Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 11:20:12 -0600 (CST)
From: Marie Buga <mbuga-AT-rpl.regina.sk.ca>
To: mjm <mmoynihan-AT-wi.rr.com>
Cc: puptcrit-AT-lists.driftline.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] another note on TV and lip sync


I have been following this lengthy discussion(thread) with some interest
and feel that you have finally made the point that I would like to have
made myself. All this obsession with lyp-synching! My cloth puppets don't
even have moving mouths. They have embroidered mouths and no-one doubts
that they are speaking when they are merely moving their heads. My years
of experience and training both as a puppeteer and a storyteller has
taught me that the story is all and the first few paragraphs
determine the tipping point when the imagination kicks in (or not) and
anything you do or say after that is assumed to be happening whether it is or
 not. I wonder if anyone has ever seen Tom Tichenor's puppets in action. I
have a book he wrote on puppetry that is long out of print and I use his
patterns (greatly adapted) as a starting point for my own puppets. I don't
much like his scripts, though.

On Mon, 16 Jan 2006, mjm wrote:

> As I grew up as a kid in Wisconsin I was very much a fan of Warner
> Brothers Looney Tunes. Today I still prefer highly stylized animation
> over attempts at realistic/naturalistic animation. My first memories of
> puppets were the sock puppets my mother made for us. On TV it was, of
> course, "Kukla, Fran and Ollie" and Howdy Doody.
>
> My tastes have remain the same despite years, experience and training.
> When I initially studied theatre in college it was in a very
> naturalistic/Stanislavski influenced department. So when given a chance
> to study highly stylized and presentational Kabuki & Noh, it opened my
> eyes to other traditions (Commedia del Arte, circus arts, mime &
> pantomime, musicals, Bunraku, etc.). I still prefer everything to be as
> non reality/naturalistic as possible. Engaging and employing the
> audience's imagination to use it's abilities to give the form & subject
> matter of the art some highly subjective meaning/content is what it is
> all about for me.
>
> I can understand how lip syncing becomes important in the early days of
> TV, which even today is still dominated by talking heads. But, and this
> is just my highly subjective opinion, the more realistic/naturalistic
> puppetry or animation or theatre tries to become, the less interesting,
> engaging and artistic it is for me.
>
> Also, I would never want to be in the position to have to "certify" the
> professionalism or quality of another artist. Life is too short and art
> is too long and wide and deep for such things.
>
>   Hippocrates may have been meaning the medical arts,
> but I think this quote applies to much more:
>
> =93Life is short,
> But the art is long,
> Opportunity fleeting,
> The experiment perilous."
>
> mjm
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