This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2019) |
Years active | Early 1900s till now |
---|---|
Influences | Animation, live-action film, horror film, comedy, fantasy film |
Influenced | Puppetry |
Puppet film develops on the basis of traditional puppetry. It is in the form of a film that the main characters are puppets. Puppets' limbs are controlled by people and their mouths usually does not move frequently. The height of a puppet is approximately 20 centimeters and the background is a model which fits the size of the puppet. The film is shot by grid-by-frame photography. Puppet film starts around 1900s. Between 1930s and 1980s, most genres of puppet films are comedy and animation. There are some famous magnum opus such as Thunderbirds series and The Dark Crystal . After 1980s, many horror puppet films appeared such as Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich. Compared to other films, puppet film focuses more on characters' movements and the main audiences are children and teenagers. More and more reality elements are added into puppet film in recent years.
The first puppet film " Dolly's Toys " is shown in 1902. [1] It is also the first puppet animation in history. [1] It is inspired by puppetry and uses puppets as main characters in the films.
In Europe, Great Britain creates the earliest series of puppet films in 1900s. [1] After 1920s, many great puppet films appears among different European countries, such as Germany's "Eva and Grasshopper"(1928), Poland's "For Pete's Sake"(1966) and France's "Frags Who Wanted a King"(1923). [1] The main genre is comedy.
In the USA, puppet film starts from 1910s. Similar to Europe, puppets in the films are controlled by strings which are usually hidden under the ground. [1] Puppet film is popular in Hollywood from the beginning. [2] Many special effects are added into the films. In 1979, director James Frawley create the first live-action film in the USA and the film is the start of the famous "Muppet Series". [3]
In Asia, puppetry is more popular than puppet films. In the middle of 20th centuries, some Asian countries starts putting puppets into their animation films. In 1953, China creates its first puppet animation film Emperor's Dream . It is one of the earliest puppet films in Asia according to the current research.
Similar to Puppetry, all kinds of the puppets in the early 20th centuries are controlled by hands working. [4] However, Not every puppet can be used in a film. [5] While puppets in the puppetry perform in front of the stage, puppets in puppet films are recorded frame-by- frame by a camera. The puppets' height are usually around 30 centimetres. [6] Their heads are made of wood, plastics or moulded rubber. [1] To turn a puppet into a live character in the film, facial expression is crucial. Puppets‘ facial features are usually moveable so that they can behave like talking or sleeping A few puppets use plain face with repainted features to show the changes of characters' feelings. [1] Moreover, Some studios will prepare different heads for puppets and changes them during the production process. [1] Puppets also have three types of bodies. They are distinguished by the materials which have been mentioned above. After the invention of CGI, [7] some puppets uses CGI and create more fantastic effect. The alien in the film E.T is a good example. [4]
The scale of the scene is followed by the size of the puppets. [1] To make such a scene, many small items are used in the beginning of puppet film, such as stones, sticks and boxes. [1] A close-up shot is always used to make audiences focus more on characters' movements instead of the rough background. [8] In the meantime, effects like earthquake are required in the puppet film. [1] The setting needs more solid material. But considering the reflection of light on the object will cause unnecessary shine, the studios usually use flat enamel and lacquer. [1]
As the scene of puppet film is smaller than the real world, errors are easily expanded. So when setting the lighting, special equipment will be used. Halogen lamps are common devices in puppet films. [1] The Halogen lighting unit is "small, lightweight and high mobile". [1] Also, spotlights are set in the smallest position so that the extra light will be avoided. [1]
Compare to cartoon or animation, it is much more difficult to add dialogues into puppet films. [1] The timing must be critical as the sound is recorded before the movements. [1] It is hard to catch the puppets' mouth movements in every sentence. So the studios prefer to eliminate the conversation in. the early puppet films and add more music and sound effects. [1] The audiences need to derive the meaning by themselves. [1] But with the development of technology, more and more dialogues are added after 1950s. [8]
From 1900s to the early 1970s, most of the puppet films are animation or comedy. After 1970s, the Puppet Master Series changes the mainstream into horror style. Many horror puppet films are created between 1980s and 2000s. The list below includes different types of excellent puppet films at each time.
With the development of technology, stop motion puppetry is discovered in 1900s. Dolly's Toys (1902) is considered as the first puppet film in history. It is made by British film Pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper. It is about a boy's fantasy that all his toys come to life. Arthur Melbourne-Cooper is the creator of the world's first animation films. On the basis of Dolly's Toys, Arthur made another film which is Dreams of Toyland. [1] Two films have similar plots . The story is always around children and their toys.
The Great Gabbo (1929) changes the plot. In this film, a ventriloquist who calls himself the Great Gabbo begins to lose his sense of identity when his only means of expression is through his wooden dummy. As the Great Gabbo begins to rely more and more on his dummy, he begins to go mad. The story is adapted from "Rival Dummy" by Ben Hecht. It brings the puppets to adult's world.
The Czech Year (1947) is directed by Jirí Trnka. Jirí Trnkais an animation director and he used to build an early puppet theatre. The Czech Year is his first feature film. In The Czech Year, It has six stories: "Shrovetide", "Spring", "Legend About St. Prokop", "The Fair", "The Feast" and "Bethlehem". Though the puppet design is simply due to the technology, the story is interesting and is full of life. The director begins to use puppet films to reflect the culture of their countries.
In 1949, Czech director Milos Makovec and Jirí Trnka directed The Emperor's Nightingale . The story is about a Chinese emperor. He prefers the tinkling of a bejewelled mechanical bird to the song of a real nightingale. When the Emperor is near death, a nightingale's song restores his health. In this film, eastern countries' culture is presented through a fairytale. The play shows traditional Chinese lion dance, puppetry, and a pair of tigers and pandas. In the meantime, It has "strong ethical components".[ citation needed ]
Tiny Hero(1953) is the first Chinese colour puppet film. It tells the story that brave children fight against a bad wolf and save other animals in the forest. It is produced by Shanghai Film Studio. Since then, China has created over 136 puppet films.
In the same year, US director Charles Walters made his first puppet film Lili . It is a love story in a carnival. LILI is an orphan. A crippled puppeteer Mel Ferrer treats Lili with contempt. However, he loves LILI. He only expresses his love through talking to his puppets. Lili is a sign of the early drama puppet film.
Thunderbirds Are GO (1966) is the start of the Thunderbird series. It is a science fiction story. The background of the film is in mid-2060s. The setting is in a secret base in the Pacific Ocean. Thunderbirds is a top life-saving organisation and the story. Anywhere in the world which has a serious disaster or accident can be immediately rushed to eliminate by Thunderbirds. It is directed by Gerry Anderson.
Devil Doll (1964) is a British horror puppet film. The main character Vorelli is a ventriloquist and a hypnotist. He owns a magic puppet which can behave like a real man. To get his purpose, he asks the puppet to kill people. A series of mysterious murders begins.The director Lindsay Shonteff is known as making crime thriller films. He puts many thriller elements into the puppet film. It is one of the earliest thriller puppet films.
The Ruka (1965) is also directed by Jirí Trnka. In The Ruka, a huge hand approaches a small happy potter and wants him to sculpt its statue. After the potter refusing his request, he uses different ways to threat him.It is a tragedy in the end. It is the final work of Jirí Trnka and it wins the highest animation award in his country. However, it is too dark and ironic to politics. It almost banned by the Communist Czechoslovakian government at that time.
Mad Monster Party? (1967) is directed by Jules Bass. It is a fantasy story. Dr Frankenstein is retiring from the monster-making business and prepares an election. In the meantime, he discovers an important secret. The background of the film is Halloween and the film is full of interesting monster elements.
Puppet On A Chain (1971) is directed by Geoffrey Reeve. In the film, a U.S agent arrives in Amsterdam to investigate a heroin smuggling ring. The city is out of control and the police is unwilling to deal with it. He has to fight alone with those bad guys. It is an action and thriller puppet film.
The Muppet Movie (1979) is the first film of the Muppet series. The story starts from Frog Kermit who is approached by a Hollywood agent to audition for the chance of a lifetime. In his way to Hollywood, he meets several strange but interesting friends. They get together and a lot of funny things happens. It is directed by James Frawley. In 2004, Disney company purchased the copyright of Muppet Movie and made a new film which was The Muppet (2011).
Though puppetry has a 4000 years history, few people are interested in puppetry nowadays since the story of puppetry is repetitive and the stage setting is too simple compared with modern films. Puppet film innovates in preserving the form of puppetry and combines it with films. Puppet film focuses on the storytelling as the core idea and enriches the character figure. Puppet film creates more fantastic stories and brings people deeper thoughts. Puppet film inherits the culture of puppetry and makes it more suitable for the modern trend.
Many puppet films are animated puppet films. [6] Different from the normal animation, puppet film create a conversation between human and non-human. It produces many fantastic ideas for animation industries.
Furthermore, Puppet film motivates a new element in horror film. From the Puppet Master Series, more and more puppets appear as evil and horrible elements in modern films. Dead Silence is a good example.
The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an absurdist, burlesque, and self-referential style of variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they are the focus of a media franchise that encompasses television, film, music, and other media associated with the characters. Originally owned by the Jim Henson Company for nearly five decades, the franchise was purchased by the Walt Disney Company in 2004.
Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames is played back. Any kind of object can thus be animated, but puppets with movable joints or plasticine figures are most commonly used. Puppets, models or clay figures built around an armature are used in model animation. Stop motion with live actors is often referred to as pixilation. Stop motion of flat materials such as paper, fabrics or photographs is usually called cutout animation.
Supermarionation is a style of television and film production employed by British company AP Films in its puppet TV series and feature films of the 1960s. These productions were created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed at APF's studios on the Slough Trading Estate. The characters were played by electronic marionettes with a moveable lower lip, which opened and closed in time with pre-recorded dialogue by means of a solenoid in the puppet's head or chest. The productions were mostly science fiction with the puppetry supervised by Christine Glanville, art direction by either Bob Bell or Keith Wilson, and music composed by Barry Gray. They also made extensive use of scale model special effects, directed by Derek Meddings.
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.
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.
Geri's Game is a 1997 American computer-animated short film produced by Pixar and written and directed by Jan Pinkava. The short, which shows an elderly man named Geri who competes with himself in a game of chess, was Pixar's first film to feature a human being as its main character; Geri later made a cameo appearance in Toy Story 2 as "The Cleaner", here voiced by Jonathan Harris instead of Bob Peterson.
Jiří Trnka was a Czech puppet-maker, illustrator, motion-picture animator and film director.
David Charles Goelz is an American puppeteer, puppet builder and actor, known for his work with the Muppets. As part of the Muppets' performing cast, Goelz performs Gonzo the Great, as well as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Waldorf, Zoot and Beauregard, originating on The Muppet Show. Goelz's puppeteering roles also included in Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. Outside of puppeteering work, he was also the voice of Figment in the Journey into Imagination with Figment attraction at Epcot.
The Emperor's Nightingale is a 1949 Czechoslovak stop-motion animated film directed by Jiří Trnka and Miloš Makovec. The film is based on the 1843 fairy tale "The Nightingale" by Hans Christian Andersen. Boris Karloff provides the voice of the narrator in the 1951 American dubbed version. The film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.
Digital puppetry is the manipulation and performance of digitally animated 2D or 3D figures and objects in a virtual environment that are rendered in real-time by computers. It is most commonly used in filmmaking and television production but has also been used in interactive theme park attractions and live theatre.
Karen Leigh Prell is an American puppeteer and animator. She is the performer of Red Fraggle in Fraggle Rock.
Mirsolav Trejtnar is a master puppeteer and teacher of puppetry.
Kihachirō Kawamoto was a Japanese puppet designer and maker, independent film director, screenwriter and animator and president of the Japan Animation Association from 1989, succeeding founder Osamu Tezuka, until his own death. He is best-remembered in Japan as designer of the puppets for the long-running NHK live action television series of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in the early 1980s and The Tale of the Heike in the 1990s but better-known internationally for his own animated short films, the majority of which are model animation but which also include the cutout animation Tabi and Shijin no Shōgai and mixed media, French-language Farce anthropo-cynique.
United Kingdom animation began at the very origins of the artform in the late 19th century. British animation has been strengthened by an influx of émigrés to the UK; renowned animators such as Lotte Reiniger (Germany), John Halas (Hungary), George Dunning and Richard Williams (Canada), Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton have all worked in the UK at various stages of their careers. Notable full-length animated features to be produced in the UK include Animal Farm (1954), Yellow Submarine (1968), Watership Down (1978), and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
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.
Old Czech Legends is a 1953 Czechoslovak stop motion puppet animation film directed by Jiří Trnka. It is based on the 1894 book Ancient Bohemian Legends by Alois Jirásek.
Jim Henson's Creature Shop is a special/visual effects company founded in 1979 by puppeteer Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets. The company is based out of Burbank, California, United States.
Czech animation has been a tradition for over 100 years. Czech animators are considered pioneers in film animation. Czech animation dates back to the 1920s, and its "Golden Era" spans between the 1950s and the 1980s. Notable Czech animators include Jiří Trnka, Karel Zeman, Břetislav Pojar, Jan Švankmajer, Vera Neubauer, Hermína Týrlová, and Jiří Barta. Czech animators have employed cel animation, cutout animation, puppet animation, and clay animation. 3D animation is seldom used due to lack of finances and trained 3D animators. This led to a decline in the years following 1989.
A killer toy is a stock character in horror fiction. They include toys, such as dolls and ventriloquist dummies, that come to life and seek to kill or otherwise carry out violence. The killer toy subverts the associations of childhood with innocence and lack of agency while invoking the uncanny nature of a lifelike toy. Killer toy fiction often invokes ideas of companionship and the corruption of children, sometimes taking place in dysfunctional or single parent homes. They have historically been associated with occultism and spirit possession, though artificial intelligence became more common in later works.