A Shreveport startup film production company aims to revolutionize the way puppetry is used in the entertainment industry.
Swaybox Studios has 10 employees. The firm, founded last year, is working on a feature-length film that will serve as a kind of calling card for demonstrating how the art of puppetry can move beyond the complexity found in puppet icons like the Muppets or Sesame Street characters, according to chief operating officer Theresa Andersson.
“The way the technology works, it gives our puppets a whole different range of expression. They can move their bodies in different ways. You can see full body puppetry, which you don’t usually see in something like the Muppets,” Andersson said, during an interview at the company’s work space housed in the former Southern Fasteners & Tool building, a warehouse that once housed nuts and bolts. “You can really connect with the character, and that enables us to tell stories that are for grownups as well as kids.”
Andersson says the work they’re doing is strictly under wraps. Only key investors and confidants have seen the puppets in action.
Swaybox is in uncharted territory, according to its supervising puppeteer Noah Scruggs. The entire film from script writing to post-production is being created in-house inside the warehouse. Scruggs says there’s a lot of trial and error.
“Most of our puppetry takes at least three to four people to operate one puppet at one time. It’s a lot of teamwork, unity and practice. It’s kind of like one big, giant dance routine,” Scruggs said.
Swaybox’s founders began working with a business accelerator program in Shreveport almost a year ago. Andersson, a native of Sweden, comes from the music business. She says after Swaybox created its business plan, investors fell in line.
“I think that there’s going to be a gamut of things coming our way once we show the world what we have. It seems a little un-Swedish of me to speak like that since Swedish people are very humble. I find it hard to be humble in this situation. This is so exciting,” Andersson said.
Swaybox Studios has its 11th employee starting this week. The company plans to release its film a year from now, in time to enter it into film festivals with an eye on a distribution deal.
