I split your topic off and moved it to Open Discussion. There is a link when you are in an area to the far right at the top of the list of topics that allows you to Post a new topic.  

I noticed you mentioned in the topic about "real jobs" that you are a paralegal or legal assistant... is that right?  I would bet you would know better what a contract needs to be. I guess maybe more then anything you are interested to know what types of terms and conditions may be specific to puppet build. For one you should always require a percentage up front that would at the very least cover cost of materials with the remainder do on completion of the puppet. I personally would never send the puppet off to the client without having full payment. Clients often keep changing their mind about what they actually want in a puppet so limiting the number of changes they can make to a design should be addressed. It is important I think to have the time frame established of when the puppet needs to be completed and delivered.

All that being said I think many puppeteers work without an actual written contract. I know most of the projects I've worked on have been that way.

Never heard of it. Since Avenue Q has now been released for use by others I think maybe this would be fine. If you compare the puppets to the originals you can see that they are not actually duplicates of the original characters. I don't see that this is any different then what Swazzel is doing renting Audry to people doing "Little Shop of Horrors".

No one thinks anything of all the Costume Rental houses that rent costumes to do shows. In fact one of them I work with here in Kansas City has show packages that never get rented to the general public but only to theaters doing the show. They even have their own version of Disneys "Bueaty and The Beast" and it is all up front and legit.

I think it is a great idea since there seems to be a whole bunch of theaters wanting to do this that just won't have the resources to build or purchase puppets for the production.

P.S. I emailed Russ to see if he had any thoughts on this. Maybe hell join and chime in or email me back with a comment.

Hey Meg!  Good to hear from you!  Don't be such a stranger.

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff jamesdylan. Tell us more about yourself. Did you make the puppet in the video?

Na,
I was thinking the other day that it might be nice to do a post on "Basic Skill Sets". In other words what types of classes or workshops that could be taken that people may not even realize are part of puppet making. I was trying to think back to when I was a young pup and the classes I had in school that where not particularly puppet related but did in the long run give me a good foundation that allowed me to make puppets. 

I have no idea if schools offer it now but when I was young there was what was called "Home Economics". At the time it was seen as a "girls" class but it really did teach fundamentals that I think are helpful in puppet making. Sewing is obvious but you also learned how to cook and cooking takes following a recipe. Think of all the recipes that a puppet maker has to follow, in fact a pattern is much like a recipe.

I had some pretty decent schools that I went to when I was young. They offered wood class (a guys class) which is a skill set needed often in puppetry even if you are not going to carve out of wood.

They also had art and craft classes.  One craft class was jewelry making. Learned the concepts of mold making  along with how to form metal. Learned concepts in art class about proportions of the human face and body. Granted I can't always remember the calculations for that but I know about them and how to get to them when I need them.

Speech and debate goes a long way to prepare you to be on a stage. I was lucky in high school that we actually had a drama department those subjects where expanded on even more but I think even those that don't often still have classes in at least debate or have a debate team that meets after school.

Music. Every school I know of has some time of music program even if it is just band so they can play at football games.

I don't know if there is really something there for you to use but like I said the idea was on my mind the other day and your request seems to kind of fit right in to it. Part of being a Professional means you need to have training and experience right? 

Never seen it or even heard of it but it really looks good! I don't think I have ever seen any that Jody Foster was involved in that I did not like.

gompie,
You should make a deal with Na to translate all her e-books so she can have a wider market to sell to.

Very nice! What is the shoe made of? How did you get the great paisley design on the upper tier?

Do you have links to the parrots you have found that you do like?  Maybe that would give us some place to start with ideas on how you can attain the same cost effectively. My first thought actually was starting with perhaps the Glorified Sock Puppet pattern but since you mentioned you didn't want it to look like a stuffed toy that may not work.

Can't wait to see your puppet. Even if you are having issues with the puppet working you could take pictures of the problem areas and maybe we could help.