Tag Archives: puppetry theory

Deliberate Practice and Why Talent is Overrated

Over the past few months I’ve been getting back in to a lot a of serious puppetry rehearsal and thinking about the concept of deliberate practice quite a bit. While the famous adage says it’s important to “practice, practice, practice”, that’s not how deliberate practice works. Hit the link for a really good article on [...]

Four Things To Ask Yourself Before Starting A Web Series

I’ve been (mostly) offline for the past week due to a screw-up with my ISP so I imagine I’ll be spending most of the weekend in catch-up mode. While I’m attempting to slog through my inbox and catch up on work, read some words of wisdom about starting a web series (with puppets or otherwise) [...]

The Case Against Bad Puppetry

I’ve been writing PuppetVision for about five years and blogging about puppetry on the internet since 2003. One of the coolest things about doing this has been all the amazing puppetry work I’ve gotten to see and the incredible puppeteers and puppet builders I’ve gotten to know. For every person who’s ever sent me an [...]

Hobey Ford’s Puppetry Bailout Letter

We seem to be mired in the worst economic recession of almost everybody’s lifetime and puppeteers (like most artists) are among the hardest hit. With the U.S. government seemingly handing out billions every other day, several people on the Puptcrit email discussion list have been debating the idea of a “Puppetry bailout” for hard hit [...]

Learning from Ernie and Bert

You can learn a lot about puppetry watching classic Ernie and Bert videos.
Last week Tom pointed to a classic Sesame Street segment as an example of what to do with a puppet when you have no lines. As he points out, pay close attention to the puppets’ eye line, the positioning of their heads and [...]

Here Come The Puppets

I’m crazy-busy the next few days, but here’s something really good to tide you over until I’m back…a series of in-depth blog posts about Here Come The Puppets on the Midnight Diaries. Here Come The Puppets was a PBS special about puppetry that was taped in 1980 and hosted by Jim Henson.
Go have a look, [...]

Taking it to a New Level in the New Year

I guess it’s a cliché, but a new year makes people look back on what’s already happened and forward to what the future might hold. I was recently thinking about how far puppet film and video on the web has come in the past five years. It amazing to see just how many people out [...]

Xtensor Hand Exercisor

The Xtensor Gamer Hand Exerciser could be a useful fitness tool for puppeteers.
Puppetry is a very physical art form that often requires a fair bit of flexibility, strength and muscle endurance. A lot of A lot of puppeteers – amateurs and professionals alike – often ask questions about good strengthening exercises because it’s very difficult [...]

Julie Taymor TED Talk

Acclaimed director Julie Taymor gives a talk at TED.
This is a great video of Julie Taymor – the creative puppetry genius responsible for The Lion King – doing a talk at the TED Conference about her career creating puppet and mask theatre.
Via Puppetry News.

Writing For Puppets and Animation

Muppet writer/director Kirk Thatcher discusses writing for puppets on the latest On The Page screen writing podcast.
Kirk Thatcher was a guest on this week’s On The Page screen writing podcast along with David Skelly (a Writer/Director and Pixar story artist who’s also worked with the Muppets) and together they discussed writing for puppets and [...]