Puppet Masters
As one of the most primitive, and yet enduring forms of animation, still in vogue today, it would seem churlish to present any discussion on film animation without looking at the people whose first - and often last - love was for marionettes dancing around on strings. Puppetry, of course, goes all the way back to the Greeks, who actually coined the term, which means to draw by means of strings. Puppets would be used to act out plays, or parts in plays where either using human actors was problematic, or to add a sense of surrealism to a scene or even play. There are of course many types of puppets, and while I don’t intend to go into all of them, here are a few of the more popular and, for the purposes of animation, relevant.
Glove puppets
Everyone has seen these, and many of us had them as children. A simple half shape of a person or creature, the base completely open like a pillowcase, into which the hand is inserted and used to operate the puppet, its arms, paws or other appendages usually being moved by the thumb and forefinger. Mostly quite limited, though there have been famously successful examples such as Sooty and Sweep, Basil Brush and of course Punch and Judy.
Carnival or Body puppet
A huge, usually much larger-than-life puppet which is operated by several people, and most often employed in the likes of carnivals, parades or exhibitions.
Human-arm puppet
Operated by two people, one of whom is concerned with the head movements and one arm, the other takes care of the other arm. The most famous of these would of course be the Muppets.
Marionette, or String puppet
The most common form, and the one most of us will be familiar with as actual puppets. As the name suggests, they are simply operated, by one person pulling and manipulating the strings attached to their limbs, usually from above. These makes for jerky, non-realistic motions, which is part of the charm and attraction of marionettes. They’re not meant to look or act like people; they are quite clearly puppet representations. There is generally a painted face, no movement whatever of the features, the action centring usually on dancing, walking and other movements involving the arms and legs, and occasionally the turning of a head, though not much more.
Rod puppet
A rod puppet is a puppet constructed around a central rod secured to the head. A large glove covers the rod and is attached to the neck of the puppet. A rod puppet is controlled by the puppeteer moving the metal rods attached to the hands of the puppet (or any other limbs) and by turning the central rod secured to the head. Some of the Muppets, including Kermit and Miss Piggy, are rod puppets.
Shadow puppet
A cut-out figure which is held between a source of light and a translucent screen. Shadow puppets tend to be one-dimensional, flat creations. The practice is very popular in Japan and other Asian countries, usually accompanied by music and narration.
Supermarionation
Pioneered by Gerry Anderson (and possibly used solely by him) in shows such as
Thunderbirds and
Fireball XL5, this process involves marionettes which have electronically controlled heads to allow for realistic speech and movement of mouth and eyes. The heads on these puppets tend to be rather disproportionate to their bodies.
Ventriloquist’s Dummy
A puppet operated by hand and on which the movement of the mouth, sometimes eyes, is exaggerated as the idea is to give the illusion that the puppet is speaking, while the ventriloquist’s mouth (if he or she is any good) remains still.
In medieval times, and further back, puppets would perform upon a stage, often a mobile one which could “tour” villages, and act out historical, comic or tragic plays, singing, dancing and perhaps fighting among themselves. The best known example of the last is Punch and Judy, where children would delight to the antics of Mr. Punch as he knocked seven bells out of his wife Judy. Very appropriate for kids indeed. Puppets allowed performers to display the more fantastical elements of drama, bringing strange or mythological creatures onstage, or allowing, for instance, a character to have two heads or a face on both front and back. These sort of things heightened the fantasy and enjoyment of the play.
“Puppetry is not animation” - Tess Martin, Animationworld, 17 August 2015.
I disagree with the above statement. Of course, Ms. Martin is an animator and I am not, so her opinion would be expected to carry more weight than mine, someone who finds it hard to animate himself enough to get out of bed most mornings. Nevertheless, and not to do Ms. Martin any injustice, let’s look at her argument, or rather, that of the creator of the film which engendered the above quote, and her response. An email from the director stated that “I think puppet films fall between the cracks of what is strictly defined as an 'animated film.’ The characters are being ‘animated’ in realtime by the hand of a human performer, and for this reason, I consider it to be animation.”
Ms. Martin replied that "While I respect this attitude and am grateful to Mr. McTurk for being game for this discussion, I consider this definition of 'animation' to be too broad. Just because something is 'brought to life' does not automatically make it animation. If that were the case one could say that an actor bringing his character to life is also animation. Anything that is not documentary could be called animation."
Here is where I have a problem with that, in her own words, too broad definition. When she talks about actors bringing their characters to life being animation, I think that is the very point she’s missing. Actors, or actresses, bring THEIR character to life, not someone else’s. They’re playing a part, yes, a part written (almost always) by someone else, but it’s them that is bringing that character to life. We identify “Dirty” Harry Callahan with only one person, Harrison Ford IS Han Solo and so on. This, to me, is not the same as puppetry, because puppets are, well, not alive.
That might seem a very obvious thing to say, but I think it’s important. An actor or actress is alive (though some you would wonder - shut up) and so has the power to “animate”, if you insist, their character, but they don’t do this by pulling strings or manipulating images. They do it through their own actions, their facial expressions, their words, their looks, their emotions. In short, they use the medium of their own bodies to do this. They bring the character they play to life. Puppeteers, on the other hand, use a non-living creation to give a character that they have written life, of a sort. The puppet has no input into how or why or when it is used; it is merely a tool, is not alive, has no opinion or view on how it “acts”. This all has to be conveyed by the puppeteer, and to some extent the writer, if both are not the same.
Bringing a character to life via the motions of a puppet is, to me, far, far different from bringing it to life by how you speak or move or walk or emote with your own body. The puppet is essentially anonymous: though created likely for one role, it could theoretically fulfill many, if dressed differently or painted differently or changed in subtle ways. An actor can do that too of course, but only with their own input. Nobody took John Wayne and said “no he’s not working as a cowboy, let’s make him an Indian instead” or whatever. You get the picture.
So personally I have to say I would definitely consider puppetry to be animation. Different to drawing or films of course, but still a form of animation. If you needed further proof of its validity as animation, you only have to look at the scores of animators across the world who started off by manipulating simple, or complex, puppets before moving on to what we (and Ms. Martin surely) would call “proper” animation.
So let’s do that now.
Arthur Melbourne-Cooper: lauded as one of the godfathers of animation, we’ve seen his superb
Dreams of Toyland, made in 1908, where the toys in a child’s bedroom come to life and have a grand old time. Tell me that’s not animation!
Edwin Stanton-Porter: We haven’t covered him, as he doesn’t seem to have made, again what we will allow as “real” animation, but he directed a puppet animation (the word is used in Badazzi’s book, which possibly proves or maybe slightly dilutes my point) called
The “Teddy” Bears, which was well received, in 1907.
Emile Cohl: We did cover him, and extensively. He also worked with puppets before graduating to drawn animation, and indeed his last film was
Fantoche cherche un logement (The Puppet Looks for Lodging, 1921.
Howard S. Moss, working in Chicago, was a specialist in puppet animation (again the words are used concurrently).
Willis O’Brien, one of the first innovators of what would become claymation, worked extensively with puppets.
Charles Bowers, the one who seemingly cheated Raoul Barre, also worked a lot with puppets.
Earl Hurd, who created Bobby Bump, created the
Pen and Ink Vaudeville Sketches, an entire puppet theatre production.
Bob Clampett, who helped make
Looney Tunes such a success, was a keen puppeteer.
Len Lye made a puppet film,
Birth of a Robot.
Bogdan Zoubowitch, a Russian ex-pat, created his
Histoire Sans Paroles as a puppet animation.
I could go on, but it would probably just get boring. What do you mean, you’re already bored? Well don’t worry; we’re leaving it at that. The point is that I believe, with all due respect to Tess Martin and her opinion of them, that puppets very definitely can be accepted as a form of animation, in some ways the oldest and truest form of the art. Too many animators have worked with them either before, during or after their animation career (by which I mean, of course, their cartoon career - drawing, filming etc) for them to be pushed to the side and regarded as second-class. I realise this is not what Ms. Martin is doing, and she says she has great admiration for puppeteers, as should anyone: it can’t be easy to do that and do it well. But though she denies it, I can’t help wondering at the fact that her own film was beaten by the puppet one for an award, and asking if her beef is truly rooted in selfless discourse?
Or is she just someone’s puppet? Sorry.