What lurks in the Shadows… One of the most ancient forms of puppetry recorded is that of the shadow puppets. It is also one of the more simpler forms of puppetry. Hand shadow puppets, in short, is the manipulation of your hands in a way that creates a cast shadow on a wall or screen which resembles something else such as an animal or or something. It’s fun and creative to try and figure out what positions transform the shadow and then taking it one step further by giving that

Give Us Some Background I highly suggest that if you are looking at being professional that you need to brand yourself and the best way to do this in 2019 is with video. My recommendation is to create a vlog or performance channel on youtube or facebook. With this, to get a more professional look, don’t just shoot performances, use green screen to create professional studio style backgrounds. WHAT’S GREEN SCREEN? For those who honestly have no clue, green screen is a visual e

Cheap Manual Mechanism This post is going to be short, but thought I would show an inexpensive way to add functionality to a puppet that will give it more life as far as the audience is concerned. Need: Balls for eyes (ping pong balls, wooden balls, etc.) Wire (coat hanger from dry cleaners work great) Wire cutters Prep the Eyes Small holes big enough to fit the wire through needs to go through the entire ball. Right through the center. Figure out where the center of the eye

Wait, What? I thought this blog was about puppets and puppetry related! Why are you doing a post on Phil Vischer? Yes, Phillip Vischer is mostly known for his animation, but he is a great puppeteer in his own right. American animator, puppeteer, writer, voice actor and songwriter, Phil Vischer can do it all as far as creating compelling characters. He is most known for creating the computer-animated video series VeggieTales with his seminary classmate, Mike Nawrocki. Along wi

Didn’t I Already Blog On This? NO, actually in blog post #29 I discussed script writing, but have gotten some comments that I didn’t go into enough detail about the story creation, so here we are. “The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” ~Steve Jobs Great Stories Don't Just Happen When creating a great story, storytelling is about keeping it real for the audience, they need to relate and be able to put themselves in the shoes of the character. By taking cue