File puptcrit/puptcrit.1001, message 401


Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:59:28 -0500
From: Hobey Ford <hobeyone-AT-gmail.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] La Traviata gypsy chorus animation


Whoops, I think I was on the board of UNIMA when stop animation was
considered at category for citations.  I don't think we spent too much
arguement on it as I remember it being an agreeable group.

On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Hobey Ford <hobeyone-AT-gmail.com> wrote:

> I would argue that puppetry on film is still puppetry.  If it was a filming
> of puppeteers who at the time were manipulating the puppets in real time, it
> is then puppetry.  It can be enhanced through film techniques and is
> essentially part of the art of film, but the performance which is filmed is
> essentially puppetry.  My arguement about real time performance has to do
> with whether the manipulation was  achieved in real time.  I have no
> arguement with filmed puppetry, but instead the notion that stop animation
> can be called puppetry.  They might use a puppet to create the stop
> animation, like in Mr Fox (which I get to see at the $3 pizza theater with
> beer made on the premises) but if they are using stop animation, they are
> not doing puppetry in my mind, they are doing stop animation.  I have a clip
> from Turtle Island Tales which I remade for video.
> http://www.hobeyford.com/video/turtle-island-tales
> The piece was produced by filming the shadow puppet on a shadow screen.
> Then the shadow puppet was keyed out isolating the shadow image.  Then I
> used motion graphics to create movement and distance of the shadow in the
> frame.  The background was also motion graphics.  Is it puppetry?  I would
> say it is a combination of puppetry and animation.  It can't be called
> simply puppetry or shadow puppetry.  I see a distinction.  much of the
> illusion of the piece was created on my computer through motion graphics.  I
> essentially animated aspects of it and puppeteered other aspects.  I was
> responding to my own performance in real time as I filmed it, so it is both
> animation and puppetry, but not purely "a puppet show".  Any successful
> puppet film has taken into account the art of filmmaking.  Simply setting up
> a camera and walking away doesn't cut it.  "Dark Crystal" is not a puppet
> show, it is a film made with puppetry.
>
> One of the reasons I find these distinctions interesting and troubling at
> times is UNIMA's category of stop animation as puppetry.  I think giving
> "Nightmare before Christmas" a puppetry citation is misleading, however you
> feel about the movie. Compare it with Dark Crystal which was filmed
> puppetry.  They are two different things.  Who decided animation was
> puppetry on the UNIMA board?  I think our musings are educated but if we
> sent down edicts of our opinions would that be correct?  I don't resent the
> fact that UNIMA considers animation puppetry, I just feel like it is a valid
> thought to reconsider.  I find it fascinating in fact... What is puppetry?
> In the end I realize that definitons are subjective and meaningless at a
> certain level, but we do use them in talking about our artform which makes
> them important to us.
> You can probably tell also that I am not working today which gives me time
> to contemplate such minutia.
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Steve Abrams <sapuppets-AT-gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> 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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>
>
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