Balloon Chat
Uncategorized Boards => Interview a "Balloon Chat" Member => Topic started by: Graham Lee on May 05, 2008, 04:48:44 PM
Thelma has agreed to be in the hot seat between the 9/15th June.
For more details on this very talented/original twister & very nice person in general please have a look at;
Trying to find Thelma's details, hope to post them later
Graham Lee
I already know here details from the millennium jam last year ;) so do you graham!!!!
lee
Yay look forward to this one :)
No maths, sports or history questions please. Duh
Quote from: "Thelma Levett"No maths, sports or history questions please. Duh
damn there goes my list of questions then :(
Hi Thelma,
I absolutely love your style and designs, so when will you finally release a DVD? :)
Norm
I will tell you on the 9th.
Thelma has kindly stepped in at short notice to answer questions between 12/18th May due to Leo's work commitments.
Thalma, Thank You ;)
Graham Lee
Thelma
what was the score in the 1958 Cup Final?
*ducks and runs* :lol: :lol:
Quote from: "Smiggle"Thelma
what was the score in the 1958 Cup Final?
*ducks and runs* :lol: :lol:
Smiggle that is out of order, you kow as well as I do that ducks and runs are to do with cricket and not football so mentioning them with the FA cup finalisonly going to cause confusion to Thelma who professes to know nothing of sport.
You are being a tad mean there I think :D
Hi Thelma,
Been working on a list of questions, hope you dont mind being the guinea pig for this :)
Will start of with a few questions & I expect others will chip in with there thoughts as well.
1, What road led you into balloon modelling?
2, when did you get started with balloons?
3, What's your best twisting experience?
4, What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you during a ballooning/entertaining session?
5, What do you most enjoy about twisting & why?
For those that cant wait to see the other questions, so that we dont duplicate & ask them twice I have posted the full list here;
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=197&p=1765#p1765 (http://balloonchat.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=197&p=1765#p1765)
If anyone has any more questions for Thelma please post away here.
Graham Lee
I just happen to know this one! Bolton Wanderers V Manchester United - the score was 2 - 0 to Bolton Wanderers. And no, i wasn't there!!!!!!
Thelma
I knew you'd come up with an answer :D
Would you also happen to know the goal scorers :lol:
Lofthouse 3 & 55 in front of 100,000
Graham Lee
Thank you Goog.... err Thelma :D :lol:
Nat Lofthouse scored both goals for Bolton
Damn, you found me out. But what are the ducks doing on the pitch? I am thinking hard about the high and low moments Graham. Will get back with the answer.
Hi Thelma,
How do you come up with inspiration for new models? Is it more people asking you to make a certain thing and you figuring out how to do it or do you set your self challenges and then try to create them?
The Road to Balloons is pathed with pinch twists and turns.
What road led me to balloons?
I don't have any interesting story to tell here. Mike and I liked to be involved with the school our children attended and helped in any way we could. Mike was charirman of the School Parents Association so when it came to the Shool Fete day I felt duty bound to come up with a fund raising idea. I had seen face painting done locally and it was all of a very poor standard so I thought I would buy a pallet of face paints and have a go. I look back at the faces I did then and think "Oh goodness they are so bad!" But the parents thought they were smashing and one asked me if I would come to her childs birthday party and do the children there. That let to another request and I found it fun to do. I gave all the money to a charity and just kept enough to buy more paints when they ran out. One day I was at a party where there was an entertainer and he said he had seen me before and was impressed but he thought I should buy some balloons and incorporate them. He took me to a supplier and I purchased one bag of 260 balloons and two instruction books. Before I had finished that first bag of balloons I had done all the mnodels in the books and had designed a couple of my own. It was love at first twist. I discovered a bag of 100 balloons came with a potential for 100 smiles. Its the reaction that grabbed me. I am still as bowled over by the pleasure a bag of balloons can bring as I ever was after 13 years.
Bad things happen.
What was the worst. Well life is a blurr of happenings. There are a few incidents that do stand out but happily nothing too disasterous. There was one incident that could have ended iin disaster of the worst kind and I thank the stars and a little girl called Elizabeth that it didnt happen. I hadn't been working for very long and I had a lot to learn. I was still at the stage where I was letting the parents pull my strings instead of taking contol and letting them know I am in charge. I was asked to entertain some children at an outdoor party. The people told me to bring my daughter with me if she liked to come. I would not bring my daughter to a booking now but it was when I was very very cheap and doing it for charity so I brought her along. When I arrived I discovered they had an outdoor swimming pool and the children were all in the water. I asked who was supervising and the parents said the kids were ok in the water and left me to paint and do balloons by the pool. After a while the chldren went for food and i was finisheing off the last few. Suddenly the birthday girl ran past me and dived into the pool to the bottom. She came up with my daughter. She was 6 at the time but could not yet swim. I had seen her go off with the children to eat but unknown to me she had come back and decided to have a paddle but lost her footing. Elizabeth saw her go in and saved her. I was totally unaware of the awful thing that was happening. I felt that I should have known something was wrong being her mum and I was gutted and felt like a very bad mum. I would never agaiin bring my chilkdren into a situation where I was not able to supervise them myself. I will never ever work with children near water unless there is an adult supervising 100% of the time.
Another bad moment was when I was doing my puppet show and some hair from my puppet went down my windpipe and I was retching and gagging and my eyes were watering..... welll you had to be there. It was bad.
Once I turned up to do a party and there were more than three times the number of children I had been told. I was supposed to be doing half and hour of balloons and half an hour of games. I had not done even half the children by the end of the first half hour and felt mean not doing them all so after the games I said I would stay to do the rest of the children a balloon but that they would have to be quick models because I was not booked and it was free time I was giving. Most people were alright but then one of the parents - yes the parents - threw the model down indisgust and said "I want something better than that, I am related to the person who paid you. I was over three quaters of an hour over my finish time and I was very annoyed with him. I said if he didnt want the model he could go without I wouldnt force him to take it. He then proceeded to abuse with words that I could never type on here. Itold the rest of the people that I was going and if they didnt like it they knew who to blame. The man followed me out to the car park and threatened me with physical violence. It was really shocking. One of the guests came to my rescue and assured me everyoje was very embarassed and they were all very grateful and ppreciated the extra time I had given but to be frank the I went away with the realisation that if you give extra you don't necessarily get any respect for it. It seems the longer you stay and the more effort you give above the time you are booked, the more likely you are to come up against abuse. So now I do the time and go. Well nearly always.. Sometimes its hard to say no.
The best.
I dont have one - sorry. I just love balloon art and ballooon work and entertaining. I have good memories and bad but nothing I could say is above anything else. The work is mostly about a high.
Hi Bickers, I hope everything is ok. Noticed you haven't been as active recently. What inspires me to design. Hmmmm. All sorts of things. People who ask me for something I havent done before. Not a rare thing because when I work I tell people they can challenge me. I will try anything they suggest as long as its possible. I also tell them they cant have the model I just made because I don't like repeating. If I am not totally happy with the model I come up with I go home and work on it. If I am still unhappy with it I go to bed and design it in my sleep. I literally go throught the whole design twist by twist iin my sleep. Its not unusual for me to wake up at 3am and jump out of bed to make the model I just designed while it is fresh in my head. I look at things in everyday life and see the potential. Shop window dispays, stories, cartoons and films and daily situations. Just life generally. Also sometimes I try to make something and end up seeing the potential for somethiing totally different. Brian Asman once told me he can sit for ages just turning something around and around looking at it from all angles and seeing the possibilities. Its surprising how many things you can come up with.
Quote from: "Thelma Levett"There are a few incidents that do stand out but happily nothing too disasterous.
Thelma
After reading about your daughter, what would you class as disasterous :)
I thought your journey to TMJ might have been on your list but after reading about your daughter I can see why it's not.
Have a few more questions for you;
6, What's your favourite age to entertain?
7, Do you have the same act but vary the presentation for all ages or do you have set acts for different ages?
8, What's your favourite thing to make at the moment?
9, What is the most asked for model?
10, What do you tend to do more of if stuck in the 'balloon production line' model?
Graham Lee
Well Graham, it wasn't a disaster but could have been. It sure made me very aware of the situations I walked into when I was entertaining at a ver early stage so as I learned a valuable lesson from it that is good. I didn't mention about being robbed on route to the Millennium Jam because you asked about the worst experiences at gigs. I could write a book otherwise. Walking disaster area! So .......to answer your questions:
What is my favourite age to entertain. It depends on the job. But if you are talking about birthday parties then without any hesitation I have to say 4. Four year old children are old enough to grasp a lot of humour, They can play the games. They are old enough to have a great time but still young enough to believe in magic. They go home telling mum that they had a real live monkey at the party. Five year olds are a lot more street wise.
If I am doing a wedding, my favourite venue to work then I enjoy entertaining the adults in the process of entertaining the children. I go round the tables making balloons for the children before taking them off to have fun during the speeches. The adults enjoy watching the balloon art even more than the children. I dont enjpoy adult only gigs because they usually get drunk and dirty.
Do I have the same act?.............
I have a set plan for birthday parties but keep it flexible within the plan. For example I start with balloons and face painting as it is a nice way to break the ice with the children, Then I do dance and games. Thenthey have food and I domore painting and baloons at foodtime and finish with my magic show. So in that sence its the same for each party unless circumstances dictate otherwise. I like to do the games before the food and the magic after because the children are then sittiing and allowiing the food to go down. The games I play vary with the ages and the magic show varies to cater to the ability to understand humour. I advertise the worst magic show in the Midlands. I am not good at magic so i decided to do a good job of doing it badly. One of my tricks involves getting dad wet. If I do that for the under fives they get upset because they love Daddy and don't understand it is funny. Five and over --- well the more you do to poor dad the more they love it. I am always prepared to change direction too. If I think somethiing is not hitting the spot I do something else. If I walk into the hall and I know the name of all the children I do a play instead of a magic show getting the children involved in it.
Here are a few of my present favourite models but I also love to makeMr Balloonatic's fairy on a toadstool. I have about 8 different dog designs using a variety of techniques and distortions. The one here is one of the more straight forward ones but I enjoy maing all of them.
dont know how to add more then one just yet it seems so here are the other two I meant to submit.
I like doing rideables too.
Hi Thelma,
we met at the TMJ - you were a bit stressed after your journey!
You mentioned you like making ridables. Do you have any good sources for how to make them?
thanks
Danny
Not really Danny. I just started to do rideables when I was asked for things that took a little too long and wantede a shortcut. For example the giraffe here. I wanted to fiinish the model and get on with the magic show so instead of doing the body for it I put it round the girl and gave it reighs. The model becomes a plaything and is much more fun for the child. The oly problem then is getting them to sit down for the magic show! I have oonly just gotten into doing rideables. Basically you can make most thiings into a rideable. Here are a couple of other rideables.
More a wearable
a ride inable
You can see how simple it is to make most balloons wearable.
This is the model being used.
Thelma,
If you want to add more picture's into one post (3 max per post) then underneath the browse button after you've selected the picture you hit the add the file. Hope this helps.
Graham Lee
Thanks Graham. Its a good job you are asking me things. I wouldn't have much to tell otherwise. So to answer the last couple of yoiur questions.
What is the most asked for model. Usually if I ask "What would you like?" the answer is "a sword", "a dog", "a giraffe" I try to explain to people that there is more to balloons than these things but they still have this picture in their heads that balloon modelling = poodles etc. So if we are talkin g about the first request it is usually one of the above. However if the venue is right and I am asked for a giraffe I make a really detailed one that stands about 3 ft. high. Likewise if they ask fo ra dog I have a big variety of dogs I can do. If they ask for a sword they get a sword and shield. I have to admit that the sword witht the shield is a huge hit. I do make it plain that I want everyone to think of something different or that if I do more than one dog they will be different dogs. If I break this rule it is because I am pushed for time in which case all principals go out of the window. In that casse I get asked for
My Penguin, my snake, the sword and shield, the ghost busters style power pack with lazer gun, (if I am desperate to finish quick they dont have the pack though) my monkey and rabbit are extremely popular too. It all depends what you have done before.
How do I work a line
If its a lot of people I worry it could get a bit boring for them all. Sometimes you just cant get away from the line situation but sometimes it is possible to change the situation and get rid it completely. When you see a street performer juggling or whatever you don't see people standing in a line, they stand in a semi circle round the performer, or even in a circle round him/her. No one expects the performer to do something for them specifically but they realise that someone from the crowd might get roped into doing something. If I am working in a situation where I know I will get a big queue I dont do a line job. I do a crowd jab instead. I notice that when I do tables at weddings it is the adults who really enjoy watching although it is the children who have the balloons. Bearing that in mind I realise that by having a queue most of the people can't see what you are doing, especially when you are my height. So there is nothing abiout the wait that is enjoyable for them. So when I arrive I usually just start making something nice and give it away. I have asked someone if they would like it and they have waited for it. This brings other people in so by the time I have finished making the first rather nice model there are more people. At this point I avoid the queue situation. If there are four people waiting for example I make four models simultaneously. I don't ask them what they want. I make a piece of a model and give it to the first child. Then I gove the first part of another model to another child and so on. Four models on the go is enough though, They have n o idea what I am making and if anyone else is there they get interested too. So bit by bit the models come into being. By the time they are finished there are a lot more people there - not in a queue because I made sure to have the first four people in a semi circle in front of me. The first four people go and I have a good number of people standing in front of me. If they are not standing in an arc before me a ask them to do so. This is an important moment because you are telling everyone there that you are not working a line without actually saying so. Now I do what I did again. I give four first stage balloons to four children at random. the rest of the people know they are not getting something but they are interested to see what I am going to make and like to guess ahead. When the models are finished its all repeated. You can have a game with them too. I picked that up from Toby at the Euro Jam. He has some great ideas for crowd entertaining. He uses a whistle to great effect and fun. But he gets the crowd to play games such as statues. You tell the crowd you will make something for the person who stays still. You can knock out anyone you want to. You can let the winner be the person you want to do a balloon for. It is good to do the odd game if you are there a while because it breaks things up. Also if you want to take a break you can do so at any time you like. You finish the four models or the game and balloon and then you just announce you are going for a break but will be back. No one was queuing, no one was next, no one gets upset, You will walk away to the sound of applause. If you have to leave at a certain time you can and you can indulge yourself and make nice things or simple things as you see fit.
Sometimes I do find myself in a line situation because of the sort of event or because I am asked to take money. If I am taking money for my client or doing a queue I keep my models more simple. If I am asked to repeat a quick model I will. But I dont enjoy those sort of jobs.
Hmm, Intersesting Thelma.
I think I'll try and give that a go. It's nice to do 'bigger' things and your situation helps exploit it.
It's sods law that if you are working a line and early on you do something to impress the only kid (and mum and dad) you have there, then low and behold they come out of the woodwork wanting that bigger sculpture!
Kev
I like your Taz picture Kev.
Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions Thelma, here are some more;
11, What's the biggest thing you've ever made
12, Who is your market aimed at?
13, How do you book yourself?
14, Are you currently in the "love of the art" or are you profitable?
15, What kind of work do you do mostly - parties? Corporate? Etc
16, What is your favourite/ideal gig to do?
Graham Lee
Thelma,
You make some very original sculptures but I noticed as yet you dont have a website so where can people see your amazing work.
Have you a DVD or CD coming out with some of your work?
Graham Lee
Not so big
I dont tend to do display work, My work is in situ. I turn up and do my stuff. So birthday parties and weddings. Also community projects. Occasionally I do balloons round tables.
I dont book myself - other people book me!!! :P
Not sure I understand the question. Do you mean how do I advertise myself or how do I get bookings?
I advertise myself as The best balloon artist in my area and the worst magician.
Most of my work comes from yellow pages and reputation and cards
I do it as a living. But some days I dont get to do many balloons. I do more face painting than balloons and organise parties. I love it when I get to go full out doing balloons. I am happy doing them. I often leave the house at 11am and get home at 7.30pm or later. I get a shower, have some dinner and then get my balloons out. I suppose you could call that addiction. So I do it for love and money.
Favourite gig = weddings - I have fun at wedding, getting the chance play with the balloons. I like the fact that the adults are digging the balloons even more than the children. I often finish the wedding gigs by teaching some of the adults to twist something simple and they love it.
I have just completer my first cd. It will be for sale any day and can be delivered over email if preferred or in disc form. It is called "Two and a Bit" The models are designed for making in line work or parties. They use a maximum of two balloons with the odd scrap thrown in for effect. I set myself a challenge to do these models for the magic societies because many magicians say they dont want to use more balloons than that. But the challenge was to come up with attractive models even though they are quick. Here is one of the models on my cd. It takes two 260 balloons and two scraps.
I stopped working on my website to do the balloon cd. I will get it finished now. I think the address is http://www.smudgyclown.co.uk (http://www.smudgyclown.co.uk). only have the address at the moment and there is nothing on it but soon....
Thank you for asking me to be interviewed.
Thelma
I appreciate you taking the time to answer the questions, so Thank You :D
About your website, could you not just put up temp about 10 pictures of your work with a phone number.
I'm sure this would help to generate you some work while your building the rest of the site.
Let me know when your CD/DVD is ready & I'll send out details to my mailing list for you.
Graham Lee