File puptcrit/puptcrit.1001, message 196


From: Alan Cook <alangregorycook-AT-msn.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:34:00 GMT
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] define PUPPET


I note with interest that some describe a "puppet" as being animated in "actual time". When I worked with DAVEY & GOLIATH, it always felt as if I was performing in actual time with the 3-D puppets--just in a slower version.

Shadow puppets may be "flat" but if they had no 3-D dimension you could not pick them up. When I worked Chinese Shadows at the Los Angeles County Fair Art Building, I was very aware of working puppets in actual time.. Lotte Reininger worked her shadows in stop-motion technique on a flat surface, using gravity to keep figures where she wanted them. That same gravity comes into play with live shadow performance if the shadow screen has a slight slant towards the audience. 

When Huber Marionettes filmed the Dance of Despair of John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich) when the puppet hit the floor and slid into a wall for a dramatic finish, there would have been an unwanted pendulum effect, so the scene was photographed in reverse. It was done in "real time", and then the film segment's order was flipped and the beginning became the end, the end became the beginning.

Playing with time is nothing new in puppetry, but movies have influenced puppetry in this regard. I have seen live puppet performances make use of slow motion in animation. Dance can do it too.

The Art of Puppetry does not operate in a vacuum but is subject to influences of other Arts and Technologies. Whatever it takes to get the final wanted visual result. 


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