Here’s a brief glimpse at Yamasong: March of the Hollows, a feature-length puppet film that’s currently in the works. It’s a sequel to the Yamasong short film, and both are directed by Sam Koji Hale. I’ve met Hale through his work on Monster of the Sky, another puppet short film that was funded through Kickstarter and has filmed a few scenes here in Portland.
The poster and trailer for the film were just revealed today. The poster (above) is pretty exciting–as is the list of names across the top. Nathan Fillion, Abigail Breslin, Whoopi Goldberg, Freida Pinto, Peter Weller, Malcolm McDowell, George Takei, Ed Asner, and Bruce Davison will all provide their voices to the film. In addition, you may notice in the small text at the bottom that both Heather Henson and Toby Froud are executive producers. It’s exciting to see the next generation of Henson and Froud making puppet films. Froud’s own short film, Lessons Learned, definitely shares a lot of the DNA of films like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.
One of the cool things about Hale’s films, as I’ve learned during the making of Monster of the Sky, is the way that he combines traditional puppetry with digital tools. For instance, in Monster of the Sky he used motion capture to animate the puppets’ faces. But the puppets themselves are a live performance, which is quite different from an animated film, even stop-motion. The result has a otherworldly feel to it.
For more information and to follow the progress of the film, check out the Yamasong Facebook page. For now, enjoy the new trailer!
