I just absolutely love Colosse – A Wood Tale, a new short film by director Yves Geleyn.

Here’s what he has to say about the film:

“I’m a huge fan of Jim Henson’s work. I have always wanted to work with puppets but never had the chance to do so before. I’m also a huge fan of robots; they were in all my childhood movies, cartoons, and comics. The robot from Paul Grimault’s The King And The Mockingbird; Brad Bird’s Iron Giant; and Goldorak, a Japanese cartoon, were inspirations for me. It was these two passions of puppetry and robots that drove me to create this short film, with a bird in it of course (can’t lose my bad habits).”

The short was produced by stop motion animation shop Hornet, Inc. who have a behind-the-scenes video and a photo gallery from the shoot available on their site. The film’s wooden marionette was built at Hornet with the assistance of Steve Widerman, who along with Billy Barkhurst also performed it.

Via Motiongrapher.

Say, you know what we haven’t done around here lately? A run-down of Michael Jackson puppet acts!

Let’s get started after the jump…

#5 Scott Land’s Michael Marionette

Michael Jackson always seems to be a popular act for marionette puppeteers to spoof and with good reason. Have you ever tried to make a rod puppet moonwalk? (early in my career I had to and I don’t recommend it unless you have a lot of patience). Probably the best Michael marionette you’ll ever see is performed by Scott Land. He’s a really amazing, old school marionette puppeteer who does cabaret shows in the style of legends like Tony Sarg, Frank Paris and Rufus and Margo Rose (it probably helps that he studied under other marionette masters like Tony Urbano, Albrecht Roser and Phillip Huber).

I would love to see this live.

#4 Mini Michael

This is one of the smallest Michael marionettes I’ve seen and it’s performed by a puppeteer in (I think) Comoros, which in case you didn’t know is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa.

…and don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of Comoros before, I had to look it up on Wikipedia myself!

#3 Malaysian Michael

Another thing that Michael Jackson puppet acts seem to have in common is that they’re really popular in Latin America and Southeast Asia (especially the Philippines and Malaysia for reasons that I don’t completely understand). This act from a magic convention in Malaysia isn’t that great, but I give the performer full props for actually singing rather than just lip syncing to a prerecorded track.

#2 Terry-Fator-as-Michael

You know who doesn’t need to lip sync either? Terry Fator. Now intricate, complex manipulation isn’t really Terry’s thing (he’s more of a straight Ventriloquist/impressionist) but, who cares? Is there a better or funnier celebrity impressionist working in puppetry today? I seriously doubt it.

#1 Damon Scott’s Michael Monkey

Our last act is Damon Scott, who nearly won the first season of Britain’s Got Talent. This is a video of his first appearance on the show and watch how he actually makes Simon Cowell grin and laugh out loud. Just accomplishing that alone should win you a cool million on that show!

Puppets play a big role in this fantastic music video for Spider, the debut single for UK singer singer Kirsty Almeida. I especially liked the way human features are motion tracked on to Kirsty’s hand puppet and the video’s titular arachnid.

Via Titerenet.

Bil Baird’s Winnie the Pooh is a real puppetry classic. Originally created for an episode of The Shirley Temple Show in 1960, it would go on to become a standard part of legendary American puppeteer Bil Baird’s repertoire. It was frequently performed at his theatre in New York City during the 1960s and `70s.

There isn’t a lot of video of Bil Baird performances available to watch online and, unfortunately, this isn’t the best example of his work. There are some pretty glaring problems with the puppetry, but that’s almost to be expected since budgets for TV shows like this were typically very small and producers placed an emphasis on production speed, not quality. Puppeteers weren’t able to use monitors to see their performance and sometimes shows were even recorded live-to-tape in a single take with no option for reshoots.

Notwithstanding that, on a purely technical level these marionettes are still pretty impressive. The puppets’ blinking eyes and moving mouths were innovations perfected by Faz Fazakas, who would become the in-house technical wizard at the Muppet Workshop a decade or so later. Bil is also said to have been especially proud of the complicated stringing that enabled Pooh to walk with his hands behind his back (and if you think that’s easy to do with marionette, just try it yourself!).

The original television production’s cast of puppeteers included Fania Sullivan (Piglet), Carl Harms (Tigger), Frank Sullivan (Owl, Rabbit), Faz Fazakas (Pooh), Cora Baird (Kanga), Bil himself (Eeyore) as well as David Nillo and George Baird.

Special thanks to Steve Widerman (who actually performed in Winnie the Pooh for Bil Baird in the `70s), Craig Marin (another Baird alumni) and Fred Thompson for providing me with some great background information about this show!

Just look at these dancing Zimbabwean marionettes go!

(hat tip to Lily Reynolds for originally spotting this)

Brock Scott and Tom Haney created this charming music video for the song Boxcar Fair by Little Tybee that tells the story of a wandering explorer who stumbles upon a magical fair in the middle of a desert. It’s especially impressive that they managed to shoot it entirely in one take with no cuts or edits.

The puppeteers who worked on the video included Raymond Carr, Amy Rush, Mauree Culberson and Lee Bryan.

Via Penny Plain, Twopence Coloured.

There have been so many indie music videos with marionettes in the past few years that they’re beginning to feel ubiquitous. That being said, this one for the song Wenceslas Square by Goodnight Lenin stands out from the crowd, perhaps because it’s a simple concept that’s well executed at a slow, rambling pace that’s a perfect fit for Goodnight Lenin’s `60s/`70s retro sound.

And of course having the talented Tony Sinnett building and performing the puppets in the video doesn’t hurt either!

I first wrote about An Attic Full of Puppets, Richard Butchins’ documentary about British puppeteer Frank Mumford back in July.

Frank is a 93 year old British puppeteer who along his late wife, Maisie, toured a sensational Marionette variety act throughout Europe in the 1930s and `40s. In their heyday Frank and Maisie performed at venues like the Moulin Rouge and the London Palladium alongside the likes of Laurence Oliver.

Today Frank lives in a tiny apartment in London’s Notting Hill and literally has an attic full of puppets and old film highlights from throughout his illustrious career. The goal of the film is to help Frank restore his old puppets and film and bring his remarkable story to life on screen. The first fundraising campaign for An Attic Full of Puppets fell short last year, but the production team has come roaring back from that setback and (so far) have raised $7,495 of the $10,000 that’s needed to complete the film.

You can help make this great project possible! Make a contribution today at IndieGoGo.com/An-Attic-full-of-Puppets.

The quality of the footage in this YouTube playlist isn’t great, but it features the highly regarded Stephen Mottram demonstrating some beautiful, remarkably life-like marionette manipulation techniques.

Schultz and Dooley were popular “Spokesmugs” for Utica Club Beer in a long-running series of commercials in the 1960s. These two beer steins have an impressive pedigree; they were built and performed by the legendary Bil Baird and both characters were voiced by Jonathan Winters.

Classic commercials like this represent both the best and worst of television advertising in the `60s. On the one hand these are seriously great and most brands don’t do character-driven advertising like this anymore. On the other hand, I don’t think the agency behind these ever met a racial stereotype that they didn’t embrace…and use to sell more beer. The ad above isn’t too bad, but some of them like this one are a little cringe inducing.

Either way you look at it, they don’t make `em like they used to.