File spoon-archives/puptcrit.archive/puptcrit_1997/97-02-09.045, message 55


Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 06:56:59 +1100
From: lng-AT-bbs.ausom.net.au (Lorraine N. Gardner)
Subject: Re: facial expression


>Hello. I'm a third year university student studying theatre design at
>the Welsh College of Music and Drama. I'm hoping to specialise in
>animatronics when I finish in the summer so I've chosen to write my
>dissertation on "the importance of facial expression in puppets". I
>already have a lot of information but I need to find out some opinions
>from people like you who work with puppets. I'd be really grateful if
>you could spare the time to answer all or some of these questions.


I am a humble user of lots of basic glove puppets in live performance so I
cannot but resist adding a few comments to Paul. First you ask ..

>1. What most commonly decides which facial movements are given to a
>puppet? Is it the size of the budget, the time available or the demands
>of the script?

In my case the script. I like the basic  hand puppet because I tend to like
quite a complicated script with lots of charactors and lots of props - I
guess I have "storytelling" in my veins. However I do mix these with
opening mouth puppets as well as rod puppets as I feel the script demands.
We perform 400 shows a year and have been going at this level for at least
20 years in schhools so there is still demand.

>2. How much of the effectiveness of a puppet is due to the puppet maker
>and how much to the puppeteer? Can a good puppeteer turn a bad puppet
>into a good one?

Yes
I feel a lot is due to the puppeteer. However the puppet maker must be able
to make a puppet fit the puppeteer and to work properly or the puppeteer
has a much harder time. What a puppet looks like is not as important as the
life and personality given it by the puppeteer - at least to children this
is true.

>3. Puppet technology has improved enormously in the last ten years. Is
>there still a place for the basic glove puppet?

Yes. I think I have answered that above. If glove puppets are active and
doing lots of things on stage, handling props etc. the need for mouth
movement disappears - in fact a well painted glove puppet without mouth
movement can frequently look as though he does have both mouth and eye
movement. For one large dinosaur puppet I use in front of stage (and here I
do tend to want mouth movement although budget and time frequently prevent
eye movement) I often get kids come up to me afterwards and tell me how
they like how the dinosaur closes his eyes. There is no eye movement there
at all - the imaginatioin of the audience adds that. We need to leave space
for imagination - that's what we are on about after all! Also the live
glove puppet performance tends to ask for verbal participation from an
audience in the storyline - this remains popular and it still is something
you cannot get from TV. If fact, when we work with three year old children
- this interaction is very pronounced and the puppets are told by the
children all sorts of important things and we puppeteers must decide when
to move the story along and when to listen to the audience.


>4. Puppets work very well on TV and film because of the ability to stop
>and start the action and cut the film. Can they be as effective in live
>performance?


Certainly - it is much the same sort of thing as between live theatre on
stage and a movie. Live performance demands more from the audience that is
all.

Hope this helps - you will probably get lots of other comments too, Paul.

Lorrie  Gardner

Lorrie and Harry Gardner, Gardner Puppet Theatre
lng-AT-pa.ausom.net.au  visit our web page at <http://www.infoweb.com.au/gpt/>
Australia Tel 03 9870 8998  Fax 03 9870-7647





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