Not Just for Stages Vietnamese water puppetry's stage (Photo: hanoicitybreaks) Water puppetry is one of major styles of Vietnamese culture and art, which shows the creativity of the people; being that they used their environment as the mainstay of Vietnam was the wet-rice fields. Water puppetry simply comprised of two basic components, puppets and water. The puppets, on land, were big, bulky creations that were cumbersome to move but on the water, placed on floating barges, v

Get Off Your Duff! OK, it is impossible to ‘learn’ puppetry and not practice. It’s not like riding a bike; it will not just “come back to you” even if you remember everything. The goal is to create an almost cellular memory of what to do, so that it becomes second nature to do it. I have been doing puppetry for so long now that when I train others and try to give examples of biting words, flipping the lid, etc. I have to consciously think about it, because I unconsciously do

Video Using Your Phone If you have ever been in a videography class or even watched video training on Youtube then you’ve probably heard the old adage “the best camera is the one that’s with you”. In today’s world of smartphones, that adage is more real than it has ever been. Mobile phone cameras have gotten progressively better over time and as they’ve become more reliable, they have become the ultimate tools for recording videos on the go. Most new devices full HD, and with

The Kit “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” In a perfect world, nothing ever goes wrong, the mics never go dead mid performance, the props never break, the cds never get scratched, etc. but in the real world, as the saying goes, “what can go wrong will go wrong” so prepare for it. Back Up Everything Everyone knows that CDs get scratched, misplaced, and cracked. I have seen a computer literally shatter a disk in the disk drive. So the first thing that you want to have in

These are the things that will make you exude professionalism to the people in charge of the venue you will be performing at as well as the audience. Promptness “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” - William Shakespeare Being prompt goes hand-in-hand with accountability. Being reliable is important to the team, to the leadership of the team, and to those that the team will be serving. As a leader It is extremely important if you are on the leadership of your

The Performance So, now it’s performance time and you have everything organized and under control. Yes? No? Well, I hope this blog post will help you answer that question with certainty. I always suggest that, along with having a detailed program together (which I will get into later) that you never do a performance before having a minimum of five to six practices with a full-on professional quality run through. The last two practice performances should be exactly like you wo

Don’t jump the gun If you haven’t read the previous blog introducing ventriloquism, click here to read it first. Consider it mandatory homework before learning the cheats. To learn these techniques without having a grasp of the basics will lead to sloppy ventriloquism. Now for the cheats Even though learning the techniques will make you an expert ventriloquist, there are some cheats that you can do to accomplish a good ventriloquist act. The visual perception of the audience

Make Your Arms Live Rod arms are the bare-knuckle precursors to animatronics manipulation. They have to be one of the most useful tools in a puppeteer’s arsenal when trying to make a puppet seem more realistic. The arm rod allows for the puppeteer to easily move the arms of a puppet even while the puppet is talking. This is definitely one of those things where practice makes perfect. You will need to practice your technique frequently to be able to use puppet arm rods. Two R

You Thought You Learned It All? You are probably asking why this is popping up now and why I didn’t add it to the earlier post on Puppetry Basics or; the reason is because if you master the basics, you have the foundation for starting a good puppet team. Plus, if you haven’t mastered the basics, this portion will only confuse the puppeteer. Start with cooking Raman and then move up to General Tso’s. Back to Basics Not really, this is going to show you some advanced modificati

Now that you have the basics of your team on paper and you have your team in place, we need to discuss a few things that will make or break this newly birthed team. Practice It is vital that you have a weekly practice time. This is the only way to effectively work on programs, keep well trained on the fundamentals, work out the muscles that will be used on a regular basis, and develop that team mentality. How and when you run your practices is also important. It will be easy