Marionette Control

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Wyohming on June 5, 2008 at 5:10am

That looks really great. Complex but great! Would love to see a video of it in action... its hard to visualise it working with all the bits moving at once.

What sort of wood is it made out of? I wonder if it makes a difference if your hands are smaller (thinking of the gap between where your hand is resting and where your fingers need to be (I only have lickle hands!). Shame i can't 'virtually' have a go on here!

Wy

Permalink Reply by Tony on June 5, 2008 at 5:22am

Its made from Oak but the wooden dowels are probably ramin.
I could make for smaller hands.
It's not as trickly as it seems although I'm still thinking of having a ball joint between head control and main arm to allow even better movement.

You will be able to have a play when you come for a visit, although things still pretty manic and not back in the proper workshop yet.

Permalink Reply by David Hellyer on June 5, 2008 at 11:10am

I can't wait to see one of your puppets "in the flesh". The control looks great. I have been to a couple of Marionette workshops but never tried to perform with them properly.

Permalink Reply by Phillip Huber on May 28, 2009 at 10:51am

This control is very creative & well thought-out. I am assuming that it is only designed for marionettes used in a story show. It would not be appropriate for most variety marionette purposes.

Permalink Reply by Tony on June 11, 2009 at 3:33pm

Hi Phillip,
Yes it's for normal movements no special functions. Fits all human figures and can (with practice) be operated singlehanded.
I've just built a goblin (gollum) type character who crawls around, built a special controller for that, will post pictures when i've perfected it. Working on some carved marionettes for tv at the moment so will be a while before I get to finish it

Read your interview about the 'dance of despair' scene you said you used a basic paddle control mostly. How is that strung? I've seen these used but not close enough to work out how if the head/shoulder bar are not independent of the leg bar that they don't move when the legs are operated. Do you use run through stringing?

Would like to catch one of your shows sometime.

Permalink Reply by Phillip Huber on June 25, 2009 at 12:14pm

Tony, The paddle control in the Malkovich film was designed to create a simple basis of operation that would not tangle even with the quick movements & abrupt actions required by the storyboard. (As you may know the original controls were complex German-style design with seperate hanging hand controllers. This type of control is only appropriate for very slow, plodding movement - no fast action. They easily tangle or even flip their rocking leg bar at the slightest provication.) My paddle design was always used as a 2-handed controller with a seperate leg bar. If a second puppet was moving on screen at the same time, my partner David Alexander was working it. The joy of this simple control is not only its ease of opperation but that it allows great flexibility in the placement of new specialty strings anywhere on its circumference. We frequently had to stop in-between takes to remove or add special strings for subtle changes in the marionette's movement.

I have gone on to use this type control in many other performance applications from TV commercials to live story-show peices. It can be addapted for one handed movement by making the head string as a run-thru with a ring tied to the center that slides back & forth across the top of the control. The leg bar is left velcroed onto the control & rotating the control side to side will produce a decent walk with a very subtle head tilt. When you want to use the leg bar seperately again for dance or extreme body attitude movement the puppeteer must clamp down on the head ring with his thumb to lock it in place. The control then gives precise & full range head movement by applying pressure to the shoulder string located only a few inches behind the sliding head string & easily reached by the last 3 fingers of the hand holding the paddle. Toggles & extra rocking bars can also be added to the basic paddle design. For the film "Legend of Tillamook Gold", I had one puppet that duplicated the hyper-realistic human walk acheived by Bernd Ogrodnik in the film "Strings. I added a raised rocker-bar to the top of the paddle & worked it wih my thumb to lift the heels from behind while the leg bar had 2 angle extensions on the ends to allow the toes to lift & then be placed on the ground following the forward heel placement. If you watch the film "Tillamook" you will see that the "slave" is the only character with this careful complete walk. It was a part of his unique personality.

Permalink Reply by David C. Herzog on June 25, 2009 at 7:57pm

Phillip, I saw the video of you operating Mrs Noah The movement was wonderful. The little dance moves she was doing were very charming. What sort of contrrol did she have?

Permalink Reply by Phillip Huber on June 26, 2009 at 12:48pm

David, she had a very basic airplane control with seperate leg bar. Her only speciality strings were ones pulling her hands to her hips. The other unusual string configuration was cradle strings to hand & lower arm that were on a run-thru.

It was interesting that her original character was that of being a "scold", but after the fire, her face seemed to take on a kind of sad, desperate look.

Permalink Reply by Tony on August 2, 2009 at 5:37pm

Thanks Phillip for the info, i think i understand. I'm always interested in different control mechanisms
I'll have to see if I can get hold of 'Legend of Tillamook Gold" on DVD as I haven't seen that one. Saw it on your website but don't think it got released over here. Going to have to look at ebay

Phillip Huber said:

Tony, The paddle control in the Malkovich film was designed to create a simple basis of operation that would not tangle even with the quick movements & abrupt actions required by the storyboard. (As you may know the original controls were complex German-style design with seperate hanging hand controllers. This type of control is only appropriate for very slow, plodding movement - no fast action. They easily tangle or even flip their rocking leg bar at the slightest provication.) My paddle design was always used as a 2-handed controller with a seperate leg bar. If a second puppet was moving on screen at the same time, my partner David Alexander was working it. The joy of this simple control is not only its ease of opperation but that it allows great flexibility in the placement of new specialty strings anywhere on its circumference. We frequently had to stop in-between takes to remove or add special strings for subtle changes in the marionette's movement.

I have gone on to use this type control in many other performance applications from TV commercials to live story-show peices. It can be addapted for one handed movement by making the head string as a run-thru with a ring tied to the center that slides back & forth across the top of the control. The leg bar is left velcroed onto the control & rotating the control side to side will produce a decent walk with a very subtle head tilt. When you want to use the leg bar seperately again for dance or extreme body attitude movement the puppeteer must clamp down on the head ring with his thumb to lock it in place. The control then gives precise & full range head movement by applying pressure to the shoulder string located only a few inches behind the sliding head string & easily reached by the last 3 fingers of the hand holding the paddle. Toggles & extra rocking bars can also be added to the basic paddle design. For the film "Legend of Tillamook Gold", I had one puppet that duplicated the hyper-realistic human walk acheived by Bernd Ogrodnik in the film "Strings. I added a raised rocker-bar to the top of the paddle & worked it wih my thumb to lift the heels from behind while the leg bar had 2 angle extensions on the ends to allow the toes to lift & then be placed on the ground following the forward heel placement. If you watch the film "Tillamook" you will see that the "slave" is the only character with this careful complete walk. It was a part of his unique personality.

Permalink Reply by FlaCracker on April 11, 2010 at 6:54am

I really like this I should try it out. Thanks

Permalink Reply by Westpuppets on April 11, 2010 at 11:15am

Now this is really interesting. I have always used the fixed wire arm movement. Hmm, free roaming arm control might get much greater range. I have to try this! Thanks. ;-)