I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

We’re taping our second day (and first exterior) of Cakey! episode #2 tomorrow morning at 8 AM with our special guest star of the episode, Mark Sam Rosenthal. We taped all of Huskey’s business before he had to fly out to LA for pilot season and Gavin has already shot five hours last weekend in our apartment. Lou Fernandez ended up saving us at the last minute by loaning us an essential, hard-to-find prop (I dashed to Brooklyn to pick it up right before the actors arrived).

Bill, Kirk and I talked this weekend and at that time (after a long and technically difficult shoot) it seemed like we all wanted to kill the show. The biggest problem is working with—and around—the puppet. Cakey the puppet is just a head, basically, with an opening in the bottom for a hand to go in. If it had a body (like a Muppet), it would obscure the hand and maybe even head of the guy operating it. Cakey is also very stiff and can’t open its mouth without a lot of effort. He also smells terrible and under hot lights, reeks more the hotter it gets.

Later in the day, Kirk and I came up with a pretty good idea for #3 that would fix a lot of our “hiding the puppeteer” on set and in post issues as well as be quick and easy to shoot. So, I’m a little more optimistic about continuing if the audience wills it. As the screening is on a Tuesday (killing the UCB element by being scheduled opposite Harold Night), I can’t be all that confident we will be even though this episode is a lot more coherent (at this stage) than episode #1 (which was a collection of weird in-jokes and justifications for them).

We still have to pick up the tail end of the episode… also outdoors… with Gavin’s sister this weekend. Keep your finger’s crossed we don’t get snowed out. Or we’ll have to pull a Block.
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A couple of Cakey! mentions in strangers’ blogs:

PuppetVision
A Canadian puppet blog mentioned Cakey right after the screening and then included us in a weekly round up of puppets on the web (along side 102’sPuppet Rapist). Also has a lot of great puppet-related links for resources that I wish I saw when we were building Baku.

Yodelling Llama
Interesting writer does a round-up of 101 and 102’s prime time. Calls Cakey “funny” and “quotable”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Adventures in Media.