I already shared this on Twitter and a few other places yesterday, but since early February myself and Robin Polfuss have been training a group of eight puppeteers for an going film project that Unraku is doing. We’ve been teaching them to work with monitors and use different types of puppets on camera, including Bunraku-style puppets, rod puppets and conventional hand and rod TV puppets.

This video is one of the first major exercises the group has done. Each puppeteer had to select, stage and perform a monologue, sonnet or soliloquy by Shakespeare using some generic Monster puppets we keep around the studio for practice purposes. It’s not easy to learn to work video monitors and different types of puppetry simultaneously and although there are still some technical issues to work on – the usual suspects like “flapping” heads, lip sync, eye focus, etc. – they’ve come a long way in a short period of time.

Via the Unraku Blog.