Brian Henson
Brian Henson
Brian Hensonis an American puppeteer, director, producer, technician, and the chairman of The Jim Henson Company. He is the son of puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson...
ProfessionTV Producer
Date of Birth3 November 1963
CityNew York City, NY
new-york home done
We wanted to premiere it in New York, because New York is sort of the home of the Jim Henson Company and it's sort of the tone and flavor, always, of the puppet work that we've done traditionally. And that's what brought us here and now we're here.
philosophy civilization trying
And again, we're kind of trying to be in that place, that's just so absurd and irreverent and hysterical and it's something that at our company we're kind of, we're so irreverent about everything, we're sort of irreverent about the establishment, we're irreverent about civilization, we're irreverent about philosophy, we're irreverent about religion.
blue trying want
We try to keep it a classy show, but it certainly is blue at times. And it all depends on the audience, sometimes we've have audiences that don't really want us to go too far in that direction.
people way
People would say to him, "When you finish a movie, did it come out as good as you thought it was going to?" Or, "Did it come out the way you intended it to come out?"
couple dad team
I guess I learned a couple of good lessons from my dad. One was when you're creating something, what you want when you're working with a team of other artists, is everybody to work with some creative freedom, so that you really get the best out of everybody.
film
Probably though, by the time I was 17, I already knew that I was probably going to go into film
enthusiasm entertainment mixing
I was already sort of mixing my science physics enthusiasm with entertainment and directing and puppetry.
thinking puppets
I think it's a lot richer than what we call fleshy improv, I think it's very funny, puppet improv and fleshy improv.
fun littles los-angeles
I thought, well, if we're inviting an audience, let's do it right. So I put in a proper studio audience at our studios in Los Angeles and it was just a little showcase and it was just for fun.
fun puppets comedy
he puppeteers really responded to it. Patrick Bistrow really responded to it, it's great fun to do improve comedy with puppets.
scripts comedy kind
We kind of lost a lot of that and puppeteers were sticking to the script and we thought everything needed to get a lot funnier, so we thought we would go to a good improv comedy instructor.
class littles scripts
"Stuffed and Unstrung" started as a workshop, actually, classes within our company. We found that our puppeteers were not ad libbing as well as traditionally, Jim Henson Company puppeteers have. We're sort of famous for going off script a little bit and ad libbing.
thinking body way
In many ways, I think it's easier in some ways, or it's more entertaining or more guaranteed to be entertaining than traditional improvising. Again, because you're not just you in your body.
shows prepared bits
The show is probably 60 percent improvising and 40 percent not. So there's quite a bit of it that we do have prepared and that part of it, you have memorized and you've rehearsed and you're prepared, just like any show.