April 4, 2022
Transcription: Making a Punk Puppet Musical with Devon Hawkes Ludlow
Transcription
Anne Kelly (09:18):
I would love to see that
Devon Ludlow (09:19):
Someday when we enter the post pandemic era it’s
Anne Kelly (09:21):
So the, the company it’s about nine years in now, is that right?
Devon Ludlow (09:27):
20, 15 and 16 really is when we started doing a lot of stuff, but I was playing with things and performances before then. So I can’t really even say when it began, it was me doing things slowly and that gradually accumulating.
Anne Kelly (09:43):
I was gonna say, I think I might have found that number online somewhere.
Devon Ludlow (09:45):
It’s probably, but I put that number down there, cuz it’s probably true, but I always sort of think about it from the first film, the first episode, which we shot in our, you know, garage with like five people. There was like five of us, seven with friends who helped out and we shot that in an iPhone. By the time we got to the third episode, you know, we had all this equipment and I had 42 people on the crew, just people who had seen each episode and, and wanted to take part and join in and help as much as possible. We made it a very collaborative piece.
Anne Kelly (10:14):
That’s amazing. So, I mean, you go to the web site and there’s a list of people who are involved and, but, but you play a lot of different roles in the production from writing and directing and some of the music and making some of the puppets. But so it’s this kind of amazing collaboration where you get to participate in different avenues of the arts that you’re involved in. So I, I think that’s really cool to kind of have this one kind of hub to be able to put all of that together.
Devon Ludlow (10:45):
Yes, it is. That’s part of the attraction to jump into all those put on all those different hats along the way, film production can either to be really specialized where you just do the one thing and nothing else, or you have to be able to multitask wildly. I tend to enjoy the multitasking part a lot, switching from one role to the next is this like a wonderful challenge that I really enjoy. Don’t always succeed, but I always enjoy it
Anne Kelly (11:10):
Over time. You said your team has grown as potential fans as it kind of sounded like maybe said we wanna participate. Other people, you knew
Devon Ludlow (11:20):
Combination. Some people who’d seen the work were like, Hey, can I, can I come play and were like always other people who might have seen our sets or creatures and got inspired and other people who had wanted to work with for a while and track them down, trying to draw them into the orbit one way or another
Anne Kelly (11:35):
In terms of the three part movie. One of the things I thought was really interesting is that you’d mentioned that the first part you actually did film with iPhones. And not only that, but you were living in a house that was basically solar powered at that time, in terms of different types of technology between part one, two and three of the movie, the technology you’re using and the resources that you’ve had have changed drastically yet, they still feel very cohesive.
Devon Ludlow (12:09):
That’s the best compliment because they really, they really change. And when we started, it was, it was iPhone. And we were trying to use a little bit of green screen, whatever digital technology we could by the end, or even by the second episode, I had decided to throw it all out. Obviously you can’t throw all digital technology at this point. That would be insane. You’re shooting on digital, you’re editing on digital. That’s just how it is. But in terms of the production, what’s in camera. And we made a conscious decision to do everything in camera, if possible. So all the backgrounds are painted and all the special effects are happening. Um, as you see them, the layers and layers and layers of backgrounds are coming from, uh, a lot of tricks and techniques that I researched, or we rediscovered or reinvented if we had to.
Devon Ludlow (12:57):
So that none of it was digital add-on and that created partly it was a cohesiveness, partly it was this really fun challenge, uh, to try and figure out how we were gonna make it, you know, an entire rabbit city with thousands of cages when we only have four without using any, any compositing or digital imagery of any kind. And partly it was, it’s a philosophical choice. I think that digital and CGI robs so much of life from anything you’re shooting for a whole slew of reasons, it’s really useful technology. But for this, you know, that we wanted that Handmade punk rock aesthetic, feeling like you just, you know, came outta the garbage, which it all did everything we need in all those shots we pulled out of dumpsters. So I wanted to just like, you know, keep that through line throughout the whole process.
Anne Kelly (13:48):
That’s very cool. There’s this whole recycled element to it. And the fact that the original location was a place where you were using solar power, kind of running this whole production. That’s not quite candlelight, but
Devon Ludlow (14:03):
We did shoot a scene by candlelight in there Stan’s sad song where he’s, you know, a roast thinking about his ex-girlfriend, that he turned into his zombie, that’s all, all actual candlelight boom in the solar panel ,in that house just like a whole other ridiculous story. But we did knock the power out many times and just had to go do something else for the rest of the night, cause we had no more power. And that was the fog machine. Word to the wise , if you’re ever shooting use the fog machine, just as much as you can cause it’ll, it’ll drain your batteries,
Anne Kelly (14:32):
Fog machine and solar power, not necessarily super compatible.
Devon Ludlow (14:36):
And my sacrifices lead the way for others.
Anne Kelly (14:39):
For those that haven’t seen the three part movie, how, how would you describe it
Devon Ludlow (14:44):
Best way? Is I just, I punk puppet musical episodic series starring stan. The whole thing is a mockery of apocalypse mania, which I was certain would’ve been a baited by now, but it’s even more, every, every film seems to be an apocalypse. And so it was a mockery of that and a lot of other things, I mean, everything we could mockery did so that it was sort of like a throw it all in there and it was songs first. So I wrote all the songs and then tried to tie it together with a narrative, but it also grew as it went, we just did the first episode as a standalone and then people loved it. So we did another and they loved that. So we did another so, uh, big tech, futurists, zombie films, apocalypse films, there’s everything I could possibly make fun of , I we tried to,
Anne Kelly (15:36):
A lot of things were very, very current
Devon Ludlow (15:38):
Actually re-editing it a little bit right now, putting all the credits in the end and doing some cards and stuff pains me that a lot of that is still current vaccines and plagues and uh, you know, big farmer guys wanting to live forever, uh, is all absolutely still like I just wish it weren’t current. I wish it weren’t. Um, I wish it weren’t, but that it is so,
Anne Kelly (15:58):
So you’ve had the opportunity to show some of the films at film festivals as well as locally in Santa Fe at, uh, George R.R. Martins theater here in terms of finding the film festivals and all of those opportunities. How, how did you go about that?
Devon Ludlow (16:16):
This has been the weirdest time we finished the third episode and I, you know, pushed it together as one feature in January of 2020. And so started submitting to festivals in February and March. You know, nobody was having any film festivals. They’re just now starting to happen again. So most of the places we submitted to, which is through some online sites were like, sorry, we’re not having a festival, but the few places that decided to go full digital shockingly about a year ago, just at this time awards started showing up, which I did not expect since I did not expect any festivals to be happening. Seattle film festival and LA international horror film festival. They created a new award category for us, several other places, but it was like this wonderful, wonderful shock. Even though festival was canceled, we still won something like, Hey Seattle international film festival, you, you won this thing. We don’t have an actual festival this year. Like you can’t come here, but, um, but here’s a prize.
Anne Kelly (17:15):
People, judges watched it from home and whatnot and made some decisions
Devon Ludlow (17:19):
Even crazier because those films, I, you know, I meant them to be like sort of a Rocky horror experience with the crowd, everybody screaming at the ridiculousness of watching these like stick figures, you know, splatter blood, just like a fun wild midnight movie. And for people watching at home alone on their computer to also enjoy, it was a shock to me. We have also tried to show it in the kind of venues that match its, its whole spirit. So, you know, we’ve shown it in empty swimming pools and in rock clubs on the walls. Uh, I did a residency in Boise and they showed it on the side of a giant moving van. They painted white and threw blizzard and everybody was in their cars and they had like little snack packs of eyeballs and hit their brakes when there was blood and they would honk when’s Stan said positive thinking. And that was a dream come true film. Yeah. They that’s where they, they thrive the best is with a wild venue.
Anne Kelly (18:19):
Maybe the Motorama drive-in
Devon Ludlow (18:22):
I would love to do the Motorama drive-in but yeah, it would be fun to, to rerelease the, the Kraken so to speak. Let’s see how it does again. Now that COVID is maybe over. I don’t know if it’s over. I don’t know what’s going on. Nobody does,
Anne Kelly (18:35):
But nobody knows. It’s it’s maybe just what, what it is now.
Devon Ludlow (18:39):
I don’t know if this has happened to other people you’ve interviewed, but it’s been like, it’s like a major static disruption, sun spot for a lot of creative people. They sort of don’t know what to do or how to be. And you know, you’re asking me about how we show these films and film festivals and that’s a kind of perfect example of how the normal chain of events got totally disrupted for us.
Anne Kelly (18:59):
Kinda like how do we do it now? How do we do it before? How are we doing it now?
Devon Ludlow (19:03):
Is it relevant? Will anybody care about this anymore? Is this the, is this the way it’s supposed to be? I was voicing those doubts and uh, and my partner was like, um, puppets are always gonna be dangerous. So keep on going. I was like, okay, that’s good. I like that advice Stan did a bunch of streaming stuff during the pandemic, which was all right, which pretty good. It seemed to be like apt that he was this character who lives alone in his little cabin of solitude drinking a lot and worrying about viruses. It seemed, seemed to fit the times,
Anne Kelly (19:36):
Just kind of jumping off the zombie apocalypse kind of thing, and then going into 2020 in the pandemic. Yeah.
Devon Ludlow (19:43):
It’s like, again, it’s sort of, um, it’s both wonderful and painful because you know, I wrote that in 2015, right. To still be sort of super relevant and feel transgressive seven years later is um, shocking to me.
Anne Kelly (19:58):
Right. Even even more so. Yeah. You had the episodes where he had advice for, for people.
Devon Ludlow (20:04):
Yes, that’s right. Yeah. How to, how to keep your friends away.
Anne Kelly (20:07):
Yeah. The whole surviving thing became a different type story, but kind of a connected story, I guess, in terms of different artists I’ve talked to it’s, it’s been kind of a, a variety of things from people who are thriving in this because they’re just happy to be in the studio. And that’s the whole desire from people who are frustrated, cause maybe they’re musicians and they wanna go play shows or even artists that just wanna frame shows and hang them. So it’s, it’s been kind of a little bit of everything within that, but I I’d say the main thing is yeah, how are we doing it now? And if I’m following the timeline correctly, it seems like even though with everything that’s going on, you, you managed to get a residency. Even with the, the pandemic was that vital spaces.
Devon Ludlow (20:57):
The lockdown year was like one of my favorite years of all time. So far. Cause I had a vital spaces residency. And then I went, uh, into another kind of residency in upstate New York and did a short film with some stop motion with a friend then did another residency in Boise and then another one in Portland, it was like one after another. And the part that was the most wonderful for me was that I didn’t have to really interact with anybody. I could just be in my own space as isolated as I could be. So to sort of bring it back around in a lot of those spaces or times like I returned to a lot of dance work or movement work around myself in the midst of all the disruption and uncertainty and the daily trauma. We were all experiencing, you know, collectively. Okay. It was critical to be able to kind of return to, to my body. Yeah. The whole year I was going from one place to another doing that kind of work. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t do that. Cuz like I say, we had a momentum trajectory. It all got disrupted by this global event
Anne Kelly (22:00):
You found things to do, but yes. Yeah. that were in line with what you were doing before in
Devon Ludlow (22:05):
One way or another, it’s all part of in long conversation, you’re sort of having, you know, you do one thing and then in a reaction you do another form and then you react to that and you react to that. It builds and builds. So it’s uh, you’re looked at that way. You really can’t take the wrong next step as long as you’re doing something.
Anne Kelly (22:25):
So maybe it’s just a different course that it’s taken. Yeah.
Devon Ludlow (22:29):
I can’t wait to start shooting again and have, you know, a crew around again and, and show new new pieces and show this piece again in a, in a new form. It’s so fulfilling to make these, uh, wild little movies.
Anne Kelly (22:41):
You also got one of those five, 16 art grants as well.
Devon Ludlow (22:46):
That was edifying too. I don’t mean to say like, oh yeah, like I forgot. It’s just that, that year 2020 is so dense. It feels like that was 632 years ago. Like oh yes, yes. Back in the ancient world. I mean, it was so weird because everything got shut down and then all this sort of like grants and residencies and recognition came through. So it was weird. Like stop start kind of feeling. So I’m looking forward to doing more smoothly in the future. But yeah, if I could ,five ,16 supporter, vital spaces has been amazing, a big supporter of us, of our, our work as well.
Anne Kelly (23:24):
No, it’s great to have those resources around us. I feel like a lot of people out there maybe don’t even really quite know how to reach out to, to resources such as those. Do you have any advice?
Devon Ludlow (23:36):
I wish I had better advice. I mean, I’ve, you know, I’ve been doing this stuff for 20 plus years, 25 years almost and it’s never gotten easier. At one point I ran one of those organizations. I was managing director run, but I was managing director at wise school, New Mexico, and we were getting applications and we were also applying for grants all the time. And it’s a specialized language. I think that world is changing. Uh, I hope it is. It’s not as user friendly as it should be or could be. The best advice is just to, just to start looking and not give up like where you wanna go, what do you wanna do? There’s so many programs and so many people who do wanna support artists. You know, once you sort of start the research, you’ll be surprised at how many resources you find residencies and grants and all kinds of things like that. All kinds of support, persistence, furthers,
Anne Kelly (24:26):
Get out there and find them and cross your I or cross the Ts and dot the I or maybe do it the other way around. And that will be more interesting.
Devon Ludlow (24:37):
Cross the I and dot the T. Amen. Um, I guess you’d get to the same result. There’s a zillion and they’re around in the world. So, uh, whatever it is you’re interested in, keep applying also, you know, you’ll usually get rejected until your third time. That’s sort of the rule of thumb. People who get accepted to something or get a grant the first time that’s unusual and it’s awesome when it happens. But a good rule of thumb is like, you know, that they’ll reject you twice before they take you seriously. They teach a lot of students and their mentees and things. It’s always just keep creating, you know, one way or another
Anne Kelly (25:12):
In your, your holiday special. It, it seemed like perhaps Stan had some opinions on NFTs, which,
Devon Ludlow (25:19):
Oh yeah,
Anne Kelly (25:20):
I really, really enjoyed. I kind of love that the way that that was addressed. And, and I was kind of curious based Stan’s opinion on NFTs. If you had current opinions on the non fungible tokens, I believe Stan had what non fungible, Stan
Devon Ludlow (25:38):
And WTS, what it was fun, fun, GWT, something like that. You know, it’s just this overheated world of, I immediately wanting mock sales people, which is mostly what we’re surrounded with. So when people are like, oh my, this is the thing of the future. You’ve just gotta have this thing break out a creature too, to analyze this situation. So, you know, who knows, but I really like the idea of stan giving out empty boxes as like the presence for the year. And those are NFTs. Like you should be really grateful and see how they, they go,
Anne Kelly (26:07):
I love the scene where he threw box of his personal non fungible tokens in about mailbox and the um, Google flag thing fell off
Devon Ludlow (26:17):
Unplanned.
Anne Kelly (26:17):
Yeah, yeah. Was that unplanned? I wondered unplanned.
Devon Ludlow (26:21):
Yeah. My neighbor was like, what, what is that? What happened to the mailbox? I was like, uh, nothing to see here, sir.
Anne Kelly (26:26):
We’re, we’re making art, right?
Devon Ludlow (26:27):
like I said, chaos and anarchy everywhere we go. And if it’s not happening, it’s not, it’s it’s, it’s not
Anne Kelly (26:33):
Real love that. So we talked a little bit about other puppeteering or, or puppets that may have influenced you. Are there other movies over the years that you feel like are implanted into your subconscious that might influence things you’re doing today? Yeah.
Devon Ludlow (26:51):
I know I’ve been very saturated in, in film and cinema for a long time. So there’s a long list of amazing filmmakers who I’m interested in. And I, I think everyone, I sort of get serious about it a little, uh, one thing I wanted to do with these crazy anarchic puppet films was apply some different sources or inspirations to puppet. So instead of it being sort of fun Vodville, which is the background like for Henson, for example, applying David Lynch filters to things or French new wave filters to things or, um, Jackie Chan filters to things and see what came out on the other side, you know, those end credit scenes, those are Jackie Chan inspired. There’s a million, there’s a million parts, Stan, you know, adoring his car, you know, that’s a Scorpio rising reference. There’s a lot of things like that in there. So, uh, stealing often frequently whenever I can. And then playing from there,
Anne Kelly (27:50):
I was actually thinking maybe at some point there would be a martial art scene that that would break out. I guess mostly with the rabbits, the test rabbits were really off. I was almost expecting one of them to become a professional martial artist, but I guess that’s my own creative mind watching what you’ve created. And then that’s
Devon Ludlow (28:11):
The ideal, the ideal
Anne Kelly (28:12):
Adding to it.
Devon Ludlow (28:13):
That’s another, the best compliments we’ve ever gotten about this are when people are, wanna immediately go out and make their own piece or film or spin off or something like that. It’s also funny you say that, cause that was in my, my mind too. Like I’ve always wanted to do those scenes time constraints have been the biggest problem doing those scenes takes eight, like ton of work and rehearsal. And especially with something as, uh, like the kind of puppets we’ve chosen to use, not easy at all, could have
Anne Kelly (28:40):
A little harder for Kung Fu fighting maybe
Devon Ludlow (28:43):
For almost everything like they’ve got fixed faces and a, you know, very limited kind of motion. So you have to adapt in certain ways, but yes, the dream that’s part of the dreams, uh, in the future down the road, the closest we got was that the hallway scene with all the blood splattering on the walls.
Anne Kelly (29:00):
And I have to say, I love how you used the shadows to be part of that. So you didn’t actually see the characters killing or fighting everybody. It was just like the shadows and the, and then the blood and everything. So people watching are gonna have to go watch this
Devon Ludlow (29:16):
Very fun room was just filled with blood after that. It was the best fake, fake blood fake blood. Yes, of course,
Anne Kelly (29:23):
Of course. But I could see how you were kind of saying your crew has grown as people were like, oh, I wanna play too. I think that’s great. When people who are watching all of a sudden start having their own ideas, it spurs the imagination.
Devon Ludlow (29:36):
They look at our movies and they’re like, wow, if they did that, I could do anything. Um,
Anne Kelly (29:43):
I’m gonna leave that up to you guys. We’ll look forward to, to seeing what, what is coming next.
Devon Ludlow (29:49):
Yeah. We’ll see things are in the, the works
Anne Kelly (29:52):
Or, or something I’ve become curious about is time travel. But that’s something I think I started thinking about originally when traveling was really difficult and, and so it was like, okay, where would you travel? But then it was like, well, why not just time travel? Because it seemed like just as radical the concept and we’re traveling again. If, if you could time travel into the past or into the future,
Devon Ludlow (30:16):
The time travel game. Well there’s like 10,000 places to, to choose from.
Anne Kelly (30:21):
So you can only pick two
Devon Ludlow (30:22):
In this thought experiment. If there’s only two, one is definitely the future. Cause I’m absolutely curious, uh, by the way, I think people are gonna be more and more interested in time travel as things get more and more chaotic and desperate in the world. It’ll be like over the old days. Um, I’m also very interested in like the, the late 17 hundreds period sort of there’s this like wild set of changes and uh, ideas, percolating and happening. There’s also this great abundance of nature of kind of like a nature loving nut. So being able to go into these places in their much more pristine state was always an attractive idea for me. But then if people come back and, you know, talk about inventing electricity or something, uh, it was always fun, very boring answer, but also, uh, accurate.
Anne Kelly (31:08):
So both sides, you wanna go see it pre electricity and then what’s happening in the future.
Devon Ludlow (31:13):
Where did we go wrong? Where didn’t we go wrong asked
Anne Kelly (31:16):
Before we started talking, you were letting your, your beast, AKA your dog out. I have two dogs sitting under my table safe to say, I’m a dog fan. So Stan’s dog from your films. He’s like a puppet sock dog.
Devon Ludlow (31:33):
Yes he is. Yeah.
Anne Kelly (31:34):
I just love him.
Devon Ludlow (31:35):
Sock dog is like number one. Favorite after the films, everybody loves that, that character, the most strangely I, we made that character before we got this dog and this dog seems to have the almost identical personality to sock dog, which is surreal. But, but, but there it is. We, I could only allow one sock puppet into the film. Cause sock puppets are true insanity. If you, if you allow yourself to start doing it with some friends, you’re gonna go crazy, crazy things will happen. And things will start to break in the house madness
Anne Kelly (32:08):
Like a controlled madness. Is that the, is that the idea? Yes.
Devon Ludlow (32:13):
Yes. Yeah. You know, I’ve been toying you with the idea of doing one of those episodes or shows again, there was a, a duo called sifl and Ollie who worth checking out there were like an early two thousands duo just sock puppet guys who are insane. And I was like, oh yeah, we should, we should try those again and see where they take us.
Anne Kelly (32:30):
But you said your dog ended up being kind of like him. Your dog’s been watching the films and he just kind of adopted that, that personality totally
Devon Ludlow (32:39):
Possible was like, that’s who I wanna be like just to like puppet geek out for a second. The most of the characters in that film don’t have expressive faces or just fixed expressions. So you have to move them in certain ways or get certain lighting, but a sock puppet, you can do anything you, you want to for your expression with your hand, which makes a, a much like literally a much softer character, more inviting character than the others.
Anne Kelly (33:04):
And you’ve taught some puppeteering classes at, at Meow Wolf and through a few other organizations. So we kind of started off this conversation by talking about how for the fringe elements of it, but you you’re teaching classes in
Devon Ludlow (33:20):
It. Uh, yes, I’m New Mexico school for the arts and Monte sol. And you know, wherever else, when I was doing residencies, we would do little online classes. So I did like an online shadow puppet and film class, which is really, really fun. One of the great things about teaching puppets or puppetry. There’s, there’s not a lot of rules, so there’s not a lot of you have to do this and then this, and then this it’s more like finding a, a creative template so that people kind of get out of their own way and go wild more. If that makes any sense. The other thing about those classes is how much interest there is people come out of the woodwork and they, um, love these classes, especially the making, and people really wanna know how to make them, you know, make these creatures that work. It’s like this huge I who knew there’s this huge reservoir of interest and curiosity around puppets and puppetry,
Anne Kelly (34:10):
Which is also kind of an interesting thing where it’s this very free do what you wanna do thing, but with, with a class there’s kind of implied rules to a certain extent, maybe the foundation of, of how do you, how do you get there? And, and then you go wild. Is that, yeah,
Devon Ludlow (34:25):
You’re kinda hitting on the struggle I always have is when I’m doing this with other people, is that for, you know, for me, it’s, I always wanna make it seem like it’s an anarchic rule, free environment, but it really is a lot more like playing an instrument or building an instrument. There really is a lot of, sort of just some certain foundational systems that you should have a, a good handle on. And so while I’m always pro anarchy wildness and let your freak flag fly and make your crazy thing, go for it. It is really helpful to have some guiding principles, uh, going in. That is something I have learned for sure.
Anne Kelly (35:02):
Kinda like if you’re gonna apply for a grant or a residency or something like that, you wanna go in doing what you’re doing, but I was gonna dot my T’s and cross my I’s. So, you know, maybe that’s not great depending on the organization. You’re, you’re,
Devon Ludlow (35:17):
We’re all gonna be doing in 2022 and 2023,
Anne Kelly (35:20):
Or maybe that get you in.
Devon Ludlow (35:22):
Yes, exactly.
Anne Kelly (35:24):
I feel like this person, this is, this is definitely the person.
Devon Ludlow (35:29):
It’s a funny form. Cause it’s good to have your technique before you go wild, but I’ve also seen it happen so many times that having a puppet in somebody’s hands, especially a sock allows people to become like truly unhinged, which I love. And the more of that, the better
Anne Kelly (35:43):
Punk rock are, are you a fan of the music? And do you have any favorite bands?
Devon Ludlow (35:48):
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a nineties punk kid all the way, a lot, a lot of Mo pit, a lot of late night shows and a lot of wildness. So favorite punk bands would be like, oh my God, like, how long have you got one band that’s super inspired though. And this one, you know, people who are deep in there will really get it bands, suicide. Alen Vega is he’s a template for Stan. Like Alen Vega plus like some Bruce Springsteen, little Ram thrown in there, like that’s sort of him, including the red bandana, the whole thing for our episode, there’s like not a lot of punk music per se, but you know, when people think of it like slamming drums and a few guitars and screaming, there’s only like one of those songs, most of it’s like sync music or 80’s inspired carpenter kind of music, but the aesthetic and the idea and the energy is all inspired by that stuff.
Devon Ludlow (36:36):
Anarchy and, and like just absolutely being true to yourself in whatever form, uh, yeah, a lot of inspiration from there. Another big inspiration for a lot of this is a show from 80’s English show called the young ones, which is like, sort of, there’s a very tiny selection of what you might call like punk TV shows. But that was an absolutely one from England. The rat that appear in the movie, the four little like finger puppet mice. Yes. Are based on the four characters from the young ones. So that kinda stuff was always, always there with us. The battle between Stan and the, the sort of nosfuratu monster with the iPhone in his head, it’s like your punk versus disco battle , up.
Anne Kelly (37:17):
I love all of those references. I gotta say space, ladies music. Pretty amazing.
Devon Ludlow (37:24):
One of the original ideas was to have like a, you know, to have it be a 30 minute episode show it’s changed now, but that was one of the original ideas. And we’d have like a musical guest on each show. And so we managed to get space. Lady, Mary partner saw her, you know, doing a street performance. And then we performed with her at Meow Wolf, approached her. It turns out when you’re like, Hey, would you like to be in a punk puppet musical? And we’ll make a puppet of you. Nobody says no to that. They were like, so she was so excited and said, yes. And let us use her song. And we made Sabrina Griffith, made the puppet of her at flying wall studios. She’s an amazing, uh, puppet maker. She’s awesome. I
Anne Kelly (38:00):
Don’t know why anybody would wanna make a puppet of me, but if they did, it’s like, how, how do you say no to that? That’s, that’s kind of a huge compliment. So I’m, I’m not surprised she was all in.
Devon Ludlow (38:10):
Yeah. The rest of music is like, like I say, since inspired kind of John Carpenter originally riffing off of like low primitive synth stuff from like early eighties slasher and zombie films, which are another, you know, big inspiration Grindhouse films and gore films are, are part of the DNA here. So that’s what we, you know, that was the kind of music I wanted to use as much as possible. Also very easy to do that alone. Your little like music program, just push a few synths buttons, boom. And you’re, you’re ready to go.
Anne Kelly (38:39):
You don’t need a full on band for that
Devon Ludlow (38:42):
For one song, local amazing performer, Jesse Deluxe her group. At the time they gave a song for episode two Lydia’s songs, always having other collaborators and musical people appear in the, in the shows is like makes it so much richer and so much more fun.
Anne Kelly (38:57):
So one thing I’m always curious about is what creative people collect in your case. I’m curious specifically, maybe what might get collected in terms of puppets, stan stay around, cause he’s gonna be in other films and of sets. And do you collect items from that or as part of it thinking you’ll use it in the future.
Devon Ludlow (39:22):
Yes and no. The, the yes. Part is that we have saved a lot of the sets incase. We do shoot more episodes, sort of just like standard kind of film universe practice. You know, you wanna keep them around in case something a shot you did didn’t work out in the end. You wanna be able to reshoot it if you can or donate them, like give them to other people. Cause they’re kind of amazing. And we had a really innovative wild team building this stuff for us, with us. So I’m like, I, you know, loathe to give it away or, or lose it at the same time. The whole idea. And part of it is impermanence and not being attached to any thing. So tossing stuff aside is as important as keeping it. That’s not easy to do, but uh, it’s part of the whole part of the whole idea. So even though I may like naturally wanna hold onto these things, letting them go and tossing them out. Um, you know, thing comes in, you say, yes, thing goes away. You say
Anne Kelly (40:17):
Yes and maybe onto somebody else. Exactly.
Devon Ludlow (40:20):
Yeah. See where they take it
Anne Kelly (40:21):
Is. Is there anything else that you collect?
Devon Ludlow (40:24):
I have been a nomad so many times in my life. I’ve actually just learned how to like live with one pair of socks and like one shirt and a backpack and um, be in the universe. I don’t collect anything. Uh, my partner collects amazing behind me. You can see like these Mexican masks, you know, my, one of my first puppet teachers was always a little nervous around the kind of esoteric aspects of having masks or puppets on walls. It always thought it kind of Rob them of their power. So I try not to do anything I’m gonna work with. Uh, it’s not usually on this play. So that’s either reason I try not to collect things is, uh, cause I want them to keep their potency in a lot of, as much as possible. A lot of creative people have that as part of their lives. I’ve just moved around so much. Part of my Mo is letting things go all the time. So I’ve sort of ended up in the opposite side of that spectrum, but that instinct still there,
Anne Kelly (41:19):
Right? If you wanna pick up and go to Brazil for the summer, you don’t, you’re not hauling 87 pounds of books and or records,
Devon Ludlow (41:27):
Even though I may wanna have that 87 pounds of books and records.
Anne Kelly (41:30):
So being from Santa Fe, Chili, New Mexico chili has to be part of your life. You have a, a preference between red and green.
Devon Ludlow (41:40):
Yeah. I like red chili in Santa Fe and I like green chili and Albuquerque.
Anne Kelly (41:44):
Oh interesting. Is it the, the slight change in elevation or, or just
Devon Ludlow (41:50):
The
Anne Kelly (41:51):
Restaurant?
Devon Ludlow (41:51):
The, no, it could be the elevation of the change, but yeah, it’s a vital part of life for all of us.
Anne Kelly (41:58):
If you haven’t New Mexico, you gotta come try our chili here. Oh
Devon Ludlow (42:02):
Yeah. Live, learn to live again.
Anne Kelly (42:06):
It’s it’s an addiction. So you have any shout outs plugs, anything we haven’t talked about that you wanna bring
Devon Ludlow (42:14):
Up. Let’s see. There’s so many people there’s like, there’s like an endless number of amazing people I worked with. And so if I start plugging people, I’m just gonna feel guilty that I’m missing others who aren’t, I’m not plugging, but uh, everybody who’s worked with us is an amazing artist is still making great, great, wonderful work. And so gratitude there. I don’t, you know, there’s some interesting stuff coming up. We’ll see what unfolds in this next year. We, I just shot a video for Asca band in Connecticut that should be coming out in soonish. But I think that’s, that’s it we’ll be doing, I’m doing a little reedit of the three episode film. So it flows better. It’s, you know, less like choppy cause that was just squished together. You know, a lot of people are, wanna see more stan’s stuff. So I, I should probably deliver, but that’s it just a big thank you for taking the time to, uh, to have those conversation.
Anne Kelly (43:09):
Thank you really, really appreciate it. And if you have future films or anything coming up, please let me know about that. I’d I’d love to share that on Instagram, always trying to kind of promote things happen in, uh, in Santa Fe and, and other places. So keep me posted and, and thanks for talking and, and nice to meet you and have a great night.
Devon Ludlow (43:33):
My pleasure. And thank you.
Anne Kelly (43:34):
Thanks for watching Art in the Raw conversations with creative people. I hope you enjoyed meeting Devon and you’re feeling inspired. If so, consider subscribing to the channel and telling like-minded friends. If you liked the video like it, if you have something to say, please comment and check out the new website, artintheraw.net
