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Miniature Sets for TV marionettes

Good day to all.

We were comisioned to do a childrens TV production. we have worked on pleny puppet projects before and thought we need to up our craft a notch. We pitched the idea of marionettes and miniature table sets, and maybe some stop motion filming. The problem is that we have never done this before in this format. Any help in this regard will be much apresiated. How big? how do you manipulate? how do you approuch the set building? please help us or point us in some direction. We will have to research this till we get it 100% right.

Thank you..

Danie

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Permalink Reply by Asa Nodelman on August 3, 2010 at 2:17am

Wow, sounds like fun. A lot of answers to the questions that you've asked should be dependent on what the characters are supposed to do, so make sure you have a really good idea of the show that's being produced. I've worked at three different scales, but find that a puppet 28" tall gives a nice balance between visibility, ease of manipulation, and ease of construction. Of course, even simple marionettes tend to be more complicated than other kinds of puppets. There are many, many different kinds of controllers for marionettes, and which one you choose will determine how the puppet is manipulated. There are some basics, though, and most books about marionette construction include a section on manipulation. I recommend finding a copy of The Marionette Sourcebook by Luman Coad to get a good grounding in both manipulation and construction. As far as the sets go, there are two basic things that you should remember: The first is that the puppeteers need to be able to reach an area of the set, and their arms are only so long. It's not good to be stretching your arms to their limit for a long time, so making the scenic area and the puppeteer area close together is wise. The other thing is that puppets and puppeteers are always connected together by strings, so if a marionette is going to pass through a doorway, it can't have a lintel. You could make doors with removable lintels so that you could film the puppets in front of them, but that's up to you.

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Permalink Reply by David Syrotiak on August 3, 2010 at 9:50pm

We usually go with characters between 21" for a child up to about 30" for a tall man. The Marionette Source Book is a great resource. As far as sets go, I'd recommend that you build the scenery like a model builder would build models. The TV camera will pick up all the little flaws so you have to build clean. An overhead bridge structure over the set would be ideal with the set pieces that the marionettes come in contact with being placed where they can reach them. All other scenic elements should be placed under the bridge to keep them out of the way of the marionettes. Remember you have about a 24" acting area in front of the bridge to work with. Most puppeteers can't manipulate the figures any further out than 24" comfortably. Also, make sure you have REALLY sturdy railings on the bridge. The puppeteers will thank you for it.

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Permalink Reply by Phillip Huber on August 7, 2010 at 10:44am

For most of my film work, I found 24" scale marionettes to work best. I did reduce the scale to 20" in the last film because I had to make a Roosevelt Elk puppet that was in scale to the human figures and I did not want to have the elk larger than 36" because of weight & space. I actually found the 20" figures to be very expressive & the sets were smaller & less expensive to build for the production company.
Sets should have removable walls for the various camera angles. It is not necessary to work from a bridge. The puppeteers can stand behind walls & flats & work over them. The shorter the strings on the marionettes - the more direct the control of the movements.
You must remember to "marionette proof" all your props, furniture & sets. Avoid having protrusions that could catch strings or put "guard" strings across them.