Childhood performing included a professional magic act
at the age of 8 and a live puppet show at age 9 that ended in a custard pie fight. He spent many a day backstage exploring
the workings of live shows as his older sister performed in Pantomimes such as Babes In The Wood at the London Palladium.
After becoming fascinated by The Muppet Show, he knew that was the future for puppetry. He first met Jim Henson and his puppeteers
as a fan in 1977, later becoming a regular visitor to the set of The Muppet Show bringing along home made Muppet style puppets
and learning and receiving much encouragement from Jim Henson and his co-workers.
Upon leaving school he directly landed
his first job as a Muppeteer in 1980 being personally chosen by Jim Henson to work on The Great Muppet Caper filling in on
crowd scenes and doubling up for main characters. This directly led to building Podlings and Slaves for The Dark Crystal and
then actually performing the Slavemaster Skeksis for the film.
Many Muppet and creature film and television projects
followed including the fan favorite alien Millennium Falcon copilot Nien Nunb on Return of the Jedi and assisting Frank Oz
with the evergreen lovable Yoda.
Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, whilst continuing with his puppeteering career, he joined
forces with fellow puppet master David Barclay to create Ultimate Animates, a production company created to experiment and
develop new building and performing techniques for many of their own internal as well as external puppet productions. This
led to Mike directing and producing many productions.
A natural progression for Mike was to explore the use of computer graphic
technologies to assist and to open up the performing and acting possibilities for his characters. By early 1997 he moved to
San Francisco to become a character animator for Pixar after being impressed by their character work in Toy Story. Although
he animated on A Bug's Life, his finest moment at Pixar was most definitely developing and animating on the 1950s style TV
puppet show Woody's Round Up on Toy Story 2.
His desire to go full circle took him next to George Lucas's ILM, first
animating the famed dinosaurs in Jurassic Park 3, then moving on to animate on Yoda along with many other creatures in Star
Wars Episode 2.
Fresh from his time as an animator, he is busy acting on stage and screen and also once more
puppeteering with the Muppets. He is also be pursuing character voice over work, and developing many of his own independent
productions for future film and television projects, under his new company QuinnZone Studios.
PRODUCING AND DIRECTING
The Huva And Thing Show 1990 - Daily Children’s Programme
Directed many months worth of episodes of this well loved puppet show for The Children’s Channel, broadcast
simultaneously in two languages in the UK and Holland. This three camera shoot also involved extensive use of chromakey. Cameras
were cut as live. Also wrote several episodes.
Pitterpatio 1991
- Pilot
Directed (and unofficially co-produced)
this pilot for Spanish television to teach English as a foreign language to pre-schoolers. Featured original songs, puppets
and a human presenter Stephanie Lowe (wife of Phillip Schofield). Picked all key crew members (set designer, composer etc.)
for the shoot. Off lined and oversaw all post production.
The Vivi Encounter
1991 - Promotional Short in HD for Feature Film
Shot entirely in Switzerland, Mike
directed produced this unique short promo for a prospective feature film using the Sony High Definition Video System.
It featured an animatronic costumed creature and a human in a scene from the film. Mike designed the cave set, drew up the
storyboards, and shot single camera film style. He hired film veteran Derek Browne as Camera Operator and Cinematographer.
Even though the only cameras in existence at that time were tube cameras, prime lenses were used and a very creative look
was achieved. He did all off line editing and supervised all the post production and music and effects mixing, including an
early use of a Quantel’s High Definition Paint Box for visual effects.
Berzircus
1992 - Two Pilots
Directed two versions of this pilot for RTE Television. One in the English
language using english speaking actors and one in the Irish Gaelic language using Irish speaking actors. Off lined and oversaw
all post production. The show was designed to teach lesser used languages to children using the languages of that country.
Ultimately the pilots were a success and led to many television series being produced in Ireland, Scotland and Wales in their
respective Gaelic languages. This show was renamed Mira Mara.
The Great Bong
1993 - Television Series
This was a co-production between Mike’s company Ultimate Animates
and HTV. The series aired on HTV and Channel 4. Mike co-produced all 26 x 11 minute episodes of this off-beat family puppet
series. He directed 6 episodes, making camera scripts and live cutting in the gallery and directed all the location shoot
and opening and closing titles, single camera, film style. He also directed all pre-recordings of the celebrity voices featuring
Spike Milligan, Michael Bentine, Barbara Windsor and Stanley Unwin. He performed all the off line editing and supervised all
post production foley, FX and mixing.
To visit Mike's official web site click HERE!
