File puptcrit/puptcrit.1001, message 396


Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:14:32 -0500
From: Steve Abrams <sapuppets-AT-gmail.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] La Traviata gypsy chorus animation


M, thanks for posting the clip. It made me hungry

My friend Hobey is eloquent and his magician analogy is strong one.
Hobey uses the phrase "breaking away from real time."

All film (except for unedited documentary footage) breaks away from real
time.
The great performances of the cinema are nothing like great performances in
a theatre.
I don't think anyone would suggest that film acting is not acting.

Most of the music that we listen to is produced in a studio where it is
clipped and snipped and augmented in all sorts of magical ways. There is a
whole realm of digitally produced music.
I don't think anyone would suggest that studio musicians are somehow not
really musicians.

I truly deeply love live performance- there is nothing in the world quite
like it, but I am not convinced that live performance defines the borders of
puppetry anymore than it does for actors or musicians

Rolande wrote that "we play with their perception, their attitudes, their
attention and focus."
This is certainly true in live performance, but doesnt all art do those
things?
Steve

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 8:22 AM, Hobey Ford <hobeyone-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Malgosia, That was wonderful!
> I have to comment on puppetry vs animation
>
> It seems to me that one of the differences  of  animation and puppetry is
> the animation's  lack of restraints to have a character do or be anything.
> It is almost magic in comparison to a puppetry.  For instance morphing into
> a flower as the characters do in this piece.  It seems to me one of the
> tenants or attributes of puppetry is that the figure is transformed into a
> living being through the suggestive manipulation of the puppeteer.  There
> is
> a physical limit between the possibility of "life" and the puppets
> inanimate
> nature.  It is the puppeteers manipulation in real time that becomes the
> bridge between "inanimate" and ":the illusion of life".  I would suggest
> that animations advantage of being able to stop time and to modify the
> figure is the actual difference between puppeteering and animating.  Its
> what makes a puppeteers skill so unique.  It is I suggest the unique
> difference.  The animator is also brilliant in their own way.  But they
> have
> in their tool chest something we don't have which is breaking from real
> time.  Animation and puppetry have different definitions, different
> training, different communities and they are closely related but unique.
>
> If somehow I have a magic wand and can bring a pair of scissors to life to
> dance a ballet on the table.  Is that puppetry?  I would say that there is
> a
> point at which an animatronic or animation employ special effects that
> "fudge" on the definition, for the figure is no longer brought to life
> through the cycle of: "puppeteer-object- manipulation-observation- imagined
> life" another "magic" element is added.  It like training wheels on a
> bicycle, an added dimension that eliminates the necessity to know how to
> ride a bike.  Flying around a room is different than flying around a room
> on
> a cable.  It seems to me that when the object's manipulation is enhanced by
> means outside the puppeteers control in real time that it becomes
> animation.  Animation is not a bad word it is just different to me than
> puppetry, related but different.  The puppeteers unique abilty is a skill
> at
> being the bridge between animate and inanimate in real time in creating the
> illusion of life.  The animator has to imagine their figures life and
> render
> it, but the animator break apart time to pull off the illusion.  Another
> perplexing analogy would be the magician. Is it truly "magic" if the
> magician  stops the camera and removes the girl from inside the box, then
> restarts the camera. No it is  a portrayal of magic but the skill of the
> magician is their illusion in real time, I would say.  Does that argument
> make sense or hold water?
>
> On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 9:11 PM, malgosia askanas <ma-AT-panix.com> wrote:
>
> > Don't know who did this(there are no credits), but it's quite funny:
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldD2eKSZMWg
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