To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:29:36 -0500
From: seankeohane-AT-aol.com
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] sharing info or trade secrets?



Jon,


A guest at Pinocchio's asked me last week if our marionettes were operated by people or were all electronic... I've had a grown man ask me how the puppets are made to move after I performed a hand puppet show in a church.  When I replied, "well, with my hand, inside a glove," the fellow said, "no, seriously...."


Sean




-----Original Message-----
From: jon green <puppen-AT-mac.com>
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
Sent: Tue, Mar 2, 2010 2:10 pm
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] sharing info or trade secrets?


My understanding of the Sue Hastings/ Tony Sarg incident is a bit  
different.  As I understand it, Sue Hastings was suspicious of the  
simplicity of marionette construction and manipulation.  She accused  
Tony Sarg of essentially cheating the class by not revealing  
everything about marionette construction and manipulation and  
demanded to see his professional marionettes.  She was allowed to see  
the marionettes and found them to be essentially the same as the  
class puppets.  Tony Sarg was not protecting any trade secrets.  Sue  
Hastings was just unable to accept the simplicity of the marionette.

  I think this gets to the heart of the matter.  In my opinion most  
of the early puppeteers did not use secrecy to protect trade secrets,  
they used secrecy to hide the fact that *there were no trade  
secrets*.  By masking the entire backstage area Holden's was not  
protecting any proprietary information, they were hiding the rather  
boring fact that it was all done with string and two horizontal  
sticks.  Hyperbole was not a late 20th century invention.  Many early  
puppeteers did not use the words "puppet" of "marionette" but rather  
more misleading terms as "mechanical theater" or "electric theater".   
If an audience member thought "electric" referred to how the figures  
were manipulated and not the lighting, so much better.  Certainly,  
this has not changed.  For example, the ghost effect in the ballroom  
of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion is created using the same technology  
that the Lanos used in their mid-nineteenth century puppet shows.   
Yet, most people want to believe that it is lasers and holograms.

Jon
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