Justin Faulknor is life-long Muppet fan and longtime friend of Tough Pigs. He’s also a talented singer and songwriter whose third album Far From Home was just released. It was probably inevitable that he would someday create a music video influenced by his love of the Muppets, and with the release of the video for his new single “Girl Like You,” that day has come.
When Justin sat down to brainstorm ideas for his new video, he found himself doodling a character who looked unmistakably Muppety. Realizing he was onto something, he soon conceived another Muppety character who could serve as his own “avatar” in the video, and, in a flurry of creative activity, started working on storyboards.
Before long, Justin was entrenched in the production of a full-fledged Muppet-inspired music video with an all-puppet cast. It was a labor of love, and without a big budget, he filmed the whole thing in his basement. He designed and built a set, designed and built the puppet characters, and even crafted some of their clothing when he couldn’t find the right puppet-sized clothing elsewhere. He also did the editing, the effects work, designed the backgrounds — and of course, he wrote and performed the song. The work also required the use of greenscreen to add visual flair and effects. (Justin also notes that he did the whole thing without the use of any AI.)
Did I mention this was Justin’s first time doing anything with puppets, with the exception of a project for sociology class back in college?
Since he was starting from scratch with puppetry, he did tons of research, including studying the late Adam Kreutinger’s videos on puppet building and performance. Justin received some valuable advice from Jogchem Jalink, another longtime friend of Tough Pigs who is also a Sesamstraat Muppet performer, as well as some production assistance from a few friends, but most of the work was done by Justin himself. He built and designed ten different puppets as he populated his imagined world — for every new type of puppet he conceived, he had to figure out how to build it.
“I knew it was going to be a lot of work,” he says. “It turned out to be even more work than I knew it was going to be.” (Hearing Justin talk about this, I was reminded of the stories of Jim and Jane Henson doing everything themselves on Sam and Friends.)
Taking a cue from the Electric Mayhem and their realistic instruments, Justin made puppet-sized guitars and drums. “I wanted this to look like a musical number that you could see on The Muppet Show or Sesame Street,” Justin says.
“One of the reasons the Muppets work as well as they do is the detail that gets put into that world,” he continues, which extends to the various background characters. With this in mind, he also added some quirky characters and fun details to fill out the world of his video, even though he knew it would require even more work. He hopes the final product rewards the act of repeat viewing to catch all the details.
Despite the hard work, making the video was a rewarding experience. “Without any hyperbole,” Justin says, “the only reason I was able to see this through… is that I love the Muppets so much. I felt like a kid again.”
Justin was particularly inspired by Muppet sketches that include an element of surprise… but you’ll have to watch the video to understand what that means!
Would he do a project like this again? Justin says, “If I had the luxury of doing it properly, with a half-decent-sized team, and a soundstage, I would do it in a heartbeat… If you’re a Muppet fan, how could you not be interested in making your own Muppet Show?”
Check out the Muppet-inspired music video for “Girl Like You” right here:
Click here to listen to “Girl Like You” and the rest of the Far From Home album on Spotify!
Click here to hang out on the beach with some puppets on the Tough Pigs Discord!
by Ryan Roe – [email protected]
