Hello,
I just bought a marionette on Tony Sinnett shop http://companyofmarionettes.com/

My puppet is Dancing Mouse (with 7 strings) :

http://companyofmarionettes.com/wooden-carved-marionettes/dancing-mouse-marionette

I am a novice.
I would like to work a lot to reach that sort of dance :








My controller is vertical with seven strings. On these videos, i think their control are horizontal with detachable parts.

In your opinion, with what kind of control (vertical or horizontal) will be better to reach these results ?
Or are these controllers the same with training ?
Which control is better to give to the puppet the greater freedom of movement ?
So :  horizontal or vertical ? Which detachable parts (legs ? or arms ?) ?
Advice me please.

Note that on my marionette, this is like that :
-2 strings (detachable) for the hands
2 strings for the head
1 string for the back (detachable)
2 strings for legs (on a stick rotative, non detachable)

I put a picture on my flickr, so you can see the marionette and the controller and advice me...

Here is the link :







Thank you !

PS : sorry for my approximative english, i am from France.

Problem with pictures : please go directly here :

www.flickr.com/photos/ndollmann/

And see 3 last pictures.
Thnaks

I personally prefer a horizontal control or airplane control.  I think it offers more range of movement. I like to be able to remove the leg bar in performance.

Bonjour ...I am not an expert but just looking at those vids ..... the leg movements are done with a detachable leg bar which offers more flexibility for movement (legs can easily be moved independantly or together).
I'm sure Tony does actually sell a vertical controller with a detachable leg bar too.
Ian

Thanks for your replies.
I think I'll change myself the vertical controller in horizontal controller with detachable part for legs.
Do you know a website where I can find a controller for 7 strings?
Or a website to have a construction plan?
Or is there posts on this forum to explain how to make a horizontal controller?
Thanks to help me

http://puppetsandstuff.com/2008gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=7005&g2_serialNumber=2

This is a 9 thread vertical control. the leg control is detachable.

Hope this helps

Just as an update, Nicholas contacted me and I sent him an airplane style controller with detachable leg bar.

It's always a tricky one as here (UK) most people use upright controllers but sometimes for performance horizontal is preferred.

Tony,
Thank you for chiming in on this. I am glad you where able to accommodate Nicholas. You'll have to drop by the introduction area and let folks know more about you and your work. I checked your website and you've done some amazing work.

Thank you Shawn, I will do.
I have done other work which I either can't mention (NDA's etc) or I haven't got round to adding yet but I have been lucky enough to work on some nice projects.

Hate those NDA's, they ruin all our fun.   For those who are not familiar with NDA it stands for Non-disclosure agreement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement  Pretty common in the entertainment field.  I've even had to sign them for working in areas of stuff where there was really nothing to disclose.