Hello!

i have to say i have never worked with puppets before in my life. only recently me and my friends came up with this idea to develop a puppet show for television and we gathered quite a few stuffed toys. most of them make for interesting characters and we have the story and everything ready.

Now for the tough part, how to build the set and move the toys? we have tried moving them with our hands and  it seems to work fine on camera. but that only works with the bulky toys (they conceal the hand that works them :D). is there any other way to handle them? or should i work really hard and actually make my own puppets?

and now for the set. how big a set should i make? is there a particular distance between the backdrop and the floor?  im sorry if my questions sound silly but im really quite clueless here.

any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

If you are developing this for TV then you should try and build your own puppets for the show.  

The size of the set would be dependent on the size of your puppets. I don't know that there is really any "rule" about the distance between the back drop and the "floor", that would depend more on the scene you are shooting the effect you want.

I would suggest simply experimenting with the toys you have now.  You could deconstuct them some to make them more like a puppet. Pull the stuffing out of the bodies so you can get your hand inside. It is hard to give you more info on that without knowing the toys you are working with.

If you're really planning to broadcast you need to develope your own characters.  You could get into some legal problems using other peoples creatures for your productions if you don't have permission first.  And usually permission involves paying out money.  It's almost certainly more cost effective to use your own creations

I should clarify that when I suggested deconstructing the toys, I did not mean that you would use them for final production of the show.   Like Jon mentioned you could get into copyright infringement if you did that.

You could try shoving sticks up the bottoms of your stuffed animals - that would make it easier to wave them around. But it might be kind of undignified. I know that I wouldn't want anyone doing that to me.

 

Ron G.

I should clarify that when I suggested deconstructing the toys, I did not mean that you would use them for final production of the show.   Like Jon mentioned you could get into copyright infringement if you did that.

But if you disassembled them thoroughly enough, and mixed and matched the different parts when you put them back together, thereby creating completly new characters, you might be able to get away with it.

But then you'd end up with frankencritters.

 

Ron G.


PS
"Frankencritters"... hmm... That might be a fun concept for a show.

If you are making a show to be broadcast on television then really by all means have a go at creating your own puppets, but if that doesn't work out I would recommend getting a professional designer to create you some puppets. Even the slightest thing shows up on Tv, so you really want to have a quality set of puppets,

Cheers,
Dan

oh wow!! so many replies :D
did i mention i was from Pakistan? we dont have copy rights here! hehehe.
but i like the idea of mixing and matching bits from different toys to make new ones. at least i can use them to get a feel for the process. i think ill try the stick idea too. thanks you guys.
ill get back to bugging you after i try this stuff out. will also post pictures of what i already have.
thanks a bunch

did i mention i was from Pakistan?

Mara,

You must have some really cool design elements to work with then. I was just listening to a report on the radio this morning about current events in Pakistan, and it reminded me of a friend from Pakistan that I knew when I was living in Seattle, whose father and brother owned a jewelry store. There are a lot of amazing traditional and modern designs from your part of the world, as well as a wealth of story material to draw upon.

I'm glad that we could help, and best of luck to you in your puppet journey!

 

Ron G.