Made another little video for my radio control tank club.

Please forgive the "dead" hand...I really need to practice.  I get so caught up in thinking about the mouth I forget to move his hand....

Practice...practice...practice...

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>
https://youtu.be/http://www.youtube.com/v/LHfQhk7FylY&hl=en_US&fs=1

Dennis

Good job.   Much better on the framing of the puppet.  He fills the screen well.  You'll get better with the hand and manipulation.  It just takes practice. Do you write down (script) what you are going to say or do you improve it?  The reason I ask is that if you know for sure what you want to say and practice that so you don't have to think about it then it might make it easier for you to work on hand and mouth manipulation. I know that when I preform if I am struggling with the lines I tend to forget about my manipulation.

THANKS Shawn!

I've been mostly reading it once and then taking a shot...you can tell from the pauses that I'm having a senior moment every now and then.  I'm going to practice the lines, like you suggest, before the next one...and practice manipulating beforehand.

I did just use one arm rod this time thinking it would be easier....lol...I guess it is easier, because I didn't move it.  

Working on my next "infomercial" right now.

Thanks for the advice.

Ps.  Shawn, after all this time I just read your mini-bio on your page.  I too am an Air Force brat, and then I served 20...I do some magic...and I'm a clown...I thought it was funny, soooo much in common.  I was stationed in Germany (93-96) at Ramstein, but I worked at Landstuhl.


Dennis  

Rod manipulation definitely takes practice, the more used to them you are, the easier it is. I've noticed that one of my puppeteers struggles with rod-manip when she's also trying to lip synch. She can either do one or the other great but when it's both it's a funny clash. But she's been improving as I give her feedback and have her practice more and more. But also planning your gestures and movements definitely helps, as Shawn said. But Nicely done!

Thanks...
It's like patting your head and rubbing your tummy!

Thanks I never thought of planning the gestures too, but that makes sense, everything is planned in a real movie.

THanks again,

Dennis

There are acting warm-up exercises where you would swing your arms in a way to use both sides of the brain and develop more of your brains ability to (lack of a better way to say it) do more than one thing at a time.  I wish I could explain it in words or describe it easily but I thought I would bring it up....I am sure Youtube would have something and it goes along with the concept of patting your head and rubbing your tummy, however a little more sophisticated.

Daryl H