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Rounding a corner onto Louise Street, Houma, remnants of old vehicles line the sides of the street. These and styrofoam are the raw materials which a team of mad scientists use to create their mobile artwork.
Readers may be familiar with the group of Star Wars themed floats which rolled in many of this year’s Mardi Gras parades. Mike Levron and Chance Cenac were the masterminds behind these creations. Levron and his crew are hard at work in preparation for St. Patrick’s Day, and that means turning one of their creations animatronic, Saturday, March 7th.
“We’re not calling it floats though,” said Cenac.
“No, we’re calling it animated art,” said Levron. “Once it’s parked, it’s a piece of art.”
The work is carried out in Levron’s large yard where carcuses of old vehicles lay strewn, cannibalized into other vehicles. The ground is powdered white, like fresh snowfall, from styrofoam thrown from a chainsaw Cenac used to sculpt large styrofoam blocks into body parts for their newest creations.
Cenac was hard at work on a large arm holding a mug, which he said is to be used by Mahoney’s this weekend. His crew member, Spence Dupre, roustabout, was holding the pieces steady as Cenac used an aeresol can of glue to hold the mug handle to the mug.
The ‘flesh’ of the arm is sculpted styrofoam, and the inner skeleton of it is a metal pole. The pole sticks out a bit past the arm and this is what is used to lock into the body of the figure. This allows the body to be reused.
“He’s going to have different arms for different shows,” explained Cenac.
Working at Houma Float Rentals, and designing and creating sculptures for Carnival Concepts, Cenac studied sculpture at Nicholls State University. He explained that in between contracts, he has to find an outlet for his creative itch, “when you get laid off, what do you do: make a giant Yoda,” he said as he motioned at his work.
Nearby, Levron was using a plasma cutter to remove a broken piece or metal from a door. This he then used to repair the sliding door of a truck.
Owner of Mike Levron Productions, Levron said he was the engineer that worked out the motorization and that Cenac was the brains of the artwork.
Levron paused what he was working on to show off a future project the team was working on to mount their next animatronic beat to: called Fal-Car.
It was a limousine, or what was left of one, and Levron explained he purchased it for about $950. Climbing inside the remains, the floor was missing, a sunroof was hacked out, and that plate then welded to the right-hand windows. Levron stood on a piece of plywood which covered the center of the limo’s floor. He enthusiastically explained, the future:
“The head will be right here, we’ll have a little ladder where you can sit on the neck of him,” he said with his body through the sunroof pointing where he envisioned the pieces. “And now you have a party bus.”
Fal-car is a pun on Falkor, a long flying dog-like character from the movie: The Neverending Story.
He then climbed back inside and pointed to the exposed walls.
“The plan is, I’m closing all this up, I’m learning how to weld – I just bought a welding machine,” he explained. “We’re going to secure this all up and put body panels on it.”
The end result was to be a base, which parts could be inserted into allowing for reusability, or as he described it, a “Mr. Potato Head.”
“Within thirty minutes we could take this whole thing off and put a new prop on it,” he said.
