Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge (2014) s01e03 Episode Script
Assembly Inspired
1 Previously on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge This week's winning creature designer is Robert.
Congratulations.
Whoo! Russ, Ivonne, Tina, one of you will be eliminated.
The creature designer eliminated tonight is Tina.
This week on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge All this junk around you is the inspiration for your next creature build.
What the hell are you gonna do with that? I don't know, but it's cool looking.
This challenge is so free for interpretation it's a little bit scary.
No.
Abort.
Every one of us is putting in 100%.
Sometimes 100% isn't enough.
It's a quick challenge, and it's a tough challenge.
A lot of people in this business would look at this challenge and go, "absolutely not.
You can't do it.
" Whoa.
Whoa.
Something's happening with the monitors up top.
No one's listening to me.
Mm.
You've gotta pick up your game.
I don't know what I'm looking at.
As we walk to the location for today's challenge, we don't really know what to expect, but we can see a little bit of everything: Electronics, car parts, and a graveyard of old computers.
Anything that you could think of that might be junk now is there.
Wow.
All this stuff.
It's like everything you can imagine, but lots of metal and kind of twisted stuff.
Hey.
Morning, guys.
Morning.
You've been in that workshop for days now, so we thought that it was a good idea to bring you out so you could get some fresh air.
Yeah, in a junkyard.
Welcome to Apex Electronics.
This is one of the largest scrapyards in town, and it's also the location for your next creature brief.
Many of the creatures that we built at the creature shop actually started life right here from this junkyard.
My dad used to say, "it's not about the size of your budget, it's about the quality of the idea.
" In fact, Kermit the Frog started as one of my grandmother's old coats that my dad cut up and made into Kermit the Frog.
Brian's story inspired me because making something out of nothing is something that I've always been interested in, and something really cool and iconic can be made from any kind of material that you can find.
That original Kermit the Frog is on display at the Smithsonian museum now, and is worth a lot more than an old coat.
All this junk around you is the inspiration for your next creature build.
In fact, you'll be using materials that you gather right here.
So here's the brief.
Imagine a creature that has disguised itself using scrapyard materials for so long that the creature is now part creature, part scrap.
It only comes out of hiding to hunt for prey in the junkyard.
Now, it's been captured and caged, - and it's desperate to escape.
- Ah You'll be working in pairs.
The teams are chosen at random, and they are Ben and Ivonne, Jake and Russ, Lex and Josh back together again from week one And that means, Melissa, you are with Robert.
Yes.
Each team will be provided a cage to house your creature.
You'll be operating your creatures alongside three professional performers.
But no operator is allowed inside the cage with the creature, okay? Oh, my God.
It's a very difficult challenge, transforming inanimate objects into living creatures, but your master this week is a true master of this sort of thing, the creature shop's mechanical supervisor John Criswell.
Hey, guys.
John and I have been working together for many years.
We first worked together on the TV series Dinosaurs, a very ambitious show starring 18 fully animatronic dinosaurs.
Since then we've worked on many things including Muppet Christmas Carol, bringing to life the wild things in where the wild things are, and that infamous tiger from the movie Hangover.
Nice.
So John will be guiding you through your build this week.
You guys will have two days for this build.
We'll see you in two days.
Good luck.
Okay, guys, each team gets a budget of $500.
- Oh, wow.
- You have 90 minutes.
Here's your money.
Let's get going.
Come on! This challenge is so free for interpretation it's a little bit scary.
It's gonna be a creature from whatever junk you pull out and decide to transform.
We've got a money budget limit, and there are certain things that are too heavy to use.
That's cool.
So Melissa and I are planning our creature as we walk around the junkyard.
Every time we see a new object it kind of takes our creation in a different direction, so it's really about getting all your pieces together and then seeing how they all fit together.
So that's the basic creature right there.
We're on the same lines.
We're on the same lines.
Yeah.
Jake and I are sketching, now, the designs.
It's actually looking pretty creepy, and I'm actually looking forward to seeing how it comes out.
What the hell are you gonna do with that? I don't know, but it's cool looking.
So I'll tell you what I was thinking Okay.
And then tell me what you're thinking, and I'm sure we'll meet somewhere in between.
Okay.
At this point, I definitely want to win a challenge.
It's been pulled from my fingertips twice already, so I'm hungry for blood.
These are cool.
I could throw an LED inside of one of these.
Yeah.
So far, every screen test, Brian has brought up movement first thing because how it moves is how much it brings it to life.
The creature could start out as a shape.
It's just a box, and then it opens up, and stands up.
That'd be really cool.
That would be really cool, actually.
I'm excited to be able to shop around with a $500 budget.
We can pick things that we wouldn't normally pick if we were on our own budget.
The motherboard mother lode.
- Antennas up the wazoo.
- Oh, love it.
- What about, like, a-a - It could be a crate.
That's what I was gonna say.
I'm like, "what about a crate?" - I like this concept a lot.
- Me too.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Right I'm paired with Lex again, which is nice, because me and her work very well together.
I'm thinking our creature is gonna be kind of, like, a rat-type hyena creature with all these metal parts and little wires and things like that.
Part of his face has LED lights in the eyes.
The other part is normal, almost like a two-face look.
We have one minute, guys! One minute left! That was a good find.
Yeah, that was dude.
That's time, guys.
We're done.
That's it.
Wow.
Whoa.
Oh Walking into the work room, we see these awesome cages.
They're a lot bigger than I had imagined, and our creature has to be a lot bigger than I imagined.
We had purchased things at apex that were gonna hold our creature that were a little bit smaller.
We don't want to have a small subject in the middle of a huge, white canvas.
I-I think the idea of a little creature in here controlling this robot is so cool.
Okay.
Our creature is mechanical, the crate being the main structure.
It's gonna have long legs, long arms.
We settled on a small creature that has become part junkyard, but also is controlling this kind of mech bot.
I can start sort of mocking up the head to make sure that we have the right size, and that that's what we want.
Well, what I'm gonna do right now is I'm gonna make a whole frame.
I will start working on the tail, and then I want to do the head out of I'm gonna do, like, a tinfoil structure and then cover it with latex.
Our creature is ZZ867.
He is an alien that crash-landed to earth in the '50s and has been living and thriving in this junkyard, taking pieces of the scrap and pieces of animals, and anything that he can find to incorporate into himself to help him survive in this environment.
- That's the head? - Well, not yet, but it will be.
I'm gonna handle most of the painting and the finishing, and I'm also going to make the eye that will be on the telescoping eye of our creature, while Russ is going to handle a lot of the big movement pieces and fabricate the torso and work on the fur that we're planning to incorporate.
Next to the cages we have a long pole arm that's going to be holding up the torso of our creature and really holding the bulk of the weight.
That's cool.
It's a teeter-totter.
In order to make it easier to use, you got to make sure there's an equal amount of weight on both sides.
So the concept is pretty simple, and I'm actually really excited that we don't have to be lugging up a giant creature up and down, and bouncing it in a cage.
He looks scary.
So our creature is, like, a chimpanzee that's escaped from his scientist's lab, and he has hidden himself in this junkyard, and now he's kind of morphed into this crazy, genetically altered monkey-ape thing.
Gosh, that looks so good, Robert.
You're on eye duty for life.
We fabricate a foam body with the thickest foam we've got.
That would definitely help, but it's gonna need something.
Creating these creatures is very exhausting.
You get limited time, and you have to create these huge, amazing operating creatures.
It's really hard for me.
It's a struggle.
I'm not liking this, the movement.
- You like it? - I said I'm not.
Why? I think it's cool.
I think the movement's gone.
Russ is making this challenge a little bit more difficult than it has to be, I think.
He lets his anger get the best of him, and sometimes you have to be able to think on your feet, and be able to react to situations that may not go your way.
Coming up on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge It's a quick challenge, and it's a tough challenge.
Remember the challenge really includes a lot of the stuff found from the junkyard.
Use your time wisely 'cause you only have a few hours left.
- Stressing yet? - Kind of.
Crazy Jake, the full fabricator Crazy Jake, he's fabricating, yeah Our challenge is to build a creature from all the pieces we have gathered at the junkyard, and it's a five-puppeteer puppet.
It's a lot.
The blocks that hold the pin will be on the back, so then it's basically on its own hinge right here to go like this.
Robert and I cut out the base for our creature that everything's gonna be attached to.
That's the first thing that needs to get put on there, otherwise we can't even build off of anything.
What are your thoughts? Um Maybe on this one, make it more, like, where the teeth are gonna be 'cause they're gonna be implanted metal.
So the way I'm making the head, I sculpt it first out of clay, then I make a plaster mold.
I take the two part expanding foam, I mix it up, I put it in there, and I make a foam shape, and then I'm free to cut it up, move it, and do whatever I want to it.
- Looks good.
- Good base.
I'm building the rat to be, like, 9 to 10 feet tall because it's supposed to fill this cage, and it's supposed to be big and menacing looking.
He's tall and lanky, but I'm gonna crouch him down into a position where it looks like he's just kind of huddled in a ball, and then he's gonna sprawl up and surprise or scare the audience.
Now his feet is gonna be bolted to the thing.
We don't need any puppeteers underneath it.
No, no.
- Got it? - I don't know.
Day one is stressful.
Russ has made a few pieces that we are no longer using, and I'm trying to pick up the slack and make things that look cool to put on our piece while Russ focuses on the bigger strokes and making this guy move.
Oh, we're done! End of day one, we're stressed about the pieces that we have and the pieces that we still have to create tomorrow.
Ugh, I forgot how big these things are.
You mean it wasn't a nightmare? Day two is the day that everything has to come together.
All the pieces of the puzzle that make up your creature have to fall into place, and you have to finish the entire thing.
With only two days to build something, yeah, you have to have a sense of humor.
I'm so nervous for today.
It just seems like we have so much work ahead of us.
I'm not feeling confident right now that we will get something that we can perform on stage.
I'm not here today at all.
- I know that feeling.
- I'm a zombie.
I've been on the top for the last two weeks, but on this particular creature, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be on the top this time, because we're all exhausted.
I've just been thinking about my family and kids.
I have a fiancee.
We live together.
We have two kids.
One's 11, and one is 8 right now.
It's hard to be cut away from your family and not be part of their life.
Russ, Jake.
- How's it going, John? - How're you doing? - John, how are you, brother? - Gentlemen.
- So how did the junkyard go? - Oh, it was a blast.
It was a blast just looking through it.
- It was - It was fantastic.
See, welcome to my world.
Yes, it's a good world to be in.
It is an awesome world.
I have the best job ever.
Russ and I are under 50% complete with our project, and that's really, really bumming me out.
We just did this to figure out where the puppeteers are gonna be a little while ago.
We wanted to do a small head, because this isn't actually his head.
He's got a telescoping eye that rises up out of the top of the head, which is right here.
Oh.
I like that.
Yeah.
And it's gonna blink kind of like the garbage monster in Star Wars.
Okay, yeah.
Right on.
Just remember, Brian and the judges are gonna be looking for as much junk in this challenge as possible Of course.
So keep it in a minimal as far as seen foam and stuff that you can get around the shop, that's really important.
Talking with John put Jake and I in a calm state that I personally haven't felt since I've been here.
- Hi.
- Hi.
So tell me about your creature.
We got some eyes going on.
- That's really cool.
- Yeah.
So I see that you've picked up a few clues from some of our old work.
Yeah.
This is exactly how we did all the dinosaur heads, and I found over the years that doing this plate like this, and then mounting all your servos off of it, fantastic.
It's nice to get acknowledged for doing something as the professionals do it, especially someone who's been doing it for 30 years.
Beautiful.
I absolutely love this.
This is great.
But remember, the challenge really includes a lot of the stuff found from the junkyard.
It's hugely important to integrate all these junkyard pieces onto our creature.
We got a lot of old cassette tapes, and we're gonna be using both the hard shell, and then also all the nice tape from the inside.
Well, good luck.
You guys are great.
- Thank you.
- Good luck to you.
Hey, guys.
- Hey.
- How are you? Tell me about what you're doing.
- Our creature is this guy here.
- Mm-hmm.
And he's controlling this bigger bot kind of thing, which also will have organic parts mixed within.
So I mechanized our character here.
Wow.
You know, so he's driving this this, um - this little bot around.
- That's amazing.
Which one of you are doing what? I'm doing the fabrication.
I build the mockups.
He follows through with it.
Yeah, so I did the mechanization here, and then I made all the joints, the styrene joints here.
I also built this parallelogram, you know, so we're gonna get oh, I love the fact that you've put that into a parallelogram.
That's great.
I mean, I I don't want him to be just this flat thing going up and down, you know? It's so much dynamics having his hips be able to move.
I know you only have two days.
It's a quick challenge, and it's a tough challenge, and a lot of people in this business would look at this challenge and go, "absolutely not.
You can't do it.
" But you're doing it, you know? And you are gonna do it.
Good luck.
- Thanks.
- Thanks, guys.
- Hey, guys.
- Hey, how're you doing? Looks like you have quite the pile here.
We do have quite the pile, yeah.
We have a satellite dish thing there.
We've got lots of tubing.
We've got game controllers, joysticks.
So show me how you're gonna bring those to life.
He's gonna have a jaw that moves with some kind of gnarly, ratty teeth in there.
That's a nice touch, and I like the fact that you have the rod coming out the back of the head so that will give you some nice kind of left and right head.
Yeah, there's a lot of movement in this.
There's some up and down stuff.
- Yeah, they partitioned a lot.
- That's great.
Um, show me how your pole arm can you stand him up or is it kind of too early to do that? Um, yeah.
He's really, really tall.
Oh, see.
That's very impressive.
I love the fact that you're actually gonna fill the cage - Yeah.
- With your creature.
Well, use your time wisely.
Thank you very much.
You only have a few hours left, so good luck.
Yeah.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Great.
Thanks, guys.
My rat head still looks quite a lot like a teddy bear, so we got a lot to do.
I've had too many [Bleep.]
things disintegrate on me on that damn stage.
I just I don't want to ever have that [Bleep.]
feeling again.
I've been in the bottom twice now.
Both times I've been looking down the barrel of Brian's gun, and it's not a good place to be.
- Look at you.
- Hey.
MacGyver over there, but with a better beard.
With a better beard.
I really hope I don't cut into something and battery acid all over me.
Oh, my God.
We still have so much to do we haven't furred anything, we haven't connected anything.
Usually when you're making creatures, and especially when you have such a fast, tight deadline, you don't even see all the moving pieces together till the last hour.
Stressing yet? Kinda.
I know that our creature does not look how he originally looked in my head when I drew the concept out.
I'm worried that if Russ and I's design doesn't come off as we intend, and things don't fall exactly into place, that we could be in the bottom this week.
We have about five hours left.
- That's a lot of time.
- That's no time.
It's gonna be down to the wire.
Coming up on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge - Whoa, whoa.
- Yeah, we raise it up.
- We raise it up.
- No one's listening to me.
The story I'm getting is, like, I don't know what I'm looking at.
You've got to pick up your game.
Step up your work.
I think this is gonna work.
We'll see.
- Oh, the drill? - Yeah.
We have four hours.
It would be great if I won this challenge, but right now, I just want to get something complete on that stage for tomorrow.
At this stage, our creature face is not gonna be believable enough.
It's gonna come across too creature and not enough junkyard and scrap.
We're gonna have to add a lot more wires, a lot more chips, every little servo, and every little tiny thing that we can glue onto the face, which is scary because it's just gonna make it that much heavier, and if it's that much heavier, that's that much more weight that our puppeteers have to wrangle around.
Guys, he reminds me of a teenage mutant ninja turtle bad guy.
That's totally what I think he is to me.
Cool.
I like it.
Our creature's gonna look so cool because of all the mechanical aspects we're adding to it.
He has these wheels that, while they're spinning, it makes it look like he's all motorized so it's all shaky, and I'm gonna start adding hair, and I'm gonna start making him look really mangy, and adding pieces from our junk to him to make him look even more or less cute.
I love his little command center.
It's awesome, dude.
I hope it doesn't fall apart.
It's all hot glue.
Looks like a decaying rat.
That's about right.
We've got all the structural stuff done, so now it's getting all the details together.
One of the main points of this challenge is having all the junk on the creature.
And obviously the more time we get, the prettier or, you know, in this case kind of gnarlier and nasty it's gonna look.
Oh, my God.
The knees.
The knees, the knees.
Incorporating junk in a biological creature, you never want to go too creature, and you never want to go too robot.
You never want to go full robot.
Abort.
No, abort.
At this stage, of course, it would be nice to see something in a cage and whatnot, but there's just not enough time, you know? We have to build the thing first.
I'd rather build it and get it done and not have any practice at all, than have an unfinished creature sitting in a cage.
Just trying to get his butt in there.
Wait, wait, wait.
Josh and Lex's creature is super cool.
But it's gonna be interesting bringing such a large creature to life and keeping it from looking too wobbly.
And that goes inside that metal piece.
We do have him in the cage, so it's really good.
We can place the rods where we want them.
Make sure that that's the correct place for them to be.
We're moving the arms around a bit.
We can at least explore the performance boundaries, even though we need five people to actually make him work.
He's a big lad in that cage.
Okay, turn me on.
Ben and Ivonne the only thing I have an issue with is it's not really a predator creature.
It's more like a little guy in a suit.
How's that supposed to be a predator that they caught in a cage? Guys, we got an hour left.
Come on! We're only allotted so much time to build this creature.
We're bypassing putting the creature in this cage and making sure that it's solid.
30 minutes, guys.
Russ, this is so fun.
Everyone's creature is so different.
There aren't similarities between any of them, so it's hard to guess who hit the mark and who has missed it, but all of the concepts are really cool, and they're all really different.
Okay, guys, challenge over.
Tools down.
Creatures down.
Go home.
Get a good night's sleep.
Dream about these wonderful creations you've done, 'cause tomorrow they're up.
Good luck.
I definitely wish we rehearsed at the shop, but there just wasn't time.
We got to put it in the cage.
When you're controlling the puppet from outside of it, those bars are so in the way that your movement becomes extremely limited, and we didn't have enough time to put him in there and do it, let alone build the thing.
We have our screen test today, and I'm really nervous.
We have not tested our creature in the actual cage, and this can definitely make or break us right now.
Radio control just moves his head like this and his arms like this 'cause he's driving this thing.
When you have a character that all these other puppeteers are bringing to life via rods and different mechanisms, it's very much a group effort, and it takes a lot of coordination to get down.
Our rehearsal time is very limited, and part of the rehearsal time is just getting the creature together and in the cage.
Just hold on to the tubing and then pull the handle.
Perfect.
I cannot believe that our ape crazy cyborg actually held together for rehearsal.
And as long as it holds up through the screen test, I think we're golden.
What? Something's happening with the monitors up top.
Are they good? It's good.
Lex and I operate the arms.
I'm the right.
She's the left.
Two performers on top.
One operates the tail, and one operates the head.
And the one in the back that operates the floor.
- Whoa.
Whoa.
- Lock that.
You got to hold that up.
Don't let go of the puppet until I tell you, okay? All right.
It's hitting the top.
I definitely wish we rehearsed at the shop, but there just wasn't time.
I know.
I'm sorry.
We're trying.
Raise it up.
Raise it up.
This is the most stressful day of this entire experience yet, and Russ is freaking out a little bit, and I can't really read his mood because he's kind of shut down a little bit on me.
Guys, you're crushing the eye.
We need to move it forward, like, a foot.
The further you extend out, the less we're okay.
No one's listening to me.
Russ and Jake, I'm gonna give you five more minutes.
- Thank you so much.
- That is it, though.
After that you will roll out of here.
Guys, the head's about to fall off.
All of these creatures are held together with hot glue, zip ties, and a lot of, you know, hope.
Every one of us is putting in 100%.
Sometimes, you know, 100% isn't enough.
Alright, guys, that's it.
That's your rehearsal time.
It's up.
I'm gonna [Bleep.]
disintegrate right here.
Creature designers, welcome back to The Henson sound stage.
This week, your creature brief was to take unconventional materials and create captured creatures from a junkyard that were transported here via the cages to our screen test set.
You were working in pairs, but as you know, each of you will be critiqued individually.
So let's say hello to our judges.
First, a creature designer and director whose work spans Return of The Jedi, Gremlins, and Robocop, Kirk Thatcher.
Hi, guys.
Second, a creature fabricator whose work has been seen in Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, and The Walking Dead, Beth Hathaway.
Hi, guys.
Welcome back.
And of course, chairman of The Henson Company and our head judge, Brian Henson.
Hey, guys.
Two days went fast didn't it? - Yeah.
- Yes.
Yes.
This is a tough challenge.
Each of your teams will be joined by professional performers to help bring your captured creature to life.
The judges are looking at how imaginative you've been with your scrapyard materials.
Ben and Ivonne, your screen test is up first.
You ready to go? Oh, yeah.
Let's start the screen test.
The rest of you can take a seat.
All right, stand by.
Screen test, Ben and Ivonne.
Action creature.
I don't know if the judges are going to be happy with the design.
I wish I could see the judges' faces.
I'm feeling good, I'm not too nervous about things.
The work is there.
The movement's there.
That's what matters.
Okay, that's cut.
Now, reset.
Screen test, Russ and Jake.
Action creature.
We did have our character laughing when he revealed the guy.
Essentially he was like, "say hello to my little friend.
" I'm not proud of the piece that was out there, and it's by far not the best work I've ever done.
I'm definitely off my game a little bit.
And cut.
Josh and Lex, screen test.
And action creature.
We get to see these monitors while we're performing, and we're actually seeing it as the camera sees it, and it's absolutely amazing seeing it work.
Like, I am so happy.
When the camera pans over, and your creature just comes to life, it's just goosebumps.
And cut.
Screen test, Robert and Melissa.
Action creature.
Our creature looked so ferocious in that setting.
It ended up being just the perfect arrangement for him to look pissed off and angry to be caged, and it was great.
Cut.
That concludes our screen tests.
Let's talk to our designers.
Ivonne and Ben, can you tell us about your creature? - His name is Swarf.
- Swarf.
He is slowly making the journey in trying to become more man-like.
His left arm there is a big power magnet he's made, and his right arm, you can see, is a multi-tool.
Um, guys, really fun.
There's a whole story there, so kudos for the creativity and the concept.
Is he driving himself around? Is that what he's doing? He might initiate some movements with his arms, and then finish them off with his mind.
It's a little helping hand.
- Very creative.
- Thank you so much.
Did you actually power up any junkyard motors? - We tried.
- You tried.
We found some walkie-talkies.
We wanted him to speak through a walkie-talkie.
We charged him up, and it just didn't work.
The only things that we actually fabricated are the frame that the junk is put on.
Everything that you see is junk that we found at the junkyard.
Great.
Well, it's a lot of work for two days.
Bravo on the creature within the creature.
Yeah.
Thanks, guys.
Jake and Russ, can you tell us a bit about your creature, please? Our creature's name is ZZ867, and he is an alien that crash-landed on earth in the '50s that has been living, and obviously thriving, 'cause of his big gut, in this junkyard environment.
He's been using pieces that he can find in the junkyard to attempt to repair all of the leftover technology that he has left from his home world.
Good story.
Thank you.
My first comment would be I'm finding the fake head a little bizarre.
My eye doesn't know where to go.
The front is just a decoy, essentially.
Right.
And I have to let you know that though we created him, we were only given limited information of his capabilities, so it's top secret.
Oh, I understand.
- So I apologize.
- Okay.
You have a good story verbally, but visually the story I'm getting is like, "I don't know what I'm looking at.
" The biggest thing that bothered me was he roared the entire time, and there was no mouth.
So we assumed that the sound would appear as it was coming from that artificial head.
But having no mouth, you know, and no movement to show where it was coming from definitely hurt us.
The fur is a pretty overwhelming texture, but it does make him not look like junk.
We were kind of going for layers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then also I think your movement was fairly limited.
Maybe I allowed for just a little too much slop in the, um, the movement.
We call it free animation, and so I was kind of looking for that, and it kind of backfired.
There's an awful lot of mass Yeah.
That clearly has no isolated movement within it.
Our design, actually, was different on the first day that we started the build, and the piece didn't end up working out the way we had planned, so on day two we had to change our design and work with what we had.
I know this isn't my best work, and I know I can do much better than this.
But this is what we have to show.
- Thank you.
- Thanks, guys.
Thanks, guys.
Josh and Lex, can you start by telling us a bit about your creature? Okay.
Well, this is subject H2735.
Um, although the people that live near the junkyard nickname him Hungry Horace.
A lot of work was done to him.
He started using the junkyard to sustain himself.
O On the creature, Lex? We've kind of reversed our roles from last time, so I've mainly concentrated on the head, and Josh helped a bit.
And Josh mainly concentrated on the body, and I helped a bit.
I totally got the story.
I got, like, rat-wolf.
I got, you know, bionic, the junk played.
The one thing that I just kind of didn't ruin it for me but really stuck out was the tail just floating in the air.
It kind of was distracting to me.
Okay.
I agree, I'm a bit let down by the legs and being stuck on the knees.
There was a better choice, probably.
But the body, bravo, 'cause you just gave a whole lot of secondary motion to it that feels like it's driven by muscle, yeah.
It's very clever.
- Good work, guys.
- Thank you very much.
Robert and Melissa, can you please tell us about your creature? So before you today we have Pickles.
He started out as just an average lab ape, and unfortunately, as happens with all sweet creatures, an evil scientist, so, got a hold of him, started doing some mechanical things and testing with different vaccines and things to Pickles.
Well, right off the bat, guys, great character.
I see creature, but I don't see as much of the junk being incorpo it looks like a gorilla with a little bit of garbage.
He definitely looks angry, like he's trying to escape.
- We we wanted him very angry.
- I definitely buy that.
Who sculpted his teeth? - Melissa did.
- You did? - Yeah.
- I like that.
It's very cool.
I have to say, watching the film test as the camera creeped out from behind the drips, and the lights came on, and he stood up and roared.
It's really gen it was genuinely, like, frightening.
You know, it really was impactful, really smart choices, because it creates real impact.
In terms of could it stop moving, and you just believe it's junk in the junkyard? Not quite maybe as strong.
Overall, excellent work.
Thank you.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you, creature designers.
The judges are going to deliberate, so please take a seat in The Henson screening room, and we'll call you back shortly.
Thanks, guys.
That was a lot of work in a very short amount of time.
Yeah.
All right, let's start with swarf.
Swarf.
Swarf, who was Ben and Ivonne's creature.
Yeah.
It was pretty impressive what they had come up with.
Yeah.
Yeah, conceptually I was kind of blown away.
It was like the Ripley mech suit from aliens 2.
To me, there's no question that he's of the junkyard, as far as that criteria goes.
I mean, they utilized all kinds of stuff.
I thought the fabrication on the little guy was great.
The head movement and those little hands moving, it was a living little creature in there.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, Ben said he was responsible for the mechanisms.
Mm-hmm.
You know, good marks, high marks for that.
Yeah, very high marks for the work he did.
Ivonne.
You know, she said, "I wanted to make it very light because I was worried that it would break the mechanism.
" And she was absolutely right.
One servo.
But one servo moving all that, that that really is kind of masterful fabrication.
I think there was good teamwork there between the two of them as well, mm-hmm.
Yeah.
No, I thought they did real well.
Okay, so let's talk about ZZ867.
- Jake and Ruse's alien.
- Yes, Jake and Ruse's.
I think in terms of overall design, I just saw a bunch of stuff with an eye stuck on top.
Yeah.
- It didn't have a mouth - But it was roaring.
But it kept roaring the whole time, and it really I would have just had it gone like, you know Or something like that.
The fake head didn't work for me, yeah.
The fake head didn't work at all.
Yeah, it was very nonspecific.
Russ was saying he was responsible for the eye, and I think that's the most successful aspect of of this creature, and Jake took credit for the false head.
- Right, right, right.
- Not so much.
Okay, so let's move on to Lex and Josh's character Horace.
- Hungry Horace.
- Hungry Horace.
Really strong movement, I think, out of all of them.
I mean, that thing was in the cage moving all around.
Yeah.
I loved the way it was shaking.
Josh did a great job, particularly that body that he designed.
Lex's head was very successful.
I still wish there was a little bit more articulation further out.
It was very weak from the waist down for me.
He just it just sort of, like - Yeah, the legs, again - Didn't have any knees.
Anatomically it just looked bizarre to me.
So unsuccessful from the waist down.
Body movement was terrific.
It was good.
Overall, you know, it was one of my favorite designs.
Okay, so let's move on to Pickles.
Yes.
Which was Melissa and Robert's.
Melissa and Robert's, yeah.
They were really happy.
I just like watching the two of them interact and, like, you could tell they had fun.
Yeah.
I think it came through in the creature.
Its face was super animated.
I agree.
The only thing that really bothered me were his knees.
He needed a solid bending point.
Rob did the eye mechs in the eyes.
Obviously a strong point with him because his eyes were very expressive.
I thought the arms were great that Melissa did.
But she also fabricated that head.
Which was great.
I thought the head finish was terrific.
Mm-hmm.
What I'm most impressed with these guys is they had a creature do only what it was good at doing.
- Mm-hmm.
- Right, right, right.
Which is really smart.
Overall, I think it was a good a good job.
All right, so I think we're in agreement.
- Yes.
- Let's bring them back.
- Okay.
- All right.
Creature designers, your cage creatures looked fantastic.
Great work, everyone.
Thank you.
One of you created the most successful creature, so, Brian, which one was that? Guys, this was actually really tough for us.
There was different creatures that had different strengths, but eventually we decided that this week's winning team Eventually we decided that this week's winning team Is Ben and Ivonne.
Thanks so much.
Let me just tell you, we thought you attacked the concept really spot on.
You really did integrate scrap into your creature in a very unusual way, and we were particularly impressed with the animation of the head and the little arms at the center of the creature.
For that reason we've decided that this week's winning creature designer is Ben.
Thank you, Brian.
Good work.
It was this nice, like, "ah, good, "I thought that it was gonna go this way because of what they said in the Q&A, and it did.
" I'm very happy.
Congratulations, Ben and Ivonne.
You're safe.
We'll see more of your work next week.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great work, both of you.
You can return to the screening room.
One of your creatures did not impress the judges, and out of the six of you, one of you will be going home tonight.
Brian, can you tell us the least successful creature? Jake and Russ We felt that your concept for your creature really didn't come through in the execution, and we felt that the creature was very limited in its ability to perform or move.
And we kind of felt like the false head really didn't work.
It drew our attention, and then it didn't really mean anything.
And for those reasons, guys, we we felt your creature was the least successful this week.
- I understand.
- I totally understand.
Brian, before you announce who's eliminated, I've just been told one of the creature designers has something to share.
Brian, I'd like to thank you for this amazing opportunity to be here, but I don't think it's for me.
I don't want to uproot my family, um, because they're they mean everything to me, and they come first in my life.
And I don't want to take this opportunity away from anybody else here because they're all amazing, talented artists.
Um, so I'm gonna have to bow out.
If i won this competition, I would be offered a job to work at Jim Henson's studio.
I wouldn't be able to take it.
I have to think about my family and what's best for them.
And I have to go home.
Wow, Josh.
Well, I'm really sorry to hear that, and you've done such terrific work.
You really have been incredibly successful here.
At the same time, I totally understand putting family first.
Hollywood's a kind of crazy town, but I'm really sorry to see you go.
- You're a really talented guy.
- Thank you.
You'll go do something great with it.
Josh, we are sorry to see you go, but we do wish you all the best.
So you, Lex, Melissa, and Robert can head back to the screening room.
Well, Jake and Russ, this is an unexpected turn that's just happened.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna keep you both to go forward to next week, all right? But you've got to pick up your game, okay, for next week.
Thank you guys so much.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
To be the last two standing really kind of sucked, and you don't want to be down there.
All you can do is say, "okay, this one was a speed bump.
Let's move on to the next one, and that's where we shine.
" Come here.
This was a hard decision to make.
I mean, this is my dream.
This isn't the end of me designing creatures or making anything.
I'll still do it as a hobby at home, and I'll still make amazing creatures, you know, like I always did.
Congratulations.
Whoo! Russ, Ivonne, Tina, one of you will be eliminated.
The creature designer eliminated tonight is Tina.
This week on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge All this junk around you is the inspiration for your next creature build.
What the hell are you gonna do with that? I don't know, but it's cool looking.
This challenge is so free for interpretation it's a little bit scary.
No.
Abort.
Every one of us is putting in 100%.
Sometimes 100% isn't enough.
It's a quick challenge, and it's a tough challenge.
A lot of people in this business would look at this challenge and go, "absolutely not.
You can't do it.
" Whoa.
Whoa.
Something's happening with the monitors up top.
No one's listening to me.
Mm.
You've gotta pick up your game.
I don't know what I'm looking at.
As we walk to the location for today's challenge, we don't really know what to expect, but we can see a little bit of everything: Electronics, car parts, and a graveyard of old computers.
Anything that you could think of that might be junk now is there.
Wow.
All this stuff.
It's like everything you can imagine, but lots of metal and kind of twisted stuff.
Hey.
Morning, guys.
Morning.
You've been in that workshop for days now, so we thought that it was a good idea to bring you out so you could get some fresh air.
Yeah, in a junkyard.
Welcome to Apex Electronics.
This is one of the largest scrapyards in town, and it's also the location for your next creature brief.
Many of the creatures that we built at the creature shop actually started life right here from this junkyard.
My dad used to say, "it's not about the size of your budget, it's about the quality of the idea.
" In fact, Kermit the Frog started as one of my grandmother's old coats that my dad cut up and made into Kermit the Frog.
Brian's story inspired me because making something out of nothing is something that I've always been interested in, and something really cool and iconic can be made from any kind of material that you can find.
That original Kermit the Frog is on display at the Smithsonian museum now, and is worth a lot more than an old coat.
All this junk around you is the inspiration for your next creature build.
In fact, you'll be using materials that you gather right here.
So here's the brief.
Imagine a creature that has disguised itself using scrapyard materials for so long that the creature is now part creature, part scrap.
It only comes out of hiding to hunt for prey in the junkyard.
Now, it's been captured and caged, - and it's desperate to escape.
- Ah You'll be working in pairs.
The teams are chosen at random, and they are Ben and Ivonne, Jake and Russ, Lex and Josh back together again from week one And that means, Melissa, you are with Robert.
Yes.
Each team will be provided a cage to house your creature.
You'll be operating your creatures alongside three professional performers.
But no operator is allowed inside the cage with the creature, okay? Oh, my God.
It's a very difficult challenge, transforming inanimate objects into living creatures, but your master this week is a true master of this sort of thing, the creature shop's mechanical supervisor John Criswell.
Hey, guys.
John and I have been working together for many years.
We first worked together on the TV series Dinosaurs, a very ambitious show starring 18 fully animatronic dinosaurs.
Since then we've worked on many things including Muppet Christmas Carol, bringing to life the wild things in where the wild things are, and that infamous tiger from the movie Hangover.
Nice.
So John will be guiding you through your build this week.
You guys will have two days for this build.
We'll see you in two days.
Good luck.
Okay, guys, each team gets a budget of $500.
- Oh, wow.
- You have 90 minutes.
Here's your money.
Let's get going.
Come on! This challenge is so free for interpretation it's a little bit scary.
It's gonna be a creature from whatever junk you pull out and decide to transform.
We've got a money budget limit, and there are certain things that are too heavy to use.
That's cool.
So Melissa and I are planning our creature as we walk around the junkyard.
Every time we see a new object it kind of takes our creation in a different direction, so it's really about getting all your pieces together and then seeing how they all fit together.
So that's the basic creature right there.
We're on the same lines.
We're on the same lines.
Yeah.
Jake and I are sketching, now, the designs.
It's actually looking pretty creepy, and I'm actually looking forward to seeing how it comes out.
What the hell are you gonna do with that? I don't know, but it's cool looking.
So I'll tell you what I was thinking Okay.
And then tell me what you're thinking, and I'm sure we'll meet somewhere in between.
Okay.
At this point, I definitely want to win a challenge.
It's been pulled from my fingertips twice already, so I'm hungry for blood.
These are cool.
I could throw an LED inside of one of these.
Yeah.
So far, every screen test, Brian has brought up movement first thing because how it moves is how much it brings it to life.
The creature could start out as a shape.
It's just a box, and then it opens up, and stands up.
That'd be really cool.
That would be really cool, actually.
I'm excited to be able to shop around with a $500 budget.
We can pick things that we wouldn't normally pick if we were on our own budget.
The motherboard mother lode.
- Antennas up the wazoo.
- Oh, love it.
- What about, like, a-a - It could be a crate.
That's what I was gonna say.
I'm like, "what about a crate?" - I like this concept a lot.
- Me too.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Right I'm paired with Lex again, which is nice, because me and her work very well together.
I'm thinking our creature is gonna be kind of, like, a rat-type hyena creature with all these metal parts and little wires and things like that.
Part of his face has LED lights in the eyes.
The other part is normal, almost like a two-face look.
We have one minute, guys! One minute left! That was a good find.
Yeah, that was dude.
That's time, guys.
We're done.
That's it.
Wow.
Whoa.
Oh Walking into the work room, we see these awesome cages.
They're a lot bigger than I had imagined, and our creature has to be a lot bigger than I imagined.
We had purchased things at apex that were gonna hold our creature that were a little bit smaller.
We don't want to have a small subject in the middle of a huge, white canvas.
I-I think the idea of a little creature in here controlling this robot is so cool.
Okay.
Our creature is mechanical, the crate being the main structure.
It's gonna have long legs, long arms.
We settled on a small creature that has become part junkyard, but also is controlling this kind of mech bot.
I can start sort of mocking up the head to make sure that we have the right size, and that that's what we want.
Well, what I'm gonna do right now is I'm gonna make a whole frame.
I will start working on the tail, and then I want to do the head out of I'm gonna do, like, a tinfoil structure and then cover it with latex.
Our creature is ZZ867.
He is an alien that crash-landed to earth in the '50s and has been living and thriving in this junkyard, taking pieces of the scrap and pieces of animals, and anything that he can find to incorporate into himself to help him survive in this environment.
- That's the head? - Well, not yet, but it will be.
I'm gonna handle most of the painting and the finishing, and I'm also going to make the eye that will be on the telescoping eye of our creature, while Russ is going to handle a lot of the big movement pieces and fabricate the torso and work on the fur that we're planning to incorporate.
Next to the cages we have a long pole arm that's going to be holding up the torso of our creature and really holding the bulk of the weight.
That's cool.
It's a teeter-totter.
In order to make it easier to use, you got to make sure there's an equal amount of weight on both sides.
So the concept is pretty simple, and I'm actually really excited that we don't have to be lugging up a giant creature up and down, and bouncing it in a cage.
He looks scary.
So our creature is, like, a chimpanzee that's escaped from his scientist's lab, and he has hidden himself in this junkyard, and now he's kind of morphed into this crazy, genetically altered monkey-ape thing.
Gosh, that looks so good, Robert.
You're on eye duty for life.
We fabricate a foam body with the thickest foam we've got.
That would definitely help, but it's gonna need something.
Creating these creatures is very exhausting.
You get limited time, and you have to create these huge, amazing operating creatures.
It's really hard for me.
It's a struggle.
I'm not liking this, the movement.
- You like it? - I said I'm not.
Why? I think it's cool.
I think the movement's gone.
Russ is making this challenge a little bit more difficult than it has to be, I think.
He lets his anger get the best of him, and sometimes you have to be able to think on your feet, and be able to react to situations that may not go your way.
Coming up on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge It's a quick challenge, and it's a tough challenge.
Remember the challenge really includes a lot of the stuff found from the junkyard.
Use your time wisely 'cause you only have a few hours left.
- Stressing yet? - Kind of.
Crazy Jake, the full fabricator Crazy Jake, he's fabricating, yeah Our challenge is to build a creature from all the pieces we have gathered at the junkyard, and it's a five-puppeteer puppet.
It's a lot.
The blocks that hold the pin will be on the back, so then it's basically on its own hinge right here to go like this.
Robert and I cut out the base for our creature that everything's gonna be attached to.
That's the first thing that needs to get put on there, otherwise we can't even build off of anything.
What are your thoughts? Um Maybe on this one, make it more, like, where the teeth are gonna be 'cause they're gonna be implanted metal.
So the way I'm making the head, I sculpt it first out of clay, then I make a plaster mold.
I take the two part expanding foam, I mix it up, I put it in there, and I make a foam shape, and then I'm free to cut it up, move it, and do whatever I want to it.
- Looks good.
- Good base.
I'm building the rat to be, like, 9 to 10 feet tall because it's supposed to fill this cage, and it's supposed to be big and menacing looking.
He's tall and lanky, but I'm gonna crouch him down into a position where it looks like he's just kind of huddled in a ball, and then he's gonna sprawl up and surprise or scare the audience.
Now his feet is gonna be bolted to the thing.
We don't need any puppeteers underneath it.
No, no.
- Got it? - I don't know.
Day one is stressful.
Russ has made a few pieces that we are no longer using, and I'm trying to pick up the slack and make things that look cool to put on our piece while Russ focuses on the bigger strokes and making this guy move.
Oh, we're done! End of day one, we're stressed about the pieces that we have and the pieces that we still have to create tomorrow.
Ugh, I forgot how big these things are.
You mean it wasn't a nightmare? Day two is the day that everything has to come together.
All the pieces of the puzzle that make up your creature have to fall into place, and you have to finish the entire thing.
With only two days to build something, yeah, you have to have a sense of humor.
I'm so nervous for today.
It just seems like we have so much work ahead of us.
I'm not feeling confident right now that we will get something that we can perform on stage.
I'm not here today at all.
- I know that feeling.
- I'm a zombie.
I've been on the top for the last two weeks, but on this particular creature, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be on the top this time, because we're all exhausted.
I've just been thinking about my family and kids.
I have a fiancee.
We live together.
We have two kids.
One's 11, and one is 8 right now.
It's hard to be cut away from your family and not be part of their life.
Russ, Jake.
- How's it going, John? - How're you doing? - John, how are you, brother? - Gentlemen.
- So how did the junkyard go? - Oh, it was a blast.
It was a blast just looking through it.
- It was - It was fantastic.
See, welcome to my world.
Yes, it's a good world to be in.
It is an awesome world.
I have the best job ever.
Russ and I are under 50% complete with our project, and that's really, really bumming me out.
We just did this to figure out where the puppeteers are gonna be a little while ago.
We wanted to do a small head, because this isn't actually his head.
He's got a telescoping eye that rises up out of the top of the head, which is right here.
Oh.
I like that.
Yeah.
And it's gonna blink kind of like the garbage monster in Star Wars.
Okay, yeah.
Right on.
Just remember, Brian and the judges are gonna be looking for as much junk in this challenge as possible Of course.
So keep it in a minimal as far as seen foam and stuff that you can get around the shop, that's really important.
Talking with John put Jake and I in a calm state that I personally haven't felt since I've been here.
- Hi.
- Hi.
So tell me about your creature.
We got some eyes going on.
- That's really cool.
- Yeah.
So I see that you've picked up a few clues from some of our old work.
Yeah.
This is exactly how we did all the dinosaur heads, and I found over the years that doing this plate like this, and then mounting all your servos off of it, fantastic.
It's nice to get acknowledged for doing something as the professionals do it, especially someone who's been doing it for 30 years.
Beautiful.
I absolutely love this.
This is great.
But remember, the challenge really includes a lot of the stuff found from the junkyard.
It's hugely important to integrate all these junkyard pieces onto our creature.
We got a lot of old cassette tapes, and we're gonna be using both the hard shell, and then also all the nice tape from the inside.
Well, good luck.
You guys are great.
- Thank you.
- Good luck to you.
Hey, guys.
- Hey.
- How are you? Tell me about what you're doing.
- Our creature is this guy here.
- Mm-hmm.
And he's controlling this bigger bot kind of thing, which also will have organic parts mixed within.
So I mechanized our character here.
Wow.
You know, so he's driving this this, um - this little bot around.
- That's amazing.
Which one of you are doing what? I'm doing the fabrication.
I build the mockups.
He follows through with it.
Yeah, so I did the mechanization here, and then I made all the joints, the styrene joints here.
I also built this parallelogram, you know, so we're gonna get oh, I love the fact that you've put that into a parallelogram.
That's great.
I mean, I I don't want him to be just this flat thing going up and down, you know? It's so much dynamics having his hips be able to move.
I know you only have two days.
It's a quick challenge, and it's a tough challenge, and a lot of people in this business would look at this challenge and go, "absolutely not.
You can't do it.
" But you're doing it, you know? And you are gonna do it.
Good luck.
- Thanks.
- Thanks, guys.
- Hey, guys.
- Hey, how're you doing? Looks like you have quite the pile here.
We do have quite the pile, yeah.
We have a satellite dish thing there.
We've got lots of tubing.
We've got game controllers, joysticks.
So show me how you're gonna bring those to life.
He's gonna have a jaw that moves with some kind of gnarly, ratty teeth in there.
That's a nice touch, and I like the fact that you have the rod coming out the back of the head so that will give you some nice kind of left and right head.
Yeah, there's a lot of movement in this.
There's some up and down stuff.
- Yeah, they partitioned a lot.
- That's great.
Um, show me how your pole arm can you stand him up or is it kind of too early to do that? Um, yeah.
He's really, really tall.
Oh, see.
That's very impressive.
I love the fact that you're actually gonna fill the cage - Yeah.
- With your creature.
Well, use your time wisely.
Thank you very much.
You only have a few hours left, so good luck.
Yeah.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Great.
Thanks, guys.
My rat head still looks quite a lot like a teddy bear, so we got a lot to do.
I've had too many [Bleep.]
things disintegrate on me on that damn stage.
I just I don't want to ever have that [Bleep.]
feeling again.
I've been in the bottom twice now.
Both times I've been looking down the barrel of Brian's gun, and it's not a good place to be.
- Look at you.
- Hey.
MacGyver over there, but with a better beard.
With a better beard.
I really hope I don't cut into something and battery acid all over me.
Oh, my God.
We still have so much to do we haven't furred anything, we haven't connected anything.
Usually when you're making creatures, and especially when you have such a fast, tight deadline, you don't even see all the moving pieces together till the last hour.
Stressing yet? Kinda.
I know that our creature does not look how he originally looked in my head when I drew the concept out.
I'm worried that if Russ and I's design doesn't come off as we intend, and things don't fall exactly into place, that we could be in the bottom this week.
We have about five hours left.
- That's a lot of time.
- That's no time.
It's gonna be down to the wire.
Coming up on Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge - Whoa, whoa.
- Yeah, we raise it up.
- We raise it up.
- No one's listening to me.
The story I'm getting is, like, I don't know what I'm looking at.
You've got to pick up your game.
Step up your work.
I think this is gonna work.
We'll see.
- Oh, the drill? - Yeah.
We have four hours.
It would be great if I won this challenge, but right now, I just want to get something complete on that stage for tomorrow.
At this stage, our creature face is not gonna be believable enough.
It's gonna come across too creature and not enough junkyard and scrap.
We're gonna have to add a lot more wires, a lot more chips, every little servo, and every little tiny thing that we can glue onto the face, which is scary because it's just gonna make it that much heavier, and if it's that much heavier, that's that much more weight that our puppeteers have to wrangle around.
Guys, he reminds me of a teenage mutant ninja turtle bad guy.
That's totally what I think he is to me.
Cool.
I like it.
Our creature's gonna look so cool because of all the mechanical aspects we're adding to it.
He has these wheels that, while they're spinning, it makes it look like he's all motorized so it's all shaky, and I'm gonna start adding hair, and I'm gonna start making him look really mangy, and adding pieces from our junk to him to make him look even more or less cute.
I love his little command center.
It's awesome, dude.
I hope it doesn't fall apart.
It's all hot glue.
Looks like a decaying rat.
That's about right.
We've got all the structural stuff done, so now it's getting all the details together.
One of the main points of this challenge is having all the junk on the creature.
And obviously the more time we get, the prettier or, you know, in this case kind of gnarlier and nasty it's gonna look.
Oh, my God.
The knees.
The knees, the knees.
Incorporating junk in a biological creature, you never want to go too creature, and you never want to go too robot.
You never want to go full robot.
Abort.
No, abort.
At this stage, of course, it would be nice to see something in a cage and whatnot, but there's just not enough time, you know? We have to build the thing first.
I'd rather build it and get it done and not have any practice at all, than have an unfinished creature sitting in a cage.
Just trying to get his butt in there.
Wait, wait, wait.
Josh and Lex's creature is super cool.
But it's gonna be interesting bringing such a large creature to life and keeping it from looking too wobbly.
And that goes inside that metal piece.
We do have him in the cage, so it's really good.
We can place the rods where we want them.
Make sure that that's the correct place for them to be.
We're moving the arms around a bit.
We can at least explore the performance boundaries, even though we need five people to actually make him work.
He's a big lad in that cage.
Okay, turn me on.
Ben and Ivonne the only thing I have an issue with is it's not really a predator creature.
It's more like a little guy in a suit.
How's that supposed to be a predator that they caught in a cage? Guys, we got an hour left.
Come on! We're only allotted so much time to build this creature.
We're bypassing putting the creature in this cage and making sure that it's solid.
30 minutes, guys.
Russ, this is so fun.
Everyone's creature is so different.
There aren't similarities between any of them, so it's hard to guess who hit the mark and who has missed it, but all of the concepts are really cool, and they're all really different.
Okay, guys, challenge over.
Tools down.
Creatures down.
Go home.
Get a good night's sleep.
Dream about these wonderful creations you've done, 'cause tomorrow they're up.
Good luck.
I definitely wish we rehearsed at the shop, but there just wasn't time.
We got to put it in the cage.
When you're controlling the puppet from outside of it, those bars are so in the way that your movement becomes extremely limited, and we didn't have enough time to put him in there and do it, let alone build the thing.
We have our screen test today, and I'm really nervous.
We have not tested our creature in the actual cage, and this can definitely make or break us right now.
Radio control just moves his head like this and his arms like this 'cause he's driving this thing.
When you have a character that all these other puppeteers are bringing to life via rods and different mechanisms, it's very much a group effort, and it takes a lot of coordination to get down.
Our rehearsal time is very limited, and part of the rehearsal time is just getting the creature together and in the cage.
Just hold on to the tubing and then pull the handle.
Perfect.
I cannot believe that our ape crazy cyborg actually held together for rehearsal.
And as long as it holds up through the screen test, I think we're golden.
What? Something's happening with the monitors up top.
Are they good? It's good.
Lex and I operate the arms.
I'm the right.
She's the left.
Two performers on top.
One operates the tail, and one operates the head.
And the one in the back that operates the floor.
- Whoa.
Whoa.
- Lock that.
You got to hold that up.
Don't let go of the puppet until I tell you, okay? All right.
It's hitting the top.
I definitely wish we rehearsed at the shop, but there just wasn't time.
I know.
I'm sorry.
We're trying.
Raise it up.
Raise it up.
This is the most stressful day of this entire experience yet, and Russ is freaking out a little bit, and I can't really read his mood because he's kind of shut down a little bit on me.
Guys, you're crushing the eye.
We need to move it forward, like, a foot.
The further you extend out, the less we're okay.
No one's listening to me.
Russ and Jake, I'm gonna give you five more minutes.
- Thank you so much.
- That is it, though.
After that you will roll out of here.
Guys, the head's about to fall off.
All of these creatures are held together with hot glue, zip ties, and a lot of, you know, hope.
Every one of us is putting in 100%.
Sometimes, you know, 100% isn't enough.
Alright, guys, that's it.
That's your rehearsal time.
It's up.
I'm gonna [Bleep.]
disintegrate right here.
Creature designers, welcome back to The Henson sound stage.
This week, your creature brief was to take unconventional materials and create captured creatures from a junkyard that were transported here via the cages to our screen test set.
You were working in pairs, but as you know, each of you will be critiqued individually.
So let's say hello to our judges.
First, a creature designer and director whose work spans Return of The Jedi, Gremlins, and Robocop, Kirk Thatcher.
Hi, guys.
Second, a creature fabricator whose work has been seen in Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, and The Walking Dead, Beth Hathaway.
Hi, guys.
Welcome back.
And of course, chairman of The Henson Company and our head judge, Brian Henson.
Hey, guys.
Two days went fast didn't it? - Yeah.
- Yes.
Yes.
This is a tough challenge.
Each of your teams will be joined by professional performers to help bring your captured creature to life.
The judges are looking at how imaginative you've been with your scrapyard materials.
Ben and Ivonne, your screen test is up first.
You ready to go? Oh, yeah.
Let's start the screen test.
The rest of you can take a seat.
All right, stand by.
Screen test, Ben and Ivonne.
Action creature.
I don't know if the judges are going to be happy with the design.
I wish I could see the judges' faces.
I'm feeling good, I'm not too nervous about things.
The work is there.
The movement's there.
That's what matters.
Okay, that's cut.
Now, reset.
Screen test, Russ and Jake.
Action creature.
We did have our character laughing when he revealed the guy.
Essentially he was like, "say hello to my little friend.
" I'm not proud of the piece that was out there, and it's by far not the best work I've ever done.
I'm definitely off my game a little bit.
And cut.
Josh and Lex, screen test.
And action creature.
We get to see these monitors while we're performing, and we're actually seeing it as the camera sees it, and it's absolutely amazing seeing it work.
Like, I am so happy.
When the camera pans over, and your creature just comes to life, it's just goosebumps.
And cut.
Screen test, Robert and Melissa.
Action creature.
Our creature looked so ferocious in that setting.
It ended up being just the perfect arrangement for him to look pissed off and angry to be caged, and it was great.
Cut.
That concludes our screen tests.
Let's talk to our designers.
Ivonne and Ben, can you tell us about your creature? - His name is Swarf.
- Swarf.
He is slowly making the journey in trying to become more man-like.
His left arm there is a big power magnet he's made, and his right arm, you can see, is a multi-tool.
Um, guys, really fun.
There's a whole story there, so kudos for the creativity and the concept.
Is he driving himself around? Is that what he's doing? He might initiate some movements with his arms, and then finish them off with his mind.
It's a little helping hand.
- Very creative.
- Thank you so much.
Did you actually power up any junkyard motors? - We tried.
- You tried.
We found some walkie-talkies.
We wanted him to speak through a walkie-talkie.
We charged him up, and it just didn't work.
The only things that we actually fabricated are the frame that the junk is put on.
Everything that you see is junk that we found at the junkyard.
Great.
Well, it's a lot of work for two days.
Bravo on the creature within the creature.
Yeah.
Thanks, guys.
Jake and Russ, can you tell us a bit about your creature, please? Our creature's name is ZZ867, and he is an alien that crash-landed on earth in the '50s that has been living, and obviously thriving, 'cause of his big gut, in this junkyard environment.
He's been using pieces that he can find in the junkyard to attempt to repair all of the leftover technology that he has left from his home world.
Good story.
Thank you.
My first comment would be I'm finding the fake head a little bizarre.
My eye doesn't know where to go.
The front is just a decoy, essentially.
Right.
And I have to let you know that though we created him, we were only given limited information of his capabilities, so it's top secret.
Oh, I understand.
- So I apologize.
- Okay.
You have a good story verbally, but visually the story I'm getting is like, "I don't know what I'm looking at.
" The biggest thing that bothered me was he roared the entire time, and there was no mouth.
So we assumed that the sound would appear as it was coming from that artificial head.
But having no mouth, you know, and no movement to show where it was coming from definitely hurt us.
The fur is a pretty overwhelming texture, but it does make him not look like junk.
We were kind of going for layers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then also I think your movement was fairly limited.
Maybe I allowed for just a little too much slop in the, um, the movement.
We call it free animation, and so I was kind of looking for that, and it kind of backfired.
There's an awful lot of mass Yeah.
That clearly has no isolated movement within it.
Our design, actually, was different on the first day that we started the build, and the piece didn't end up working out the way we had planned, so on day two we had to change our design and work with what we had.
I know this isn't my best work, and I know I can do much better than this.
But this is what we have to show.
- Thank you.
- Thanks, guys.
Thanks, guys.
Josh and Lex, can you start by telling us a bit about your creature? Okay.
Well, this is subject H2735.
Um, although the people that live near the junkyard nickname him Hungry Horace.
A lot of work was done to him.
He started using the junkyard to sustain himself.
O On the creature, Lex? We've kind of reversed our roles from last time, so I've mainly concentrated on the head, and Josh helped a bit.
And Josh mainly concentrated on the body, and I helped a bit.
I totally got the story.
I got, like, rat-wolf.
I got, you know, bionic, the junk played.
The one thing that I just kind of didn't ruin it for me but really stuck out was the tail just floating in the air.
It kind of was distracting to me.
Okay.
I agree, I'm a bit let down by the legs and being stuck on the knees.
There was a better choice, probably.
But the body, bravo, 'cause you just gave a whole lot of secondary motion to it that feels like it's driven by muscle, yeah.
It's very clever.
- Good work, guys.
- Thank you very much.
Robert and Melissa, can you please tell us about your creature? So before you today we have Pickles.
He started out as just an average lab ape, and unfortunately, as happens with all sweet creatures, an evil scientist, so, got a hold of him, started doing some mechanical things and testing with different vaccines and things to Pickles.
Well, right off the bat, guys, great character.
I see creature, but I don't see as much of the junk being incorpo it looks like a gorilla with a little bit of garbage.
He definitely looks angry, like he's trying to escape.
- We we wanted him very angry.
- I definitely buy that.
Who sculpted his teeth? - Melissa did.
- You did? - Yeah.
- I like that.
It's very cool.
I have to say, watching the film test as the camera creeped out from behind the drips, and the lights came on, and he stood up and roared.
It's really gen it was genuinely, like, frightening.
You know, it really was impactful, really smart choices, because it creates real impact.
In terms of could it stop moving, and you just believe it's junk in the junkyard? Not quite maybe as strong.
Overall, excellent work.
Thank you.
Thanks, guys.
Thank you, creature designers.
The judges are going to deliberate, so please take a seat in The Henson screening room, and we'll call you back shortly.
Thanks, guys.
That was a lot of work in a very short amount of time.
Yeah.
All right, let's start with swarf.
Swarf.
Swarf, who was Ben and Ivonne's creature.
Yeah.
It was pretty impressive what they had come up with.
Yeah.
Yeah, conceptually I was kind of blown away.
It was like the Ripley mech suit from aliens 2.
To me, there's no question that he's of the junkyard, as far as that criteria goes.
I mean, they utilized all kinds of stuff.
I thought the fabrication on the little guy was great.
The head movement and those little hands moving, it was a living little creature in there.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, Ben said he was responsible for the mechanisms.
Mm-hmm.
You know, good marks, high marks for that.
Yeah, very high marks for the work he did.
Ivonne.
You know, she said, "I wanted to make it very light because I was worried that it would break the mechanism.
" And she was absolutely right.
One servo.
But one servo moving all that, that that really is kind of masterful fabrication.
I think there was good teamwork there between the two of them as well, mm-hmm.
Yeah.
No, I thought they did real well.
Okay, so let's talk about ZZ867.
- Jake and Ruse's alien.
- Yes, Jake and Ruse's.
I think in terms of overall design, I just saw a bunch of stuff with an eye stuck on top.
Yeah.
- It didn't have a mouth - But it was roaring.
But it kept roaring the whole time, and it really I would have just had it gone like, you know Or something like that.
The fake head didn't work for me, yeah.
The fake head didn't work at all.
Yeah, it was very nonspecific.
Russ was saying he was responsible for the eye, and I think that's the most successful aspect of of this creature, and Jake took credit for the false head.
- Right, right, right.
- Not so much.
Okay, so let's move on to Lex and Josh's character Horace.
- Hungry Horace.
- Hungry Horace.
Really strong movement, I think, out of all of them.
I mean, that thing was in the cage moving all around.
Yeah.
I loved the way it was shaking.
Josh did a great job, particularly that body that he designed.
Lex's head was very successful.
I still wish there was a little bit more articulation further out.
It was very weak from the waist down for me.
He just it just sort of, like - Yeah, the legs, again - Didn't have any knees.
Anatomically it just looked bizarre to me.
So unsuccessful from the waist down.
Body movement was terrific.
It was good.
Overall, you know, it was one of my favorite designs.
Okay, so let's move on to Pickles.
Yes.
Which was Melissa and Robert's.
Melissa and Robert's, yeah.
They were really happy.
I just like watching the two of them interact and, like, you could tell they had fun.
Yeah.
I think it came through in the creature.
Its face was super animated.
I agree.
The only thing that really bothered me were his knees.
He needed a solid bending point.
Rob did the eye mechs in the eyes.
Obviously a strong point with him because his eyes were very expressive.
I thought the arms were great that Melissa did.
But she also fabricated that head.
Which was great.
I thought the head finish was terrific.
Mm-hmm.
What I'm most impressed with these guys is they had a creature do only what it was good at doing.
- Mm-hmm.
- Right, right, right.
Which is really smart.
Overall, I think it was a good a good job.
All right, so I think we're in agreement.
- Yes.
- Let's bring them back.
- Okay.
- All right.
Creature designers, your cage creatures looked fantastic.
Great work, everyone.
Thank you.
One of you created the most successful creature, so, Brian, which one was that? Guys, this was actually really tough for us.
There was different creatures that had different strengths, but eventually we decided that this week's winning team Eventually we decided that this week's winning team Is Ben and Ivonne.
Thanks so much.
Let me just tell you, we thought you attacked the concept really spot on.
You really did integrate scrap into your creature in a very unusual way, and we were particularly impressed with the animation of the head and the little arms at the center of the creature.
For that reason we've decided that this week's winning creature designer is Ben.
Thank you, Brian.
Good work.
It was this nice, like, "ah, good, "I thought that it was gonna go this way because of what they said in the Q&A, and it did.
" I'm very happy.
Congratulations, Ben and Ivonne.
You're safe.
We'll see more of your work next week.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Great work, both of you.
You can return to the screening room.
One of your creatures did not impress the judges, and out of the six of you, one of you will be going home tonight.
Brian, can you tell us the least successful creature? Jake and Russ We felt that your concept for your creature really didn't come through in the execution, and we felt that the creature was very limited in its ability to perform or move.
And we kind of felt like the false head really didn't work.
It drew our attention, and then it didn't really mean anything.
And for those reasons, guys, we we felt your creature was the least successful this week.
- I understand.
- I totally understand.
Brian, before you announce who's eliminated, I've just been told one of the creature designers has something to share.
Brian, I'd like to thank you for this amazing opportunity to be here, but I don't think it's for me.
I don't want to uproot my family, um, because they're they mean everything to me, and they come first in my life.
And I don't want to take this opportunity away from anybody else here because they're all amazing, talented artists.
Um, so I'm gonna have to bow out.
If i won this competition, I would be offered a job to work at Jim Henson's studio.
I wouldn't be able to take it.
I have to think about my family and what's best for them.
And I have to go home.
Wow, Josh.
Well, I'm really sorry to hear that, and you've done such terrific work.
You really have been incredibly successful here.
At the same time, I totally understand putting family first.
Hollywood's a kind of crazy town, but I'm really sorry to see you go.
- You're a really talented guy.
- Thank you.
You'll go do something great with it.
Josh, we are sorry to see you go, but we do wish you all the best.
So you, Lex, Melissa, and Robert can head back to the screening room.
Well, Jake and Russ, this is an unexpected turn that's just happened.
So what we're gonna do is we're gonna keep you both to go forward to next week, all right? But you've got to pick up your game, okay, for next week.
Thank you guys so much.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
To be the last two standing really kind of sucked, and you don't want to be down there.
All you can do is say, "okay, this one was a speed bump.
Let's move on to the next one, and that's where we shine.
" Come here.
This was a hard decision to make.
I mean, this is my dream.
This isn't the end of me designing creatures or making anything.
I'll still do it as a hobby at home, and I'll still make amazing creatures, you know, like I always did.