Ming and Ping - the process

Ming and Ping are one of my favorite synthpop groups - mingping.com. They are twin brothers from Hong Kong presently residing in LA. I was inspired to make these two puppets of them. Ming prefers black and has been known to wear purple make-up while Ping is more into wearing white with blue accents. I was thrilled with the almost 'manga' look of this duo and quickly started plotting an idea to capture them on video.

I chose a catchy, upbeat tune called Electricity from their last album Causeway Army. I enlisted a friend and did a few takes of the 3 minutes tune in no time. Although we had a few interesting ideas, after starting the editing process, it just felt flat. All these other ideas then started to flow. I created a quick storyboard in InDesign and worked out scenarios for at least every count of 16, if not, more. It took me no time and, in another week, I had my fellow puppeteer back to video again. This time it was SO much easier to talk about each shot, set it up and shoot. It felt much more organized and allowed the creativity to flow a bit more. While sitting down to edit this time, I knew I had something and the video looks great for a first time puppet shoot. Obviously, story-boarding is a mainstay in the video/film industry for a reason. The initial time it takes to lay it out is SO worth the feeling of being organized and ready for shooting day... but, even the first disorganized shoot was worth it to help understand what I was going for and where I needed to focus my attention. Enjoy the process folks! ... Video coming soon!