The documentary “I Am Big Bird” — about Caroll Spinney, the puppeteer behind “Sesame Street’s” avian superstar — has been drawing critics’ praise since its May release. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times called it a “sweet, touching and fascinating documentary.” Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film “is the kind of heartwarming, sentimental tale of a gentle soul that the PBS show’s iconic character would love.”

The men behind this movie, it should be noted, have significant Connecticut ties. Executive producer Clay Frost and director-writer Dave LaMattina both grew up in Ledyard. Director-editor Chad N. Walker is a graduate of Eastern Connecticut State University. The three men founded Copper Pot Pictures in 2007, and “I Am Big Bird” is their third feature-length release.

On Friday, “I Am Big Bird” will play in Hartford, and Caroll Spinney and his wife, Deb — who are longtime residents of Woodstock, Connecticut — will be on hand to talk about the movie.

LaMattina says the notion for the documentary percolated after he heard stories from a friend who knew Spinney. LaMattina hadn’t known anything about him but was intrigued by what he learned.

Walker, too, says he became interested “as soon as they told me it was one guy doing not only Big Bird but also Oscar the Grouch since the beginning of ‘Sesame Street.’”

As Big Bird and Oscar, Spinney embodies a yin and yang on “Sesame Street.” At age 81, he’s still working and enthusiastic about it. Earlier this month, he finished shooting his 46th “Sesame” season, and he says he wants to do it for at least 50 years.

The Copper Pot team pitched their idea to “Sesame Street” and Spinney, who agreed to the project. The filmmakers wanted to tell the story by figuring out what things about Spinney make the Big Bird the character he is. One of those elements is love, so they looked at moments in Spinney’s life that are defined by love. Chief among those, of course, is the devoted relationship between Caroll and Deb.

The directors lucked out in that the Spinneys have long filmed various aspects of their lives, creating a huge archive of material.

Spinney recalls, “They came to our house, and we packed up boxes of reels of film — some edited, some not ... So the first two-and-a-half years (of their work) was going through hundreds and hundreds of hours of videos and films to see what they wanted to use. At the same time, they’d take notes of what they had and how they’d put that together to make it a story that unfolds. I thought they did an amazing job.”

The filmmakers visited the Spinneys’ house periodically to interview the couple. “I Am Big Bird” also boasts plenty of behind-the-scenes “Sesame Street” video and stories, along with interviews with those who know Spinney. The documentary delves into his life, starting with his childhood and detailing how he found his niche in puppeteering and eventually became part of “Sesame Street.” It explores how Big Bird became a phenomenon and hits upon some of his newsworthy moments, including filming a Big Bird movie in China in 1983 and becoming a PBS rallying point after a Mitt Romney comment during a 2012 presidential debate.

One thing that viewers will learn is that the way that the Big Bird puppet works hasn’t changed much over the years. It involves the puppeteer holding his right arm straight up to work the mouth; using his right pinky to affect the eyebrows and the left hand to move the wings; and watching a monitor on his chest to see what the camera sees.

“I felt it was perfectly good the way it was, so why change it?” Spinney says. “People say, ‘Doesn’t your arm get tired?’ Every puppeteer would say, ‘Oh, yes, our arms get very tired, but it’s still the best way to do it.’ I’m sure painters’ arms get tired, too.”

Spinney doesn’t do the physical part much any more. During his 45th “Sesame” year, he says, “they could see that I was slowing down a little bit. The way the Count has been done for the last five or six years — before Jerry (Nelson), who did it, died — he just had a monitor with a microphone and did the voice while another puppeteer moved the puppet.

“That’s what we do mostly now with Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. I still do the voice, because the voice is the heart of the matter.”

As for his years living in Connecticut, Spinney says, “I managed to buy a piece of land when I was only 27, for only $40 an acre. I’ve been chipping away at it for all these years and making it nicer land. So we’ve got cliffs and ponds and thousands of trees. I’ve always been a country boy, mostly. That’s why I’ve commuted to ‘Sesame Street’ for 45 years, going diagonally across Connecticut almost every week.”

He doesn’t have to take that trip as often these days, but he still loves his work.

“I wouldn’t change jobs for anything,” Spinney says. “I’ve had opportunities, but I just can’t imagine walking away from being Big Bird or Oscar.”

“I Am Big Bird” screening, 5 and 7:40 p.m. Friday, Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor St., Hartford; Caroll and Debra Spinney will answer questions after each screening; $11, $7 for ages 62 and up and for students with ID ($5, $4.50 for Real Art Ways members); (860) 232-1006.

Big Bird and the Challenger

Among the stories of Caroll Spinney’s life detailed in “I Am Big Bird” is a recounting of his near-miss with tragedy. Spinney, as Big Bird, was asked by NASA to be part of the Challenger crew in 1986 as a way to get kids more interested in NASA programs. They soon realized, though, that there was no place on the ship to put a puppet as big as Big Bird. So Big Bird was out and teacher Christa McAuliffe was in. Spinney remembers watching the Challenger launch on TV while at “Sesame Street.”

“Imagine how I felt when the ship blew up on camera,” he says. “Talk about your scalp crawling. Immediately, that was overshadowed by the agony of thinking, ‘Oh those poor people! My God, they all just died in front of us.’”