I got a talent show in my church coming up I want to control a full body puppet from behind this screen like in the video. Puppet will sit on a chair as I sing a song with my wife, or is there a better design you can think of.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?hvdI5rPAa5c" target="youtube">YouTube Video</a>
Only concern is that arms might be seen controling arm rods.
any help would be appreciated thanks
Kevin

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?PW5kCeOVhaI" target="youtube">YouTube Video</a>
here where you can kind of see the performers

You can take a larger head puppet and put human arm out one T-arm sleeve with glove, and pin the other arm to the puppet body with stuffed hand at an angle. That way one arm works the head and one the arm.  It might be best if the chair did not have a back or it might need to be a low back depending on how long the puppet legs are. When you add legs it adds to the weight that makes it hurt your arm more so if you can get the chair to take some of the weight you will be able to work longer, maybe you could rest your arm on the lower chair back. I have thought of adding a horizontal piece of wood or metal to a rod (T shape) to place behind the knees to get the legs out bent, someone else could work that rod, never actually tried it yet.

that is what i was thinking. also looks like a third sheet of black so your not seen.
Thanks

Did you want your puppet legs to move like the videos?  That would take two people for sure. It looked to me like the horizontal slit in curtain hid better than the vertical slit and if the curtain was strechy and pulled tight attached at both ends it would come back togther better. Puppeteers covered in black would add safety measure. Looks like fun.

this is my idea for stage

did find this image. any muppeteers know how this was done?
Thanks
kevin

The puppets in the video are controlled by two people on is the head and the leg and then the other is the arms.  All you really need is a large shirt or jacket then some dummy pants. The main puppeteer that is the head put their head through a slit in the back of the jacket and then hands go through two others and into the legs. For the arms the second puppeteer would stand behind the other and put his arms into slits at the top of the sleeves.  At least that is how I envision it working.   I've never actually done it.

What you drew out would also work and is most likely more on par with what you see in the picture you just posted.  I do imagine that in the picture though there are still two puppeteers. One is controlling the head and perhaps one arm while the other would control either the legs or the other arm. In this case I bet the arms and legs are manipulates with rods that are sticking straight back through slits. Snails idea about a stretch fabric that is pulled tight would help keep the slits closed up. In fact you might even want to put a hem in the slits and thread elastic through them.  The puppeteer would need to be in black and you need a black background then also behind the puppeteer.  In the videos I think they are actually inside a black out box of sort so no light comes in from above but you might not need to do that depending on how you set things up.

I knew they did it was thinking for a puppet sitting in a chair in front. Those videos is kind of got me the idea of doing the puppet.
Hope that made it clear and thanks all for your ideas and comments. Now I got to try it out. It going to be in a month. Let you all know how it goes.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?OGsYoJCpd5c" target="youtube">YouTube Video</a>
here is a sample with 4 puppeteers one person on the head one on each arm and one on legs you can see the performers
Thanks
Kevin

here is better performance video of same thing
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?f7iPgLs2gNo" target="youtube">YouTube Video</a>

Wow 4 people working together for one puppet. I like seeing the puppeteers at work, few people get to see that aspect. I like how they were cracking up, we do that a lot. I wonder if they would be so coordinated working blindly from behind a curtain when they can't see what the others are doing?

One person could make it look like more by moving from one limb rod to another. You could put the arm down and swing the puppet legs a bit then go back to the arm as long as you don't loose the rods when you switch.
From your picture it looked like your chair was facing sideways, in that case a chair back would hide,but not get in the way of your arm, good idea.

I like Shawns idea with the hemming the slits I would take it a step farther and take two separate sheets and over lap them more so one sheet is over lapping the other which would give you more coverage and the sheet would stay more closed and make sure you really stretch it...I think it is spandex that they used for the first video. This idea may eliminate the whole need for the "third sheet" to hide the person behind...as well as less things in your way to make it harder to work however the puppeteer should be wearing a black top to help.

StiqPuppets

My only thought about having black behind the puppeteer is for when the slit does gap open. If say you had a white wall behind you it would be pretty obvious. Really though if the wall is dark in color behind the front curtain and there is not a lot of light then you should be ok.  I agree that the overlap would really help also.