Well of course Im not really depressed…actually really happy. After missing my chance at the last Premiereprops auction a certain Mr Paul Wintner has come to my aid and sold me his Puppet pal.
Here is a link to a great story on this puppet in the LA Times and gives us a sold number of puppets made for production. Lets see about all this!
The new film “The Beaver” stars Mel Gibson as a mentally ill man who begins to speak through a battered hand puppet that he retrieves from a dumpster in a moment of despair. Although the controversial star made a point to puppeteer the beaver himself, on the set, puppet wrangler Anney McKilligan Ozar was tasked with grooming the creature’s fur and even brushing its prominent teeth.
Critter country: “There were six different beavers for the various needs of the production,” said McKilligan Ozar. “We had a hero puppet. In puppet land, that’s the main puppet we use, the performer’s favorite. In the beaver’s case, it was a clean puppet, because the first time you see the beaver, he’s in a dirty state. There’s also a beaver that had to get wet. There was a damaged puppet. We had a mechanical beaver, which I’m not sure we actually ended up using, but it had a mechanized arm. And we had a duplicate of the hero, because you want to be able to change puppets if something happens to the hero puppet.”
REALLY, good info hey. This allows us to take what was presented at the Premiereprops auction and make some really good assumptions.
Firstly the hero beaver was probably kept by Gibson, Foster or the studio. Thats a given. The one that Paul got from Premiere is in very good condition…probably too good to have been on a 60 day shoot. So whats next..the dirty puppet from the dumpster…..thats this.
This one sold for $3,000 at Premiereprops 2011 Summer sale. Next up, the wet shower puppet….thats this one sold for $1500 with a stand….thats very close to the stand pictured in the shot with the puppet wrangler above.
Next up, damaged puppet from the Gibson/Beaver fight….thats the unsold one that didn’t get to $1,000 that Premiere wouldn’t sell me. Nuff said.
Which leaves the mechanical Beaver with the mechanised arm that was probably not used (no pic) and finally the second hero puppet which im guessing is this one from Paul.
I intend to do a follow up with the puppet wrangler and will write an article on that as I get word from her, so in the meantime, thanks Paul for the sale and I leave you with THE BEAVER!
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