A Closer Look at Children’s Television: Not as Easy as It Looks!! 

Watching children shows involving puppets like Sesame Street and Mister Rogers, the people on camera and behind the scenes make everything look so easy. Believe me, it’s not as easy as it looks. After making my children show pilot for my capstone project I found that it’s a huge undertaking.

First, let me just say, I wish I could see the set of Sesame Street and how they have it designed to hide the puppeteers. I know for Mister Rogers he has set pieces he could stand behind, but with Sesame Street the puppets are on the same level for the most part with the humans, so the puppeteers have to be below. For my show, Zuko…the Bo…and Me!! our bedroom set was the nurses office at my dad’s school. We used one of the nurses beds, a shelf from my dad’s office, a lamp, some toys, and very limited space. What made the set-up of the room even harder was that we had to make sure we didn’t get the curtains that go between the beds in any of the shots. Also, the bed itself could only go up so far which meant that my puppeteers (my brother and sister Adam and Ashley) spent most of their time lying on the floor with their arms in the air behind the bed. With all of these factors there was really one way to set up the room to get the right wide shot for the show.

I would like to take this time to thank one of my best friends, Lori who helped me out majorly by filming most of the show for since I was in a good portion of it. She put up with all of the craziness that my family and I dished out and really did a wonderful job of filming the show. I had such a variety of shots to work with. Some my favorite shots are the close-ups. Between Lori’s filming and Adam and Ashley’s puppetry they are some of the funniest shots and really make the show something special.

I would also like to know how the puppets on Sesame Street walk or move around the set. For my show, many of the scenes during the school tour required having the puppets move into the shot. To do this we used the little carts that are used in gym class. The carts actually worked really well, but once again I have send out a huge thank you to Lori…I know it was not easy to follow us around and make sure everyone was in the shot, could be seen, and that the shot looked good and would work for the show. There were so many levels of height to keep track of…you had my dad who is pretty tall…my mom and myself are about the same height at about 5’5’’…and them the puppets of course were down lower because Adam and Ashley were on the ground trying to keep their heads and arms out of view. It was a lot to think about and to watch out for. In the end the show turned out wonderful and demonstrated a variety of shots and angles and just a load of fun. So once again, Thank You Lori…for putting up with all the craziness and chaos that was the making of Zuko…the Bo…and Me!!!!