As soon as you start doing shadow puppets you realise something - you can't completely take the puppeteer out of the picture. There is always a stick or a hand or something in the way. Even strings can look pretty big in shadow puppetry. To begin with you find yourself trying to stay out of the light by standing behind it, above it, beside it, but it gets incresingly complicated and  technical and just not fun. And then you realise, as you always do, that maybe it's better just to be in the light. YOu're not making a film after all. This is puppetry. The audience doesn't mind seeing the puppeteer. Actually likes it. They like the puppet-puppeteer relationship. 

So how can you exploit the puppet-puppeteer relationship in shadow puppetry? One way is to mess with the audience's minds by pretending that the puppeteers are actually shadow puppet cut outs. And vice versa. 

The thrill this creates is the confusion of 3d and 2d images: A 2d "cut out" can seem as substantial as a real 3d object, or even a person, in shadow, and vice versa. For our production of The Little Match Girl, our puppeteers acted as if they were cardboard cut outs, and treated the cut outs as if they are real 3d. The result is beguiling and amazing.

​

An in fact we want further. We drew around our own shadows and made cut outs of them so that we could have multiples of ourselves in shadow. Shadows are not direct silhouettes of the image, they distort in a unique way. We made shadow puppets of shadows. They audience thinks they know what they are looking at but is then surprised. They recognises the distorted shadow shapes and are then confused by them.

(MD, Jan 2016)

The magical thing about shadow puppetry is how it cleans up the puppet to make a beguiling sharp image. You can tear something out of an old cornflake packet, sellotape some things onto it, bend it about, poke a hole in it... and when you put it in the light it will form into a completely real shadow of a duck. Or a cat. Or a man or a plane or a rabbit or whatever. An insubstantial two dimensional flimsy contruction can seem as solid as a building as a shadow. And one of the payoffs of that is that details sharpen exquisitely too. Belt loops, laces, the hairs of a moustache, sweat on the brow, eyes blinking, a breathing chest, eyelashes... They acquire such eloquence in shadow.

(April 2016, Fiona Clift - Puppeteer)

This is self explanatory I suppose, but still I think it's worth talking through a bit. In this way of rehearsing you begin by sketching the speech/ scene/ show as roughly as you can as soon as possible. When you do this you get it on its feet and make it exist in the room. You mark out the parameters and get an idea of your journey through the scene/ show/ speech, as well as letting the director see it. Then you begin to work on it.

Tweak things here, adjust things there, and repeat the sketch. Each time you repeat the sketching it will come a bit more into focus. Most things will work themselves out but some things will come up that will need specific attention. Some bits that you need to practise. You can do these separately. Note, tweak, and then repeat again.

One advantage of working this way is that it can continue in front of audiences. I think it's crucial that the last steps of the rehearsals happen in front of the audience so that they help you shape your performance, script. There are things you can't know until you have an audience.

(May 2016, MD)

If you concentrate your focus on the head (ie look at the head) and allow the puppet to look at whatever it wants to look at, you will find you can "see through the puppet's eyes". There is no need actually to see what the puppet is looking at. Remember performing is make believe. More than likely the puppet is not actually looking at anything at all, it is only pretending to. For example what if the puppet is looking for it's mother who is offstage? The puppet is actually just looking into the wings. How is it going to help your performance by looking into the wings as well? It isn't. It's just going to make you take your eyes off the head of the puppet. As soon as you do that the audience will do that and then it doesn't really matter what you do because noone will be watching. You have lost your audience.

The performance is the looking, the seeing, the taking in, the processing by the puppet. It is not the looking into the wings.

But, people say, how can they check the eyeline?  "How can I be sure of where it is looking?" they ask. Often they want to do this by looking from behind the puppet's head like you would if you were using the sights of a gun. It seems logical but actually it isn't. Why does the eyeline need to be right? So that the audience knows what the puppet is looking at. How do the audience know that the eyeline is right? Well to be absolutely honest I suppose I don't know how they know really, but I can tell you 100% that they do. That when I am in the audience I do. They are not doing it by looking along the eyeline. They are doing it by looking at the puppet's head and seeing what the puppet sees. Seeing through it's eyes.

The eyeline only needs to be right for the audience. The audience is the judge. Your judge. Your only judge. No one will come in and look over the puppet's shoulder like a gun. They are all doing it from different seats all over the house. And on the whole they will all agree if the eyeline is right or wrong. I've tested it in theatres with groups of people and they are always sure. So the best way to get it right is to do it the same way the audience is doing it, by looking at the head of the puppet.  And seeing through the puppet's eyes.

(July 2016, MD)

Well this is fixed point isn't it? And centre.

A good exercise for this is "arm and fish". Move your arm like an arm, then move your hand like it is a fish. When you move your arm like an arm it moves from the shoulder and your hand flies around at the end of it, when you move your hand like a fish, your hand moves on its own and pulls your arm after it. Exaggerate the difference so there can be no doubt which you are doing and practise going from one to the other. If you are doing this with a class you can shout out "arm!" and "fish!" and everyone has to change from one to the other.

There are several centres in puppetry. Your centre - the centre of the puppeteer, a puppet centre - the centre of the puppet structure, and the character centre - the centre of the character that the puppet is representing. When you are doing "arm" your arm is moving around your centre (the centre of the puppeteer), when you are doing "fish" you are moving your hand and arm around the fish centre.

(Sept 2016, Fiona Clift - puppeteer)

Sort of obvious but you'd be surprised how many puppets there are out there that are too heavy! 

Traps include the weight of clothes - they are surprisingly heavy. Also remember the leverage of rods and handles that you are going to use to hold the puppet up. And weight and size also affect movement. The bigger something is the more inertia it will have making movement wobbly and difficult to control.

A good way to make big puppets is to build them directly on the puppeteer or in the puppeteer's hands. Make prototypes by taping rods and puppet parts directly to the arms and legs of the puppeteer and let them try it out as you go. You can use bamboo sticks, cardboard, gaffer tape and hot glue to quickly sketch-build a puppet around the puppeteer. You can take it apart and restructure in different ways and try it out as you go along.

The key to the success of any puppet is the way it moves. By sketching in 3d on a puppeteer you can build the movement into the structure.

(December 15 - Oliver Hymans, Puppeteer)

I love this tip from Tom.

Working with a puppet is a collaboration with the material and structure of the puppet. It may or may not move in the way that you want it to. It will have its own ways of moving. Rather than imposing your ideas on the puppet, let the puppet lead you and show you how it works. Let the puppet teach you.

Explore how it hangs from your hand. Explore how it drags, how it jumps, swings, spins, throw it around (carefully!). Spend time with it. If it is a multi-person puppet have a go with it on your own and feel the need of the other people rather than struggle with the challenges of working in a group.

Embrace the accidents and oddities of the puppet you are playing with and work out how to make it more itself. Imagine what it feels like to be the puppet. What it feels like to move the way it moves. Play what it feels like to be the puppet. And if a joint bends the wrong way, play the pain.

(Nov 15, Tom Espiner - Puppeteer)

In a script this means action. Action being something that progresses the story. In puppetry it means that there needs to be some puppet action that the audience hasn't seen yet. Something visual.

This can be the introduction of a new kind of puppet, a new way of working the puppet, the introduction of more puppeteers, more puppets, a new piece of scenery, a new colour, a new feature, a different size of puppet, or a new action. It could be a new rule about what the puppets do, or a new way to break a rule.

In a puppet show the visual story of the puppetry needs to progress as well as the story.

(Oct 15, (Daz Mayhew - Puppet Director from Citizen Puppet)

Puppets turn the world on its head. Text becomes subtext and vice versa. The meta narrative is the narrative for a puppet. The most truthful thing a puppet can say is "I am a puppet". Everything else it says is transparently false, invented, simulated.

What is always in the back of your mind when you are performing is "this is all fake". If you said that when you were acting it would break the illusion that you are creating. But if a puppet says it, it is ringingly true.

(September 15, MD)

There isn't much to add to this. Except to say that you will still be late, but you will be ready to be late. You will run out of time but you will have the resources to deal with it. Check everything twice. Expect to do things again. It's self explanatory. But very good advice.

(August 15, Stephanie Wickes - Exec Producer)

What the puppet is looking at tells the audience what the puppet is thinking about. It doesn't tell you what the puppet is thinking, but what it is thinking about. If the puppet looks at you it is thinking about you, if it looks at the floor it is thinking about the floor, if it looks at its feet it is thinking about its feet.

Of course the puppet looks with its eyes but the nose is easier to see than the eyes. Where the nose of the puppet points tells the audience where it is looking. It is also easier for you to see as a puppeteer than the eyes. Easier to be sure of.

Puppets with big noses can play big audiences.

(Sam Dutton - Puppeteer)

Let the puppet lead you. Make it think first, breathe in, open its mouth, and then when it needs the sound of words, make the words for it. It is crucial to do it in that order or the illusion that the puppet is talking will not work.

If you want the puppet to move its arms or legs while it is talking then the movements should come directly before the mouth opens. The movement of the arms/ legs/ body is the thinking. The movement of the body leads to the opening of the mouth which leads to the sound of the voice (from you).

You can even let the puppet think for you. Watch what it does and then let it say what you saw it think. With some practise the puppet will make you speak.

(July 15, MD)

The puppet imitates a performer, the puppeteer is the performer. The puppeteer goes into character "as a puppeteer" to bring the puppet alive and make it perform. This means that when you watch a puppet is a copy of performing. The puppet only looks like it is doing something because it is copying what an actor would do.

To give you an example. Though an actor may pretend to eat in performance, they can actually eat. So the way they choose to represent eating is a choice of realism with allusion at one end and actual eating at the other end. The point is that they can eat. A puppet on the other cannot eat. Does not eat. Never eats. Has no reason to eat or need of eating. A puppet performing only "eats", to imitate an actor pretending to eat.

So what you are watching when you watch a puppet is a copy of a copy of life. An imitation of imitation. It is two layers removed from reality. Each layer reveals the inverse of the other layer. Acting reveals the artificiality of life. Puppetry reveals the artificiality of acting. The artificiality of artificiality.

Or something like that.

(June 15, MD)

Suppose this creature existed: this miniature person, this life-sized horse, this living pencil. Suppose this furniture was watching you. Suppose it could move around you.

Puppetry is a thought experiment. A supernatural suggestion. The joy of watching it is to indulge in the belief that this thing that can't be moving, that isn't alive, is moving, looks alive.

It asks you to consider if it looks alive, if it moves like it is alive, is it alive? Why is it not alive? Why is life like movement not life? And the challenge is to do something with that. To tell a story that explores this proposition to a conclusion.

And if this creature existed, then...

(May 15, MD)

In the script is says that your character says "hello". How should it say it? Quickly? Slowly? Loudly? Quietly? With an accent? With an insinuation? With irony?

These are often the questions we find ourselves asking when we are rehearsing. How do I do it? How does it do it? And it'll drive you mad. Because there is no answer. It isn't even a question if you think about it, it's lots of questions. And lots of answers. It could say it in any of these ways. In all of these ways. It would really make no difference.

The question you should ask is why does your character say hello. Now you can answer it. And that answer will tell you how the character says it.

For example if they are saying "hello" to greet an ex-lover they haven't seen for a long time then they would say it one way. Or if they are saying "hello" in an empty house to find out if anyone is there they will say it in another way. Or if they are saying "hello" to introduce themselves a lecture hall full of people they will say it another way.

In order to work out how your character  says what it has to say you should think about why it is saying it. What does it need to achieve? What outcome are they looking for? What do the need to know that they don't know?

The answer to "how?", is "why?"

(April 15, MD)

Which begs the question what are necessary movements?

I think the point of this tip is that often people find themself underlining the puppet's movements. They want to mime an action. Or to put an accent on a movement. Or to exaggerate the preparation before a movement to lead the other puppeteers. Or make the puppet do a charade, trying to spell out the message to the audience. These are unnecessary movements.

Necessary movements are the movements that a performer would do in the puppet's place. What you need to understand as the puppeteer is what movements the performer would do. If you do that well audiences are smart enough to understand what the puppet is doing and thinking.

(March 15, MD)

You know the puppet isn't alive. The audience knows it isn't alive. But when it moves it looks like it is alive. If it keeps moving, it stays alive. And as it moves and is alive the spectators will interpret its movement as thoughts, feelings and imbue it with meaning. It's really impossible not to do so. The puppeteers make the puppet move, but they don't make it live. The thing that makes the puppet live, is watching it. It is the watchers that do that. The spectators (which means watchers). Only in England we call them the audience (which means listeners).

(Feb 15, MD)

Watch people talking and you will notice an odd thing. They don't move their hands and talk at the same time. The hands stop moving to speak a phrase, or a word, or a sentence. And then they start again.

The hands move to help form thoughts, which then come out of the mouth as words. The hands work up the thought into a speakable form and then the mouth speaks them. The hands stop moving and the mouth starts.

You will even see people who are excited to speak wave their arms about or even jump up and down and then when they are allowed to speak their arms go still. And when they get stuck with what they are saying their arms start waving again in frustration until they find the words.

(Jan 15, MD)

They come from a puppet maker's workshop of course. But which puppet maker? Who's workshop?

The audience assumes, when they watch a puppet show, that the performers made the puppets. Of course they don't really think about it very hard, and they would not be shocked to find out that you didn't, but the feeling is that the puppeteers have some sort of connection to the puppets.

From this they make all sorts of other assumptions. That the performers like the puppets. Since you chose these puppets, or designed these puppets, or made these puppets, you must like these puppets. You must like these kind of objects.

They make judgements about your taste. About the sort of people you are.

(Jan 13, MD)

Hmm not 100% sure what I meant by this one. It probably does though.

I guess you need to learn through experience but keep alive through instinct. Something like that?

I'll think about it more and come back!

(Nov 13, MD)

Yeah it is. Nuff said.

Remember to be specific with the breath. It is always changing. We don't breathe all day at the same rate or the same depth, Our breathing changes all the time. Almost every breath is different. Make sure you allow the puppet's breath to change with emotion, thought, concentration, effort, to talk, to move... 

(October 13, MD)

That is to say they move without thinking. Without being conscious of our moving them. We don't need to think about how to walk in order to walk. We just need to decide to go somewhere. We don't need to think about twitching our foot while typing (as mine is now) - the foot twitches on its own and we notice it afterwards.

Of course by "a mind" I don't mean that every part of the body is going to go to University or write a play, I mean that the parts of the body of the puppet can appear to think on their own. Can appear to be part of the thoughts of the puppet

A tapping foot suggests that the puppet is impatient, or anxious. When a hand reaches for your phone it suggest the puppet wants to look something up. When the head looks around it appears to have heard something.

Every movement your body part makes implies a thought to the audience. The audience sees movements are the result of thoughts. Every movement implies a thought or a series of thoughts to the audience. No movements mean anything on their own, only in relation to the thoughts that appear to lie behind them.

As a puppeteer you need to know what those thoughts are. You need to learn to trigger those thoughts when you make the movements. To toy with them. To use them. You learn to "think like" the body part you are playing.

(August 13, MD)

You can't do anything until you know what you want to do. You need to know what you want a puppet to do. You need to understand what makes it "right" and what makes it "wrong" in your opinion. You need to develop an opinion. You need a vision.

Puppetry is a visual artform. And there are two points of view. The view from behind - the puppeteer's view, and the view from in front - the audience's point of view.

Watching the puppet move on the stage makes the audience think things, understand things, feel things. They interpret the puppet's movements.

As a puppeteer you need to learn how the puppet moves and how those movements affects you when you are watching. You need learn everything there is to know about watching it. You need to become an expert on the audience experience.

Spend time watching as well as doing puppetry. Even spend more time watching if you can. Work out what you like and what you don't like puppets to do, and your puppet to do.

And then do it.

(July 13, MD)

There is no such thing as being neutral as a puppeteer. Neutral is itself a performance on neutral. You might describe it as scientific, detached, uncaring, procedural etc. It is not nothing. So I don;t think there is a virtue to trying to be invisible as a puppeteer by being neutral or performing without expression. 

There is a question though - how do you not take away from the puppet if you express things with your face when you're performing. The answer I think is to make sure that the puppet's performance is bigger than the expressions on your face. Intenser. The work you do with your face should inform the puppetry and the puppet should be even more interesting because of it.

So don't run away from being noticed by being less interesting, make the puppet even more interesting. 

(April 13, MD)

In many ways jobs in theatre are the same as jobs anywhere else.

Specifically relevant jobs, that is jobs in theatre, show your interested in theatre, a knowledge of the theatre world, pay rates, language, and expectations.

On the other hand non-theatre jobs on "civvy street" demonstrate that you can turn up on time, you can apply yourself, you are disciplined, you know the world of "work". You may also have knowledge that is transferable - accounts, the law, health and safety, human relations, marketing...

A non theatre perspective is also valuable - audiences after all don't work in the theatre.

But remember that you are applying to a job in the theatre, so express your enthusiasm for theatre!

(January 13 , SH)

Meaning is obvious but I don't know why I thought it was relevant to puppetry quite. 

(Dec 12 MD)

Be prepared to show your work. These days it might more often be a latop or an ipad, but if you work on paper as well then there is a great value to show that. 

(Nov 12 MD)

And you can see the difference.

When you "look" at something you point your eyes at it. In the case of a puppet it moves its head to point its eyes at it. Looking at it.  But when you "see" something you do not move your eyes, the puppet does not move its head. Seeing something means processing what you are looking at, taking it in, thinking about it. This processing, taking in, thinking, may be seen in the movements of another part of the body. The feet for example. 

Similarly listening involves pointing the ears towards something, moving the puppet's head so that the eyes point towards a noise. But hearing does not involve movement of the ears. The ears, and the head stay still when the puppet hears. The hearing registers in another movement, mosst often of the feet, but possibly in the hands or the body.

The head must stay still to see or to hear because if it moves then that indicates that the puppet is looking at, or listening to something else. Where the puppet points its eyes or ears tells the audience what it is looking at, or listening to. The movements it makes with the other parts of its body, most often the feet, tells you what it has heard or seen. 

You could say a puppet looks with its head, but sees with it's feet. It listens with its head but hears with it's feet. 

And the same is true for sniffing and smelling, touching and feeling, tasting and... tasting(!) 

(Sep 12 MD)

This is the creative process. Do something, review it, edit, repeat... until you have something. 

(Sep 12 MD)

This is the creative process. Do something, review it, edit, repeat... until you have something. 

(Aug 12 MD)

The Samurai spirit.  It feels like it means something. But what?

(June 12 MD)

(May 12 MD)

This is strange and possibly not true, but it seems to me that when people wear white, even if they blend in with a white background, the message is that they mean to be seen. They are visible. Whereas black signifies invisible. Even against a white background. 

In fact black looks better against a white background because the contrast makes it sharper, blacker. Black against a black background often greys out. Especially when you light it. The greying out is ugly. But againt a white backcloth, backlit, black looks fantastic. And invisible. 

Against this there is a John Lewis advert with puppeteers in white on a white background and they look very cool, and invisble. And I think they are clearly meant to be invisible too. So as I said, I may be wrong about this. 

As they say on social media these days - What do you think?

(April 12 MD)

Or is that a hippy? (Dad joke)

There are two kinds of movement that a puppet is able to do: extrinsic movements (movements of the puppet around the stage) and intrinsic movements (movements within the body of the puppet).

Extrinsic movements tell us where the puppet is in space, where it is going, where is coming from. For example it may move away from something it is afraid of, or towards something it loves. This is the "blocking" of a puppet scene. They are done by the puppeteer moving the puppet around.

Intrinsic movements, the movement of one part of the body relative to another part, change the shape and posture of the puppet and imply thoughts and feelings and attitudes.  The puppet may turn their head away from something they are afraid of, or breathe heavily in the presence of something it loves. These movements are only possible because of a joint, or joints.

The simplest jointed puppet is perhaps a head and body. In other words a puppet with a neck joint. A huge range of attitudes and intentions can be implied and created with just these two moving parts.

You can have more complicated puppets with more moving parts and joints, but you will need more hands or mechanisms to control them.

And you can puppet even simpler objects of course, even single solid objects with no actual joint at all. In this case you will need to "imply" joints in your manipulation of it so that it can move, have posture, look at things. To do this you invent other "invisible" parts that your object moves against.

(March 12 - MD)

...and they are all related. 

Gravity acts on everything always (unless you're in space). It makes things move in a parabola. When you jump, or fall, or even walk across a room, there is the take off, flight, a still point at the zenith, the slow down and the landing. Arms and legs swing like a pendulum. Each pendulum swing varying because of length and weight. This is the natural movement of the body in space. 

Rhythm comes from breath. Breathing in, suspending, breathing out, resting. The body changes shape and moves with each part of this cycle, and the cycle varies and repeats 12 times a minute all day. 

Character effects movement through emotions and thoughts, feelings that change the pattern of your breathing, and decisions that interrupt the natural movement of the body. 

(Feb 12 - MD)

Look at people's feet. You can "tell" what someone is thinking by looking at their feet. Are they nervous? Excited? Happy? Sad? Lost? Confused? 

Watch feet and copy them. 

(Jan 12 - MD)

Watch watch watch. Copy copy copy.

(July 11 - MD)

Breath has four parts - you breathe in, short pause, then breathe out, pause. Think of the breathing machines in hospital drama scenes. At rest we take about 12 breaths a minute. Most action occurs on the suspended in-breath, or if you prefer in the controlled exhale: speaking, signalling, starting to walk. The in-breath is literally the inspiration for action, or the intention. The exhale acts as brakes for the movement, and the suspended out-breath is when we assess the action and the results.

When the breath pauses, the action is suspended. The scene pauses, but it does not stop.

(MD)

Puppetry is an illusion you create with movement so what you need to think about when you are puppeting the head is why does the head move? The answer is, the head moves to look at things. 

Mostly. 

It also moves to listen to things, to taste, to touch (kissing!), and to sniff things. 

Note that it doesn't move when it sees things, or feels them, or smells them. These sensations make other parts of the body move.

So remember: the head is always looking at something. As a head puppeteer you must always know what it is looking at and why. 

(June 11, MD)

If you don't know what else to do do these two things. They make you look ready and feel ready to respond to whatever happens. Something will happen for you to respond to, even if it is only a siren in the distance, or a cough. You can't do better than respond to it. 

(June 11, MD)