Remember, as the puppet moves, so must the puppeteer. When the puppet leaves the stage, this process is reversed. With each arm bounce, the puppet come more fully into view. Using a fluid motion, the puppeteer moves forward as he “bounces” the puppet onto the stage. This movement uses the entire arm and requires the puppeteer to keep his forearm straight up and down while the wrist remains relaxed. While there are many ways to enter and exit the stage, the one we recommend using most often is to make your puppet appear as if it is walking up and down stairs or a ramp. The puppet should always try to stay belly button height to the stage.Īgain, this is keeping the illusion of having legs. Do not allow puppets to lean from side to side nor should a puppet ever lean on the stage. To achieve this, the puppeteers arm must be held at a right angle to the floor and the hand kept level. One way to achieve this is to form the illusion of the puppet having legs. Avoid staring… this makes everyone fell awkward.ĭon’t forget our goal is to make our puppet look life-like. This will ensure more effective eye contact. Remember, if you point your fingers where you want the puppet to look, it will look there every time. If your stage is elevated, you will want your puppets to look down a little more than usual, rather than over the audiences head. Your audience is there to see you, your puppet should want to see them. If your puppet does not have this, try crossing your middle two fingers before inserting your hand into the puppets mouth. calls this their “handie-spheres” This helps improve mouth action. Most newer puppets come with a ball on the inside of the roof of the mouth. A slight forward thrust of the wrist can help prevent this, but remember to much thrust, and your puppet is “head banging”. Practice opening the puppet’s mouth by moving your thumb downward without moving your fingers up.
This is necessary in good puppetry to make your puppet look life-like. This is the most common mistake for Lip Synchronization.
This is when the mouth should be opening, but you are closing it instead. Save the wide mouth openings for exaggerated or loud expressions. Do not open the mouth all the way with each word. Avoid moving the mouth at random during the sentence. If a word has two syllables, the mouth will open twice. Synchronization is the opening and closing of the puppets mouth with the spoken word. This takes a lot of practice! Our goal is to make the puppet look as life-like as possible. You will need to build your arm muscles over time. Practice raising your hand with puppet above your head.
Your hand should be comfortable, with your fingers and your thumb touching the cloth-covered mouth. Your fingers should extend into the roof of the mouth with your thumb in the jaw below. First insert your hand through the body of the puppet and into the mouth. It is important to know that all 5 basics can be practiced with or without a puppet, but you must also know the correct way to handle a puppet. The beginner must become proficient enough in these 5 basic techniques to the point where they become second nature.
These basic techniques are important to all levels of puppetry.