House of Funny Noises
About US
The House of Funny Noses is a Bristol based film collective that aims to delight and occasionally disgust you with short, sweet and sickening puppet films. Their primary focus is on short format media as a way to explore weird visuals and concise thought provoking storytelling.
Originally formed during the first lockdown of 2020 the House of Funny Noises has three founding members; Cat Rock, Helena Houghton, and Izzy Bristow who frequently collaborate with friends, local artists, and other art groups to make their work as striking as possible.
In their short time working together they have been featured at puppet slams around the world, produced a puppet film festival, received awards for several of their films and even made one panel of judges squirm in horror and delight. Looking to the future, House of Funny Noises has a full slate of films and short series they want to use to make you squirm in horror and delight as well
Izzy Bristow
Izzy Bristow is a puppet designer and costume maker with a Masters in Puppet Design and Fabrication from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Since her time at college she has worked in both the UK and the United States to hone her skills and express her deep love for the intersection of engineering and movement where puppets thrive.
In the UK Izzy primarily works with Max Humphries building larger than life puppets for local and international shows, including Dinosaur World Live, Madagascar the Musical, West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Alice’s Adventures Underground, and Regent Park’s acclaimed production of Little Shop of Horrors. She has also worked for Bristol based companies Green Ginger and Pickled Image as a puppet fabricator and costume maker. Abroad she works for regional theaters like the Denver Center of Performing Arts and the Santa Fe Opera, filling roles from puppet maker to assistant costume designer.
As a founding member of the puppet film collective House of Funny Noises she wants to challenge puppet film convention and find new ways to use the medium within the era of short format socially distanced theater.
Cat Rock
Cat Rock is a Puppeteer, Film Maker, Fabricator, Performer and artist with a Masters degree in Theatre and Performance. She studied at the University of Kent and Indiana University in the USA, she has been working in the puppetry industry ever since.
Cat has performed internationally and has worked with companies and industry professionals such as The Paper Cinema, Trigger Stuff, Mrervin Miller, Olly Tayler, Jimmy Grimes, Peter Elliout, Oddpost, Bedlam Oz and GreenPeace.
As a founding member of the puppet film collective House of Funny Noises, Cat has now turned her attention to puppetry film and aims to create excitingly weird thought provoking media. With a desire to tell stories from different perspectives and in unique visual ways Cat wants to push the medium of film, moving it only from convention and the expected. She is done with narrow representation and the predictable, Cat wants to show her audience something they have never seen before.
Helena Houghton
Helena Houghton is a Freelance Filmmaker, Animator, Props and Puppet maker. She graduated from University of the West of England in 2013 with a degree in Animation, her first experience of puppets was stop motion. She has since fallen in love with all puppet mediums.
As an animator she worked on such projects as ‘Ella and the Blind Witch’ with Fazed Pictures and ‘King of me’ with Sons of Graham.
As a fabricator she has been part of such projects as Rusty Squids ‘Book Hive’, built props for The City Of Games ‘Isle of Cats’ and ‘Vadoran Gardens', the Nintendo Labo UK’s Youtube Channel and Ash Farkas’s award winning‘Crypto Quest’
A founding member of ‘The House Of Funny Noises,’ with more films in the pipeline for the future. Through directing, designing and fabricating, she pushes to experiment with puppet film. Her work embraces the weird and focuses on practical effects to make fascinating visual spectacles you won’t forget in a hurry.
Who We've Worked With
Our Awards
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'Snot' Won Best Puppetry at The LA Guild Puppetry, Halloween Puppet Film Challenge
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'Snot' Won Scariest Short at The LA Guild Puppetry, Halloween Puppet Film Challenge
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'Belly' Won Honourable Mention at The LA Guild Puppetry, 48 Hour Puppet Film Challenge
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'Belly' Won Best entrant from The Rocky Mountain Puppetry Guild