Dolls | |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Dolls is a British short film written and directed by Susan Luciani, narrated by Charles Dance and starring Joanna Lumley and Denis Lawson. Broadcast on BBC and Sky TV, the film was officially selected to play in International film festivals Spain, Italy, France, Cyprus, Africa and Japan and the United States. It was also shown at Roguerunner Screenings and at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was selected to feature as part of the British Society of Cinematographers' New Film Maker Night at Pinewood Studios.
Inspired by a story that appeared in a 1950s newspaper, the film shows a year in the life of a young girl, Mouche. Deemed too skinny to make a living at the Moulin Rouge, Mouche is cast out and saved from suicide by a group of puppets travelling from town to town performing street puppet shows.
She joins them on their journey and together they become attraction, earning more money than they previously made. The puppets become Mouche's beloved family, yet behind them lurks a cruel and abusive man who is desperately in love with her. "It would have all been so perfect if not for the puppeteer." Mouche must choose to stay for the love of the puppets, or leave to escape the wrath of the puppeteer.
Punch and Judy is a traditional puppet show featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy. The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically the anarchic Mr. Punch and one other character who usually falls victim to the intentional violence of Punch's slapstick. First appearing in England in 1662, Punch and Judy was called by The Daily Telegraph "a staple of the British seaside scene". The various episodes of Punch comedy—often provoking shocked laughter—are dominated by the clowning of Mr. Punch.
Flower Pot Men is a British programme for young children produced by BBC Television. It was first transmitted in 1952, and repeated regularly for more than twenty years. A remake of the programme called Bill and Ben was aired in 2001.
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack.
Lili is a 1953 American film released by MGM. It stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, and was also entered in the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. It was later adapted for the stage under the title Carnival! (1961).
Louise Gold is an English puppeteer, actress and singer. Her long career has included puppetry on television and roles in musical theatre in the West End, as well as other television, film and voice roles.
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms of theatres or entertainment venues. They have also been used in films and on television. The attachment of the strings varies according to its character or purpose.
Howdy Doody is an American children's television program that was created and produced by Victor F. Campbell and E. Roger Muir. It was broadcast on the NBC television network in the United States from December 27, 1947, until September 24, 1960. It was a pioneer of children's programming and set the pattern for many similar shows. One of the first television series produced at NBC in Rockefeller Center, in Studio 3A, it pioneered color production in 1956 and NBC used the show to promote color television sets in the late 1950s.
Bunraku is a form of traditional Japanese puppet theatre, founded in Osaka in the beginning of the 17th century, which is still performed in the modern day. Three kinds of performers take part in a bunraku performance: the Ningyōtsukai or Ningyōzukai (puppeteers), the tayū (chanters), and shamisen musicians. Occasionally other instruments such as taiko drums will be used. The combination of chanting and shamisen playing is called jōruri and the Japanese word for puppet is ningyō. It is used in many plays.
William Britton "Bil" Baird was an American puppeteer of the mid- and late 20th century. He and his puppets performed for millions of adults and children. One of his better known creations was Charlemane the lion. He and his wife Cora Eisenberg Baird (1912–1967) produced and performed the famous puppetry sequence for "The Lonely Goatherd" in the film version of The Sound of Music. His son Peter Baird was also a puppeteer, and he continued his family's legacy until his own death in July 2004.
The Great Space Coaster is a children's television show that was broadcast in first-run syndication from 1981 to 1986.
Oobi is an American children's television series produced by Little Airplane Productions for the Noggin channel. The show's concept is based on a training method used by puppeteers, in which they use their hands and a pair of glass eyes instead of a full puppet. The main character is a bare hand puppet named Oobi. The first season was a series of two-minute shorts. For its second and third seasons, it became a long-form series, with episodes lasting 13 minutes each. The show originally aired from 2000 to February 11, 2005, with reruns continuing until March 18, 2013.
Terri Hardin Jackson is an American puppeteer, artist, and former Disney imagineer.
Slappy the Dummy is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the Goosebumps children's series by R. L. Stine. He is the main antagonist of the Night of the Living Dummy saga and one of the series' most popular villains, as well as its mascot. He is also the main antagonist of the franchise's film adaptation and its sequel, described by their interpretation of Stine as having a "serious Napoleonic complex" in the former. He comes alive when the words, "Karru Marri Odonna Loma Molonu Karrano," which roughly translates to "You and I are one now" and can be found on a sheet of paper in the coat pocket of Slappy's jacket, are read aloud. After being brought to life, Slappy will try to make the person who did so serve him as a slave, to the point of framing them for his misdeeds.
Marcus Clarke is a British puppeteer and voice actor from Nottinghamshire. He is best known as the puppeteer and voice actor behind the BAFTA-winning CITV series Bookaboo and the principal puppeteer of Audrey II in the 1986 version of Little Shop of Horrors. Clarke has worked as a puppeteer in over 60 television series and has created a similar number of puppets. He was also a puppeteer and voice actor in two Muppet feature films and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Warrick Brownlow-Pike is a British puppeteer. He is best known for performing the character "Gonger" on Sesame Street and its spinoff series The Furchester Hotel and Dodge T Dog on the CBeebies Channel.
Sooty is a British children's television media franchise created by Harry Corbett incorporating primarily television and stage shows. The franchise originated with his fictional glove puppet character introduced to television in The Sooty Show in 1955. The main character, Sooty, is a mute yellow bear with black ears and nose, who is kind-hearted but also cheeky. Sooty performs magic tricks and practical jokes, and squirts his handler and other people with his water pistol. The franchise itself also includes several other puppet characters who were created for television, as well as an animated series, two spin-off series for the direct-to-video market, and a selection of toy merchandising.
A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in ancient Greece.
Mongrels is a British puppet-based musical situation comedy series first broadcast on BBC Three between 22 June and 10 August 2010, with a making-of documentary entitled "Mongrels Uncovered" broadcast on 11 August 2010. A second and final series of Mongrels began airing on 7 November 2011.
Hunter × Hunter: Phantom Rouge is a 2013 Japanese animated feature film based on the Hunter × Hunter manga series by Yoshihiro Togashi. It follows the four main characters, Gon, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio as they face a dangerous individual who once was a member of their greatest enemies, the criminal organization known as the Phantom Troupe.
Anomalisa is a 2015 American adult stop-motion psychological comedy-drama film directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson and written by Kaufman. It is based on a 2005 audio play by Kaufman that explores the Fregoli delusion. Anomalisa follows the British middle-aged customer service expert Michael Stone, who perceives everyone as identical except for Lisa Hesselman, whom he meets in a Cincinnati hotel.