Re: What did Wendy Froud / Wendy Midener contribute to Yoda's creation and developmen
Nick, or Mr. Maley, whichever you prefer
my post wasn't meant to belittle anyone's contribution, but was a response to this post:
True. And yet that is exactly what that quote on her website claims--that Yoda is "her most widely known creation". What a crock of $hit. Stuart is the only person in the world that can truthfully say that he created Yoda. Created in the physical sense, that is. Frank Oz could also truthfully claim that he created Yoda, but only in the personality/performance sense.
I hear that the Froud's are at Comic-Con each year with their own booth. I may pay 'em a visit in July and tell 'em what I think of the claims on their website.
The Wook
I 'm not that big a Star Wars, but I am a huge Dark Crystal fan, and have met and spoken at length with both Wendy and Brian Froud.
The only thing that I wanted to point out was that her contribution was pretty significant to the final version of Yoda.
Your own website says:
"Wendy was the only person who’s task was solely devoted to Yoda. (Stuart, Graham and I all had responsibilities developing other characters too). Wendy’s contribution creating the character was second only to Stuart who was overseeing ALL the creatures. She single handedly formed the body out of 1 inch sheet foam. She constructed the puppet armature from wooden dowel which gave structure to Yoda’s arms and legs. If I remember correctly, she also modeled Yoda’s hands and feet and single handedly fabricated the “stand-in Yoda”, made entirely from cut foam, which was used to line up shots during camera setup. I do remember her spending some time working on the clay model of Yoda’s head too. But that was for a small part of the 5 months Stu spent on the modeling stage.
At that time, the Muppets had not produced any on screen characters with mechanical eyes, eye lids etc and I don’t recall Wendy having any direct involvement in the complex animatronics for Yoda’s expressive eyes that Stuart spent months developing. But it was Wendy who came up with the technique to operate Yoda’s ears, which she fitted to the prototype and I adopted on the 4th back-up Yoda which I built for the scenes training Luke on Degobah."
(
thoseYodaGuys.com)
so, when you assist in sculpting the face, build the body, do the arms and legs, as well as the hands and feet, the ear mechanism, and build the stand in puppet, I think that's a pretty significant contribution. Wouldn't you agree?
Regardless of studio politics or not, by your own account it does sound like she did EARN the title of "Yoda Fabricator".
The only point of my post was to get some of the hairier members here to put down their torches and pitchforks, and give some credit where I felt it was due. No offense was intended or implied, and I have nothing but respect for the creations Stuart Freeborn and others have made.
I do have to add that as a sculptor myself, I hold Wendy Froud's talent and work in awe.
peace
