’. Since then we have made five more films and we are really enjoying ourselves.

As a collective, we are all about making films that are short, sweet, and sickening. Our main objective is to experiment, we love to push our imaginations to make fascinating and sometimes disgusting visuals, as well as tell concise thought provoking stories. We really enjoy taking a story and turning it on its head. For example, when filming SPROUT for the Raindance 60 second film competition we were given the theme ‘love in lockdown’, so we chose to make a dramatic romance and betrayal starring spider plants. We like to subvert expectations and find ways to make something fresh.

Over the last year, you’ve created a variety of puppet films; what have been the challenges you’ve faced?

HH: Working to deadlines has been difficult, a lot of what we have done has had a very quick turnaround time, so getting to grips with making puppet films fast, organising that, has been interesting.

We’ve all had to learn how to film and edit properly. I have some experience from university, but that was a while ago, and for Cat and Izzy it was their first time doing film like this and we are all still constantly learning and pushing ourselves. Mostly, I think learning how we work together has been the biggest challenge, but it’s also been great. We are definitely growing with each project and I think doing it all in the middle of a pandemic is quite an achievement. We make an excellent team.

The House of Funny Noises. Filming the trailer ident for the Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge 2020.

What have you learnt from the experience, often with very quick turnarounds, of making puppet films?

HH: As a collective, I think we have learnt that communication is key. We all work in different ways and that is difficult, but also has a lot of merit. Everytime we work together we learn from each other. We have started doing a ‘lessons learnt’ meeting at the end of each project so when we move on to the next thing we document what works and what doesn’t.

We have picked up a host of skills through doing this, all of us are puppet makers originally, but we do everything, all the lighting, camera work, and post production ourselves so that has been a fun learning curve. Importantly, you need just as much rehearsal time as filming, it’s no good spending lots of time making a fancy puppet and set without getting to know them before you shoot!

I have learnt a lot about the way I work with others, as a very visual worker, I need to sketch and storyboard things out before we get into anything, to feel like I have a good idea of what we are making and how we want it to feel. Also, I have learnt a lot about live action puppets through Cat and Izzy’s guidance, getting better at designing mechanisms and learning more about performance.

Izzy Bristow (IB): Editing, I have learnt so much about what it is to have an idea, build it up into something, and then have the reality of time and budget slap us in the face. Oddly enough, what is left when all the extra bits are shed away is a much more concise and elegant version of the original idea.

Cat Rock (CR): Opportunity comes to those who are prepared! This is one of my favorite quotes and it really sums up what I have learned from working in the House of Funny Noises. You need to take the time to build your skill set and working practice so that you have a solid base on which to stand. With each project we have learnt a little bit more and developed as a group, on the next project we work better together and more efficiently, building on what we experienced before.

Over the last year (it’s nearly our anniversary!), we have grown so much and now we are in a position to take on opportunities and challenges, bringing our point of view into the puppetry world. We have prepared ourselves with the skills and determination to grab the opportunities to come. 

What have been your favourite moments, and films themselves, from amongst the pieces you’ve produced? What do you hope audiences take away from them?

IB: I think SNOT (Going Out) is my favorite. Cat did an excellent job of figuring out the limitations of the LA Guild of Puppetry’s Halloween 48 hour Challenge and then creating a film that looks like it didn’t have anything holding it back at all. The story fits perfectly in the time allotted and within the small set she made all on her own (due to scheduling problems it was a film Cat took on without us but with Matt Gibbs behind the camera).

CR: One of my personal favorite moments was from our first film BELLY. I performed an upside down mouth monster and then we recorded foley for the scene. It was funny, grose, weird, and utterly fun to film. The cherry on top of the cake is that when the judges from the LA Guild of Puppetry’s 48 hour Film Project were talking about the film, which won honourable mention, one judge said, “The chin puppet was very effective. Too effective! Incredibly gross. Congratulations, but I never want to see anything like that again…” This made my day!

HH: My favourite film is probably SLINGJAW WRASSE. It’s quite hard to be both funny and informative, and Izzy wrote a fantastic script, plus the beautiful yellow puppet made by Nick Wilsher and finished by Izzy is wonderfully eye-catching.

HH: Any time we make something a bit messy too; we had so much fun making the fish egg scene in SLINGJAW WRASSE. We had a big tank of water, lots of gunge that Cat had made, and bright pink boba beads. We played around with getting just the right amount of gross for the shot and again on SNOT (Going Out) the creature was so gooey.

I think we hope our audience will just enjoy them, each film is individual. We want to make people feel the expression we put into them. SNOT is kind of gross and scary, WORM is a bit cute and fun, SLINGJAW WRASSE is that combo of informative silly and nerdy, etc, etc.

What’s next for the House of Funny Noises? What more can we look forward to in 2021?

HH: We are thrilled to say that we will be making a short film for the Beverley Puppet Festival’s ‘Sanctuary’ project, which we are looking forward to telling you more about in the future! Currently, we’re working with the festival team to gather ideas and inspiration from the people of Beverley.

In April, we’re taking part in the next 48 hour Puppet Film Project from the LA Guild of Puppetry. Later in the summer, we’ll also be helping Puppet Place run the second ever Bristol 48 hour Puppet Film Challenge, for which we have just organised one of the judges, so stay tuned for that announcement.

We have also been having a great time collecting a folder of all the story ideas we would like to do. Some are epic, spooky fantasy, such as ‘BELTANE’ (WT), written by Matt Gibbs, that we are seeking funding for, while others are surreal comedies like our as yet unnamed boob film, which will focus on the comedy and double standards of breasts. We hope to be filming that one late spring, early this summer. We have a lot to keep us busy and we are excited to rise to the challenge!

Discover more details about the Beverley Puppet Festival’s ‘Sanctuary’ project and The House of Funny Noises involvement, and – if you’re a resident of Beverley – learn about how you can submit your stories and ideas.

The House of Funny Noises was founded by Izzy Bristow, Helena Houghton, and Cat Rock.

Visit https://www.houseoffunnynoises.com/

Follow the House of Funny Noises Instagram

Subscribe to the House of Funny Noises YouTube

Interview with Helena Houghton, plus additional comments by Izzy Bristow and Cat Rock

Interviewed by Matt Gibbs

The House of Funny Noises. Filming Slingjaw Wrasse (2020).