The first sneak peek video from “Meja i spökjägarnas sal” is finally up on YouTube!

The video shows the puppeteers rehearsing for the premiere under the guidance of Helena, the director. We’d just like to add that the stage shown in the video is the temporary stage, and that the props will be looking slightly different when it runs at the real stage at the Stockholm City Theater. Beside Meja, you can also see our new character Yoshiro, especially written for the play. When watching the video, you can also see the amount of detail the puppeteers put into their acting, and how it plays into the whole picture. In short, seeing all this is just too awesome for words!

Sadly, this only applies to Swedish residents, but hopefully, by now, you’ll be looking forward to seeing some manga stage play! We’ll try to upload more videos of the rehearsals before February 19th when the play premieres. Tickets are available for purchase at the Stockholm City Theater website.

Yokaj Podcast
You can now follow the studio’s work with our podcast, which is broadcasted every Monday evening (Swedish only for now). The first episode of the year (2010-02-08) is finally uploaded! Click here to listen!

Links
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 4
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 3
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 2
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 1
Read more about “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ Hall” at the Stockholm Municipal Theatre’s website (Swedish)
Visit Kick Off’s official website
Read our entry about Kick Off receiving the award for “Best comic 2008″ in Sweden.

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Please join and keep supporting us!

We’re back from another visit at the stage workshop! For those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about - Stockholms Stadsteater (The Stockholm Municipal Theatre) is setting up a spin-off play based on our manga Kick Off, called “Meja i spökjägarnas sal” (”Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ Hall”). And not just any play, but a puppet show! With a little less than a month away from the premiere, we were invited to come check out the rehearsals.

Yosh and Kajfa in front of the Meja poster at Kulturhuset, Stockholm. Can you imagine how surprised we were when we first saw it?! We had no idea that it would get this blown up. Here’s hoping that it’s gotten people’s interest for the play!

The initial rehearsals are being done in this yellow house, in Parkteatern’s premises. Next week they’ll be moving to the Stadsteatern stages.

We suspect that we just timed the end of their lunch break when we arrived, which was fortunate! Before running through the points for today’s meeting, each of us warmed ourselves with a nice cup of tea.

We found a nice surprise on the table - someone had doodled one of those ghost targets Meja uses in her shooting practices on the sugar box!

Before beginning the rehearsals, we were shown the latest changes to the puppets - Jenny and Krille have hair on their heads now! Aren’t they just amazing?

Poor Andreas is the only one still remaining bald, but that doesn’t stop him from being his usual good-looking self. The puppet maker is thinking about whether to use real human hair or synthetic hair for his wig. We still get touched every time we think about all the love and care people put into making all this work.

This is how the temporary stage looks like. As we mentioned earlier, rehearsals will be moved to the real stage at Stadsteatern next week, where the space is bigger and airier. Though this stage serves as a nice pointer of how things will look like! Projections will be shown on the black screen in the back.

Aaand here we go! Here, Annika, Magnus and Andreas are acting out an action packed scene between Yoshiro (a new character written especially for the play) and Meja. Kay (who plays Chiko and Andreas) is preparing for her entrance in the back, while Helena (the art director) is standing in the front, directing the puppeteers. This scene had to be rehearsed several times, always with great, unending patience from the skilled puppeteers.

Andreas, Yoshiro and Meja. Imagine how amazing it feels just looking at the puppets standing still. Then imagine how much MORE overwhelming it is seeing them move! All the gestures, the minute details, the posture, the slight movement of the eyes… Everything is controlled by the puppeteers with such soulfoul feeling and skill that it leaves us speechless. They’re simply fantastic.

Soya and Kajfa aren’t looking very excited here, but they were watching with great concentration and were actually swept away by the great performance.

On this picture, we can see one of the ghost targets and part of the background set. Can you guess what kind of house that is?

Andreas and Meja in an emotional scene. Pay attention to the amount of feeling Kay and Andreas (the puppeteers) are putting into their acting.

We went to look at some of the behind-the-scenes material after the rehearsals. The naked trees really send chills down your spine don’t they? And there’s the keyhole we showed in the previous entry!

Andreas is contemplating over something, as usual.

And while Chiko is taking a siesta in his newly installed hammock…

… Jenny patiently waits for her turn on the stage.

And here we have them, the amazing puppeteers! From the left side, we have Magnus, Kay and Andreas (Annika had to leave early, which explains her absence). They’ve really gotten smitten by the Japanese culture and have even dressed up in black, ninja-like clothing complete with tabi socks! For those of you with an interest in Japanese theatre and old cinema, this might be reminiscent of the “invisible” stagehands called Kurogo. Anyway, these people (plus everybody else who have been working on the play) deserve a huge applause!

In the next sneak peek of “Meja i spökjägarnas sal”, we will report from the final rehearsals at Stockholms Stadsteater. Exciting times!

Yokaj Podcast
You can now follow the studio’s work with our podcast, which is broadcasted every Monday evening (Swedish only for now). Click here to listen!

Links
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 3
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 2
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ hall” part 1
Read more about “Meja in the Ghost Hunters’ Hall” at the Stockholm Municipal Theatre’s website (Swedish)
Visit Kick Off’s official website
Read our entry about Kick Off receiving the award for “Best comic 2008″ in Sweden.

Did you know we have a Facebook group?

Please join and keep supporting us!

We have been visiting the workshop in Stockholm City Theater to discuss some scenographic props they needed to “Meja i spökjägarnas sal”(”Meja in ghost hunter’s hall), a spin-off puppet show based on our award-winning manga series Kick Off. It was great fun visiting the workshop! It was creativity in the air and the puppeters were playful! Like Magnus (image above) who was playing around with a pair of ghost hands. And of course, it was like Christmas when we kept finding props everywhere that come from our manga. It’s simply amazing!

This is the workshop’s “office”. Many of our previous meetings with the theater crew was held in this room. We met to discuss the synopis, storyboard and manuscript with Helena (director) and Andreas (scenographer).

Andreas showed us a sketch of some stage solutions for the play.

As mentioned in earlier blog entries about the play, the theater crew are skilled in many areas. We found Annika, who is a puppeteer, in the workshop creating some Kick Off characters which will be used for the shadow play section of “Meja i spökjägarnas sal”.

Look what we found! The fence from the haunted house and the ghost shaped practice targets Meja uses in her basement in Kick Off manga volume 2! How cool is this?!

A gigantic key hole! A part of the play is the haunted house scene from Kick Off volume 2. We are very excited and curious to know how the theater will play that scene.

“KWOOOM”.  Everyone who reads a lot of manga knows sound effects are very important komponents in a manga (as important as the images!). The theater has taken that to mind. Andreas shows us a smart solution on how he can create many words by making detachable parts to the letters.

Hehe. What is Pacman doing here you may wonder? Will be it used in the play? You’ll see. ^__^

This is a bonus image! It might be a spoiler for those of you who will see the play. But we simply couldn’t resist. It’s so charming.

In the next sneak peek blog entry we will show you some photos of how it looked like when the crew from the theater has started rehersing.

Yokaj Podcast
You can also follow the progress of our work by listening toYokaj Podcast!

Links
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the ghost hunter’s hall” part2
Sneak peek: Making of “Meja in the ghost hunter’s hall” part1
Read more about “Meja in ghost hunter’s hall” in the Stockholm City Theater’s website (Swedish)
Visit Kick Off’s official website
Read our entry about Kick Off receiving the award “Best comic 2008″ in Sweden.

Did you know we have a Facebook group?

Please join us and keep supporting us!