Filming in Kampala, Uganda for "Chicken and Chips" for PVI

Filming the Presenter character for the Ugandan TV show "Chicken and Chips produced by Peripheral Visions Intl.

Shooting Day 01

Layover in Dubai. We flew over the buildings of the city including the Burj Khalifa. Here you can see the blue pools at the base of the building.

Descent into Kampala looking out on the terrain and clouds of Uganda.

Puppeteer David Feldman and I flew to Uganda over the weekend and are being hosted at the Peripheral Visions Headquarters in Kampala, Uganda. Our work began with meeting the crew and support team that we will be working with this week as we shoot the Presenter character on location in places around the city.

In preparation David has been spending time writing scripts for the short scenes and Gosia Lukomska, the producer, has been organizing and planning this shoot for months. I was busy in Brooklyn doing improvements to the puppet character as well as building two new Puppet Rolly Carts which I'll talk about later.

Back in June David and I, along with Puppeteer Lisa Buckley flew to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where we puppeteered characters for a segment called "Katwe Corner". Katwe Corner is one segment in the larger show "Chicken and Chips" that is broadcast on Uganda television.

Puppeteer David Feldman is also the writer for the segments for the scripts we are shooting. In addition to being an exceptional TV puppeteer he has two Emmy nominations for writing. Here he is making final changes to the script to make sure they wi… — Puppeteer David Feldman is also the writer for the segments for the scripts we are shooting. In addition to being an exceptional TV puppeteer he has two Emmy nominations for writing. Here he is making final changes to the script to make sure they will work for Ugandan audiences.

The show deals with many social issues but it also highly entertaining with music, comedy, news and other imaginative segments all dealing with issues of daily life in Uganda.

Our job is to bring the puppetry to the show. Both David and I have years of experience working as performers for television in the US (and Iceland), and we have performed for Katwe Corner since it's inception four years ago. It is still an exciting challenge to be here in Kampala and know that we are going to be literally taking our talents to the streets and seeing how our puppet character can interact with real people and the busy city life here in Kampala.

Today was all about planning for the week, refining that script and I spent time dealing with costumes and prepping the puppets.

Our first location shoot was the backyard of the PVI office compound.

We shot our first segment on the grass and to our delight we were sharing the space with bunny rabbits and a giant and lovely tortoise. The rabbits were grazing around us as we were setting up shots, and right on cue started hopping towards our feet when we began performing.

Earlier in the morning I assembled the two puppeteer rolly carts that I built in my studio in Brooklyn, NY.

These carts are what David and I will use to puppeteer and be low to the ground. This is so the shorter puppet character can interact with people and placed that are in the human scale.