Shown here is crew from “The Molok” posing with the completed Molok puppet. Courtesy photo

What do bags of beard hair, paper flamingos and old crutches from a defunct Altoona business have in common?

All three were highly prized, sentimental and help make “The Molok,” a 13-foot tall live-action puppet come to life.

The beard belonged to Dennis Page of Altoona; the paper flamingos were used at Xander and Emily Chauncey’s wedding; and the 100 crutches are from the former Altoona Artificial Limb business and donated by Steve Sherrill, a Penn State Altoona professor and writer.

Page, Sherrill and another Penn State Altoona professor, Laurencia C. Ruiz, are among the many local and Penn State connections involved in the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based project that is a kinetic sculpture operated by eight puppeteers.

Xander Chauncey, co-creator and executive producer, calls Sherrill “the grandfather of the Molok,” as his crutches comprise the creature’s spine, and his connections in central Pennsylvania helped bring the project to fruition. New Yorkers Chauncey and Molok co-creator/producer Sam T. Wilson, and the project’s cast and crew filmed in Centre Hall for most of July at The Workshop at Centre Hall, owned by James Kalsbeek, Penn State professor of architecture.

Described as “a new fairytale about materialism and the importance of community,” the short film is being edited and ultimately will be entered in film festivals.

Central Pennsylvania, Chauncey said, has been integral to the project’s success so far through area residents’ “very generous” contributions of materials, time, talent, money and in-kind donations.

“We are built, funded and fueled entirely by donations from our ever-growing audience,” Chauncey said. The multi-faceted project is, in part, a tribute to the late Jim Henson of The Muppets, an immersive art experience and an oral history. The organizers recorded donors explaining the significance and stories behind the items.

The men commissioned Penn State School of Visual Arts alumna/guest artist Annalisa Barron to build the sculpture. Barron, of Rochester, N.Y., turned to Kalsbeek for his engineering expertise and his many conne­ctions.

Engineering feat

“It’s really an engineering feat,” Barron said in a phone interview. “We had all these donations and had to figure out how to make it happen not only as a sculpture but get it moving for special effects.”

An additional challenge Barron faced was making the display mobile so it could travel to various crowdsourcing events. After each event, there were additional objects to pack and determine how to add to the sculpture in her metal fabrication shop.

“For each event, it had to be taken apart, carefully packed and then put back together,” she explained. She said she felt the added burden of caretaker for the irreplaceable items.

“One woman donated a heart pendant that had been her mother’s. It was the last possession of her mother that she had,” she said. “That was very special, so much so that it scared me. It haunted me because I was afraid it would get lost or left behind” throughout all the moves.

Organizers hope their short film becomes a feature-length film with mass distribution.

Whether it gets picked up or not, Molok will endure as an online, global community and an art exhibit, said Chauncey, whose theatrical arts experience spans 20 years as a writer, director, producer, actor, singer and dancer with credits in film, television, voice-overs, commercials, off-Broadway and cruise line productions.

“The Molok,” Chauncey said, “is a new fairytale about materialism and the importance of community based on the other-worldly and mythical Molok. … We are built, funded and fueled entirely by donations from our ever-growing audience.”

The concept of a creature that steals items and draws energy based on the emotional “charge” it holds from its owner spans many cultures, he said. The greater the sentimental value, the more it fuels the creature.

Donations cataloged

The team is in the process of cataloging the thousands of donations — and related stories — which have come from across the globe.

Sherrill and Page both contributed items and were filmed for the project.

“It became almost a religious experience for me,” said Dennis Page, 66, a retired English teacher, who learned of the project from Sherrill, Page’s creative writing professor. They attended a singalong/fund-raiser/memorabilia collection opportunity when the project first began two years ago.

“Memories are the blessings of life,” Page said.

After learning of the Molok project, Page shaved his mustache and beard and collected it in baggies. The beard represented many good memories for Page as his longish gray hair and facial hair often garnered him various background acting roles as a drifter or homeless man.

“I found myself ridding myself of things,” he said. As the sole survivor of his immediate family, Page recalled going through old photographs.

He has one family photo of himself with his parents and younger brother, Michael.

“It struck me that we’ll never be altogether again,” he said, sitting on a bench near a tree planted in his brother’s memory on the Penn State Altoona campus. Michael Page died in a 2001 car crash. His mother and brother are buried locally, but in two different cemeteries and his father is in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Molok project resonated with him — he ran the fog machine during the filming.

Initially, the team relied upon crowdfunding to initiate the project and later obtained fiscal sponsorship from the New York Foundation for the Arts and From the Heart Productions.

In a unique twist, supporters will be listed in film credits as contributors, producers and other types of participants, highlighting it as a community-based project rather than as a studio product.

Mirror Staff Writer Patt Keith is at 949-7030.

Viewing The Molok

For more information about the film, and event programming, visit www.themolok.com The Molok is available for viewing by appointment only at The Workshop in Centre Hall, 375 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Centre Hall. To make a viewing appointment and to donate items and tell a story, email Jameskalsbeek@gmail.com

A brief plot synopsis, according to the project’s website, describes the tale of “Micah, a young boy forced to deal with life’s harsh realities too quickly, too soon. While fleeing the impending loss of his terminally ill mother, Micah finds his way into a fire-ravaged building, which turns out to be anything but abandoned. He encounters an ancient creature residing among the wreckage, collecting and coveting the lost treasures, hopes and dreams of children’s forgotten youth, feeding off their energy. The Molok holds a secret to overcoming the painful memories that Micah has repressed — perhaps even the key to the boy’s salvation. But what does The Molok want from the boy in return? The cost may be too high.”