FELT UP!

Complete season one anthology screening

December 5, 2011

7 p.m.

Metro Cinema at the Garneau Theatre

$5

$4 senior/student

I catch Simon Glassman on the phone, but he’s in the middle of something pretty important: he’s cooking a half pound of bacon, enough for the entire week. Perhaps his penchant for the absurd-yet-practical informs his artistic practice? Originally a cartoonist, the 26 year old decided three years ago that he wanted to bring his characters to life. He enrolled in courses at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, which is when he started making FELT UP!, a series of true-life confessional stories, re-enacted by puppets. Three segments of FELT UP! are included in Prairie Tales 13, but if you are in Edmonton, you can catch the entire series at a screening at the Metro Cinema in December. In the meantime, let’s get to know Simon a bit more:

AMAAS: So, what’s the big idea behind FELT UP?

SG: It started out as a student project two years ago. I was forced to make a documentary for school. I couldn’t come up with anything. My friends were profiling bands and friends with illnesses. The day before our outlines were due, I came up with the original idea of having people tell the story of how they lost their virginity. But I could only find one friend who felt comfortable talking about that, so it became about all humiliating stories.

AMAAS: Why puppets?

SG: I just really like puppets. At first, I thought about doing animations-- I do lots of cartooning-- but there’s something about puppets. There’s a dynamic: these are clearly made-up characters, but with realistic voices. You know the stories are real, but these are characters made of cheap fabric. The puppets balance things out. They can be saying some pretty horrible things, but delivered through a puppet’s mouth makes it adorable.

AMAAS: How long have you been making these shorts?

SG: It’s going on probably a year and three-quarters. By this afternoon, there will be 11 of them in total.

AMAAS: They’re pretty funny stories. How do you get people talking?

SG: Usually I’m at the bar or at a party where everybody’s already talking, or drunk.  It takes a while: I have dozens of false starts recorded on my iPhone. But once I have the audio edited down to about two minutes, then it gets storyboarded. We’ve done enough of these that we have a really good groove with the shooting. My crew is Lindsay Robinson--he’s the puppeteer and sometimes the camera-- and usually one other person who is free and willing to be a puppeteer. It’s actually really difficult to do.

AMAAS: How long does it take for you to finish one segment?

SG: Editing is absurdly quick. It’s the audio that takes the longest. But the video is done within three hours.

AMAAS: Do you think you’ll keep making FELT UP for a while, and do you see it having a future?

SG: We’ll probably keep doing these for a couple more years. I do it because it’s a fun and awesome hobby. I could see it as a half-hour TV show, kind of a This American LIfe with puppets and dirty sex. I think Felt Up! is a kind of version of caricature, exaggerating a person’s features.