{"id":6280,"date":"2012-04-07T13:27:41","date_gmt":"2012-04-07T17:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/?p=6280"},"modified":"2012-04-07T13:27:41","modified_gmt":"2012-04-07T17:27:41","slug":"teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1990-press-kit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-1990-press-kit\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Press Kit"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABOUT THE CREATURES<\/p>\n

The outrageous, fearsome four green teen turtles Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Donatello and their ninja mystical master Splinter were all brought to life by Jim Henson\u2019s Creature Shop in London. Though the full extent of what they are is a carefully-guarded secret, a broad overview of their creation may be told.<\/p>\n

Jim Henson says that the creatures are the most advanced he has ever worked with or created (including characters in \u201cThe Muppet Movie,\u201d \u201cThe Great Muppet Caper,\u201d Muppets Take Manhattan,\u201d \u201cDark Crystal\u201d and \u201cLabyrinth.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking the turtles and Splinter was tricky because we had to follow the designs that were already in the comic book,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot easier to put everything you need inside a creature when you are able to start from the beginning with your own designs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henson says he things the reason why his projects have been so successful is because of the puppeteers. \u201cThe key to our success,\u201d he says, \u201cis the fact that we have terrific performers working the characters. They know exactly how to delineate their creatures in the most believable and entertaining way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Led by Creature Shop creative supervisor John Stephenson and production supervisor William Plant, work on constructing the turtles and Splinter started in February of 1989.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe first made a fiber glass body cast of each creature,\u201d says Stephenson who has developed creatures for \u201cDark Crystal,\u201d \u201cGreystoke,\u201d and \u201cReturn to Oz,\u201d plus the NBC television series \u201cThe Storyteller\u201d and \u201cThe Jim Henson Hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the body casts were completed, they were given to sculptors to be rebuilt with clay. Stephenson reveals: \u201cThey were then produced as molds to cast the whole body in foam rubber latex–and then painted, giving each character its own distinctive marks and coloration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once the foam latex form was completed, Stephenson notes, \u201cOur electronics computer expert, Dave Housman, developed new technology utilizing radio control, computerized speed, power and simplicity of operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, a close-up of an animatronic\u2019s head, Stephenson explains, has required several puppeteers and much rehearsal to produce the required expressions. For the \u201cTurtles\u201d movie, a way had to be found to enable close-up turtle heads to lip sync fast and efficiently, combining all the extreme cartoon type facial expressions found in the comics. \u201cDave\u2019s technology gave us the system we needed enabling accurate, immediate facial movements while moving from one expression to another,\u201d adds Stephenson.<\/p>\n

The movie\u2019s chief puppeteer and second unit director is Brian Henson (son of Jim), who had the responsibility of directing many of the stunt scenes and also making sure that all the puppeteers perform their characters to the very best advantage. His puppeteer credits for television include \u201cFraggle Rock,\u201d \u201cMother Goose Stories\u201d and \u201cThe Storyteller.\u201d Film credits are \u201cThe Great Muppet Caper,\u201d \u201cMuppets Take Manhattan,\u201d \u201cReturn to Oz,\u201d \u201cSanta Claus, the Movie,\u201d \u201cLabyrinth,\u201d \u201cLittle Shop of Horrors\u201d and, most recently, the Warner Bros. Feature \u201cWitches,\u201d scheduled for a 1990 fall release.<\/p>\n

For the \u201cTurtles\u201d picture, Brian\u2019s job was to design the performing techniques of all the characters in the film and to be involved from the first day the creatures\u2019 designs were begun. \u2018I started thinking early of how we would be using the creatures on the set,\u201d says Brian, \u201chow to get the maximum effect, how to basically make them most performable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before filming began, Brian ran rehearsals with the performers and the characters so he would know their performance capabilities and could be of important assistance to director Steven Barron during the actual shoot.<\/p>\n

The puppeteer sophistication utilized in making the film is far beyond anything Henson\u2019s Creature Shop has done in the past. The most notable advance is the use of computers to transmit signals plus a multitude of servomotors, which are lighter and more durable than ever before.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to NinjaPizza.net<\/a> for sharing!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABOUT THE CREATURES The outrageous, fearsome four green teen turtles Raphael, Leonardo, Michaelangelo and Donatello and their ninja mystical master Splinter were all brought to life by Jim Henson\u2019s Creature Shop in London. Though the full extent of what they… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[92,89],"tags":[504,109,110,725],"class_list":["post-6280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-moviei","category-tvfilm","tag-504","tag-film","tag-movie-1","tag-press-kit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/press2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6293,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions\/6293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mutantooze.org\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}