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How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular: Exclusive Interviews and Footage


this is the story of a young Viking who
befriends the dragon he is supposed to
slay hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome
to watchmojo.com and today we’re going
behind the scenes of the how to train
your dragon live spectacular why don’t
we start by having you introduce
yourself and tell us your role in the
show I’m Ronnie Newton I play the role
of hiccup in the movie there’s like a
war between Vikings and Dragons and
basically what happens is hiccup is like
the loser in the village you can’t kill
the dragon so you know in the end when
he shoots down a dragon he ends up still
not being able to kill him but actually
makes friends with him instead I’m the
chief so I’m always constantly trying to
find the source of the dragons to
destroy them to protect the family and
then we clamp I play asteroid who is a
love interest of hiccup she is you know
a really feisty and determined girl
she’s a kick-butt girl and she knows it
as well she is considered probably the
best dragon trainer there is have you
ever worked on anything even remotely
close to something like this no I can’t
think of any other show that is anything
like this to be to be honest I mean like
I mean there’s elements of circus
elements of you know amazing
technologies that are in the show as
well as visual projections and you know
physical theater in the show it’s like
doing theater in the very big round you
know because you’re surrounded by the
audience and with it so it’s a it’s a
wonderful experience how much can you
explain about the equipment at work here
they’ve been working on these dragons
for years three years in total to be
making all these creatures as 23 in
total basically each dragon the ones
that are you know this size toothless
and the deadly Nadder over there there’s
about three to four people who operate
them but it is live puppeteering a lot
of people might think it’s not but
there’s actually a team who are working
on this dragons live each night tell us
about the interaction between the
dragons and the actors we’re essentially
acting on stage throughout the show as
well we just happen to be performing
from up here so those moments where we
get to interact with hiccup and we get
to kind of know each other on stage and
we do it a new sort of an each
performance that is kind of the most
electric and exciting time for me
because we really do have to connect
every night every time but it’s always
going to be a new experience because we
have an audience it feels like I’m
acting with another person really like
it’s it’s amazing how skilled the
puppeteers are
the show it’s incredible what is voodoo
puppetry exactly on this show we have
animatronic puppetry and using all of
these systems here and the company that
built these creatures and came up with
these systems came up with the idea of
Voodoo because it you think about it
almost like a voodoo doll you know you
push a pin into a doll and it affects
somebody there this is kind of the same
idea we’re controlling we have these
controls here we’re moving things around
and it affects the creatures down on the
floor how interactive is the show for
audiences it is a more intimate
connection with these dragons I mean
they blast smoke in your face they fly
above the audience’s head and we have
creatures that vary in size between
something that fits on your hand and
it’s kind of think of as a traditional
hand puppet dragon all the way to
creatures that I think that our largest
dragon just his head is the size of the
blue whale each dragon has their own
personality so you know when a new one
comes out on stage it is like okay now
we’re working with this guy he’s more
fun or he’s a more scary dragon and then
we combine that of course with the
projections that I think this is
somewhere between five and nine IMAX
screens with the pyrotechnics the fire
the flame the smell the action it’s it’s
really a multi-dimensional event with a
beautiful story sounds amazing thank you
very much my pleasure
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