Hello to you all my dear puppeteer friends,

Its been a long time since i posted anything or took the time to read some of your posts. For that i appologise as my life is getting pretty busy with my growing baby and my art classes. For some time now, i have been wondering to what extent can we consider puppetry just that, puppetry. More specifically, i was wondering if we can consider animation (like what is produced by Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc.) as a form of puppetry. All my life, i have had two passions, puppetry and animation and i have always wanted to work in both fields. Now that i have started working in puppetry, i want to start working in animation as well. But i am the kind of person who likes to link all my passions together. It just makes everything just more fun when its all related. Anyway, how many of you consider that it is a form of puppetry and how many dont think its even connected to puppetry. And for those who think its part of it, do you all know of any websites that i could check for inspiration and information?

Thanks. I know, its many questions.
Have all a great day and Puppet Hug!
SHould

Ah, one great way to finish my 33rd bday to come here, feels good :D

Happy Birthday Should

I'm glad you found the time to come back and chat with your busy schedule. Although puppetery and animation are different in many ways. I consider them very close because one can spwan off the other.

Billy D.

Why not check out http://machin-x.blogspot.com

Andrew's (Puppetvision) blog on animation. That might have some good stuff to start with.

I too love animation, and I think it's reasonable to put it in the area of puppetry, especially if you're talking about claymation. What Pixar, etc do is work with animating images - a modernised version of hand drawn animation, which is really just a more complex shadow puppetry (think about!). Pixar's own program they used to do Wall-e is actually called 'Marionette'... so clearly they think it's similar 

Well Henson has blended animation a puppetry together for several projects. the big on was Sid the Science KId and they have puppeteers moving animated puppets in real time.

Thank you all for your comments and thoughts on the subject. I was afraid it would be a foolish idea to think that animation is a form of puppetry, but many of you seem to go along my own views. So its good to know.

In a way, i see animation as a form of puppetry because there may not be a physical manipulation per say, there is still a manipulation of the images to make the subject act, just like a marionette with its strings. The strings are simply replaced by the pencil on the paper, and its just as tough if not tougher to make.

Thanks Na for the link, i will check it out with great attention.

Puppet hug,
SHould

HEY SHOULD

im currently in my last year of studying a BA digital animation and for my final project i am putting puppets and CGI backgrounds together. i see puppetry as a form of animation.   

For me I see puppetry and animation as related but different.  Puppetry exists within the physical world that you and I can interact with physically.  Animation exisits in the audio and visual realm. 

That being said, with the development of realtime animation the lines between puppetry and animation have been blurred. 

At the same time it doesn't take any stretching of the imagination to see that creatively and relationly they very similar.  I think we relate to puppet characters the same way relate to animated characters.  In fact, I think of puppets as live cartoons.  That's one of the reasons people, kids especially, are fascinated by them.  Here's something that's not alive but we can relate to it as if it were.

That's my 2 cents.

I suppose that I am a little closer to Jon . . . with the exception of stop-motion animation. That's reeeeal slow puppetry. I know I was disappointed in the last three Star Wars movies when Yoda the puppet was tossed out in favor of Yoda the cgi. It's not that I have anything against animation--I just appreciate the work and talent of the folks that manipulate the physical puppet.