Gigs in Space Vol 1

As I have mentioned before, I find set building almost as much fun as performing the puppets. I also try to spend as little money as possible because, quite frankly, I don't have a lot of it, and I'm cheap!! Collecting boxes, old packaging, kitchen roll tubes, lids and assorted left overs for a few months, I had some interesting stuff.

One man's junk is another man's potential Spaceship!

We always knew we would write an episode in space, and I really wanted to make a space station style set. Being a child of the 70's and 80's most of our TV viewing was made of space rockets. From Star Fleet and Terrahawks through Pigs In Space, right up to Star Wars and Red Dwarf. I wanted a turn at doing it! For the last episode of this Season 1 of our puppet writing, Martin put together a script that required John to build a shuttle in his shed allowing Mark and Chris to zoom into space for a trip out.

Same junk sprayed up with extra stuff.

It would require a cockpit set for the two guys. A control panel for John in his shed and then an international space station set for a broadcasting conversation with another character. Plenty to do, and I had a garage full of odds and ends to make that happen. Armed with my trusty glue gun, I took a polystyrene panel that was protecting my delivered fridge and began sticking stuff together.

Outside window one - or should that be 2001!

The more tubes and jar lids I glued on, the better it looked. Other gems were mobile phone box packing, and a box of old broken plumbing clips and I can't extoll the virtues of chocolate mousse pots enough! I sprayed them all with a cheap grey primer from my local DIY store and the results were better than I had hoped.

Reverse side of the window for inside.

Due to the slightly different angles I wanted to shoot from, I would need some walls as well for the spaceship. I found a sheet of plywood and sunk an old drum rim into it to create a round window. I finished that off with some more kitchen roll tubing and a few phone carton boxes. Once it was sprayed grey, it was double sided and could be used for several shots.

Rough setup for shooting in Space - where no one can her you scream apparently.

Lastly all I would need was the control panel inside the ship which will be made from more boxes and polystyrene from the fridge packaging. Once I painted a few buttons (or the upside down chocolate box insert) in place the final piece would be done.  Back to the garage to keep building!!