One of the most popular puppets on YouTube has got to be Achmed The Dead Terrorist, a creation of Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. Achmed is a brilliant idea for a character – even if Jeff’s humour is sometimes questionable (see previous post) – but what I think really makes audiences respond to Achmed is the way Jeff performs him, especially the way he creates the illusion of thought and focus.

Jeff’s performance of Achmed is pretty minimalist. He doesn’t do much with the puppet, but what he does he does incredibly well. When you watch the clip above, pay close attention to what Jeff does with Achmed’s head and eyes. Achmed’s focus is only on two things – Jeff and the audience – and he alternates between them with almost perfect timing.

Like most Ventriloquists, Jeff relies a lot on mechanisms in his puppets to get laughs and when he’s moving Achmed’s eyes or eyebrows to get a laugh he’ll usually keep the rest of the puppet very still. This is partially for practical reasons – it’s very difficult to operate multiple mechanisms simultaneously on most Vent figures – but also because by not moving the rest of the puppet the gag movement is exaggerated and draws a bigger laugh.

By making very specific choices about where Achmed looks, Jeff subtly communicates to his audience where their focus should be at any given moment in his act, like a magician masterfully misdirecting his audience on stage. Watch Jeff’s performances with a critical eye and I think you’ll learn a lot.

As I’ve mentioned before, good puppetry – much like good animation – requires a good understanding of the power of silhouette  (see previous post). There probably no more pure example of that than shadow puppetry, a medium that this new commercial for Surf Twilight Sensations takes full advantage of. Perhaps the coolest thing about this ad is that it was shot entirely in camera using traditional shadow puppetry techniques.

Special thanks to Hobey for spotting this!

I just watched two clips from the upcoming NFB adaptation of the Maurice Sendack classic Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life and I haven’t been this excited to see a puppet film in awhile. It’s directed by Canadian filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski who previously directed the acclaimed stop motion film Madame Tutli-Putli. Higglety Pigglety Pop is done in a hybrid style that’s very similar to Tutli-Putli, utilizing live-action puppets, actors, animation and digital manipulation.

Here are a few clips from the NFB web site:

The film has a stellar voice cast that includes Meryl Streep, Spike Jonze and Forest Whitaker and the key puppeteers on the film were Marcelle Hudon, Clea Minaker, and Jamie Shannon of the Grogs. The beautiful dog puppets in the film were constructed by Vicki Veenstra.

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life will be included on DVD version of Where The Wild Things Are, which will be available on sale everywhere March 2nd.

Via Drawn!

I spotted this video from the latest version of the long-running Taiwanese puppet series Pili (see previous post) over on Kelvin Kao’s blog. As per usual, it’s a mind-bending mix of computer animation, slick editing, and traditional Chinese hand puppetry. Very cool!

Although robots and automata aren’t generally considered puppets unless they’re controlled in real-time, puppeteers have been working with them for decades. Puppeteers are often employed by toy companies to help “animate” electronic toys like Furby and Disney projects like the Muppet Mobile Lab have taken pupppetry and robotics to a whole new level in recent years.

I don’t think that puppeteers and animators have to be competitive about who does what in this brave new technological world of ours. The more the line between different disciplines like puppetry, animation and robotics get blurred, the more I think that artists working in each field can learn from one and other.

I love this “Hand Ninja” video. Clever, simple, effective. Most importantly, the girls in this video are obviously having fun. More puppetry should be like this.

Remember this scene in The Empire Strikes Back? Much like being a Jedi, the key to mastering the art of puppetry is control…in order to be a good puppeteer you must learn control! (wise Master Yoda is, isn’t he?).

More important than lip sync, eye focus or any of those other puppetry concepts, the first skill you have to master in order to be a good puppeteer is to control your hand. This sounds very simple and straight-forward, but it’s actually quite difficult.

Watch this video of a basic puppetry exercise:

I’ve removed the audio so you can better focus on and compare the movement the two hands. Which hand’s looks better in terms of puppetry? Which hand is more expressive and consistent in its performance? The one on the right belongs to a fairly experienced puppeteer with years of practice, the other to someone relatively new to puppetry. Neither performance is perfect and you could pick apart this video on a variety of technical aspects – lip sync, eye focus, etc. – but the real difference – the only one that really matters – is that one has better physical control over their hand than the other. That’s it.

Learning control requires you to (as Yoda would say) unlearn what you have learned. You have to learn to think through your hand and be mindful of where your hand is and what it is doing at all times  (more Yoda-isms!). Only once you learn control can you really start to learn puppetry technique properly.

The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta is presenting a lecture and workshop by Steve Whitmire (see previous post) called Steve Whitmire: Perspectives – The Sentient Puppet, “an exploration of the essential techniques and methodologies that have allowed hand-and-rod puppet manipulation as developed in the Muppet-style to become an exemplar in both the world of entertainment and the world of puppetry.”

The workshops/lectures are taking place over two weekends (Jan. 9-10 and 16-17) at the Centre For Puppetry Arts and consist of two parts: a lecture and a hands-on class. Prior puppetry experience isn’t required to participate; Steve’s lecture is aimed at experienced and neophyte puppeteers alike. The total cost of the workshop/lecture is just $30, but The Centre is asking that you only sign up for one class and one lecture per person in order to preserve space and because the content of each workshop/lecture is identical.

It goes without saying that Steve is one of the most brilliant and experienced puppeteers in North America (watch him perform Ernie during a taping of Sesame Street in the video above) and this sounds like an opportunity not to be missed if you’re in or can get to Atlanta this month.

You can order tickets to Steve Whitmire: Perspectives “The Sentient Puppet” online at www.puppet.org.

Well, another year has come and gone. It’s amazing to look back and realize that I’ve been blogging here (and before that here) for close to seven years now. I didn’t have time to share much during the second half of `09 for several years, one of which was fufilling one of last year’s resolutions – spend less time writing about puppetry and more time doing it. I’ve spent the last several months working almost full-time with some of the most wonderful and amazingly talented people I’ve ever met. It’s still a little early to talk about what we’ve been doing, but there should be lots to share in the new year.

Something I did want to share before 2009 draws to close is the annual year end video from JibJab, Never a Year Like `09. It’s a really fun mash-up of stop motion, digital animation and puppetry. JibJab has never been shy about mixing a little puppetry in with their animation (see previous posts here and here), but I was really struck by just how much live action and puppetry they incorporate in to this video, including the “public option” finger puppets, the “Swine Flu” scene, and the angels (the JibJab Blog has a complete overview of the Never a Year Like `09 production process).

Have a safe and very happy New Year everybody!