But pretend you're a little kid, get down on your knees if you have to, and imagine looking up through a smoke-filled room.

Suddenly the hulking figure behind the mask, maybe with an axe in its hand or an oxygen tank on its back, can seem menacing. You might even crawl under a bed or hide in the closet to get away.

And that could kill you.

Making friends with firefighters is just one of the goals of "Johnnie Joins the Fire Department," a fire-safety puppet show the Chapel Hill Museum has been staging for nine years.

Now, after requests to perform as far as Mobile, Ala., the museum has received a $15,000 grant from Progress Energy to turn the live show into a movie. With additional help from the N.C. Jaycees Burn Center, taping got under way last week at Fire Station No. 1 downtown.

Firefighters carefully removed a glass window panel from inside the fire truck bay. Three actors slipped their arms into puppet dispatchers while a CD played "Call 911," sung to the beat of the Chiffons hit "My Boyfriend's Back."

Filmmaker Ernest Dollar adjusted the lights and video camera.

"I have all this blood on my tripod from this other movie I'm working on," he said and laughed. Fake blood, of course, from a Civil War project.

This is the first puppet movie for Dollar, executive director of the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, and Josh Sokal of BB ("Been Broke," Dollar quips) Studios. They've done documentaries, including one that plays at Bennett Place in Durham, the scene of a historic Confederate surrender.

Sokal says he's still adjusting to his fuzzy cast, which look like Muppets.

"I didn't realize how tempting it would be to talk to the puppets," he said.

But "Johnnie" also presents technical challenges. Characters have to pop up, rather than walk into scenes from the side. And there always has to be a wall or something for the human actors to hide behind.

"If you're Jim Henson, and you have both his talent and his money, you can make Kermit ride on a bicycle," Sokal said. "I'm not even going to pretend to be Jim Henson."

But the kids, mostly second graders, don't care. They laugh throughout the show, even as they're learning important safety messages.

"It's a no brainer," said 1st Sgt. Chris Bradley, who wrote the script for "Johnnie Joins the Fire Department" from a program Deputy Fire Chief Matt Lawrence developed when he worked for the Burlington Fire Department.

Lawrence figured if he could make children laugh and sing along to fire safety messages -- stop, drop and roll; how to call 911 and have a home escape plan -- they might remember what they learn.

In the show, a live character named Johnnie -- played by museum educator Kamie Edwards -- gets help becoming a firefighter from five puppet friends. Kids get activity books at the show, which if they fill out and bring back to the museum, they can turn in for junior firefighter certificates.

"When you're 7, that's a big thing," museum director Traci Davenport said. "That's like a decoder ring for our generation."

For the actors and production crew, the reward is just as big.

"Firefighters are basically big kids, and they like to have fun," Bradley said. In one scene, the camera zooms in while a puppet on a weight bench presses a barbell. (Just outside the shot, two firefighters are raising and lowering the bar.) "It looks like he's actually lifting weights -- that's funny stuff!"

But Bradley said firefighters wouldn't be working with puppets if they didn't think they could help.

A few years ago, Bradley responded to a Carrboro fire the day before Christmas. A 3-year-old was killed.

"I tell you, you always wish you could be there [sooner]," he said. "But it doesn't always happen that way."