Composition in an important, but often overlooked aspect of puppetry.

I’ve mentioned this several times before, but composition is an aspect of their art that puppeteers rarely discus, yet it’s an incredibly important concept for any visual or performing artist to understand. The basics of composition in a two dimensional mediums like film and video are governed by what are known as the rules of composition. You don’t have to necessarily follow them – in fact some of the most interesting videos deliberately break them – but you should be aware of them, if you’re not already.

A really good book that goes a great job of explaining basic composition for film and video is Setting Up Your Shots by Jeremy Vineyard. There are also several old posts here on PuppetVision dealing with composition and how it relates to puppetry, including:

• Rex and Boots: Super Swazzle Puppetry
• Puppet Staging and Composition
• Puppet Staging: Creating Emphasis
• More on Composition

I’ll be following this up with a few more links and resources later in the week. Until then, if you dig this kind of stuff you can check out more about puppetry theory in the PuppetVision archives.