Hello,

Here is a question that makes me crazy : how the hell the Flat Eric puppet can move his fingers that way ?
You can see him in several commercials and the music video Flat Beat (love that

I was told that the fingers would be strings attached digitally removed, but certainly not because he can catch things and release them, moving differently each fingers.
Thus, I think arm rod are digitally removed.


-> He put the tape with two fingers hen with only the index.  Then he puts the monkey toy and clearly release his fingers.


-> 1:50 , he takes a sausage between two fingers, put it in the mouth and grabs it back with his fingers.


-> 0:22 it's the only commercial where you can see arm rod, but again when he pushes the button, the thumb moves.

Give a look at this one :

This must be a system with a certain strenght to grab objects and not let them fall.

But what the hell it is ? 

Maybe something similar to this?
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https://youtu.be/Bu6AL9_aPqA
It could be a little more stable, like this:
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https://youtu.be/VN_kWT6V3Uw

You're right Rikka, this system could have been used.
This kind of shots should be very complicated to synchronize with the movement of the hand, such a headache on the set and impossible to make on stage !

But when I look at Flat Eric pulling the tape with 2 fingers, open the whole hand, then having only the index pulling it again, I can't help to think that it's something else than just someone pulling strings... (or may be yes).

There is such money for commercial that we can imagine a lot !

May be Remote controlled ?

Flat Eric is either animation or if he is "real" I would bet the hands are controlled by computer or circuit board.

Okay, maybe I did get this wrong... but the mechanism and the controlling are two different things? And with a mechanism like that you could control him either way, or not? I was just reminded to the hand control showed in the making of the dark crystal...

I think that Flat Eric is real since he has been built by the Jim Henson Company.
I'll take a look at Dark Crystal Making of, it's seams to be a good lead.
Thanks for noticing it !

It is. Labyrinth, too. Even though I think Dark Crystal might be more helpful since Labyrinth is more oriented on the people, less on the techniques.

Something to remember is that often there is more then one puppet.  It does look like this guy has some control over the hand in the main puppet but some of the shots are close up and it could be just the hand and arm that was built to do the shot. Also when I said computer circuit board, it would still be controlled by person but they would have a control board they used to manipulate the fingers.  

Sure, it may has tree different hands posing that can be presetted before the take, avoiding the control of each fingers.