Tutorial 3

This was another enlightening and helpful tutorial, which helped me understand how the essay might take shape, and how my own practice is integral to shaping the question, as well as further practitioners it may be helpful to investigate.

Begin to segue into stop motion at the end of chapter 1

There should be a heavy emphasis on my practice to help define my questions.

Case study doesn’t have to be an entire chapter, can write about one of each 500 words. Compare and contrast? Plan B. Find out who in Handspring built the Warhorse puppets, try and speak to them directly. Talk to Mackinnon & Saunders – try and identify the guy who spoke to us last, who showed us the corpse bride mechanism. Better information than talking to the company heads.

Modern technology – used for both stop motion and puppetry. An idea for a case study?

Did anything come out of puppet masters?

Nenagh Watson – when does an object become alive? Dead puppets. 

Augmenting armature kits with other materials

Look for stop motion animation which reveals the mechanics of the armature

How might I bring Brechtian theory into stop motion, revealed mechanics. How might this impact the set design, rough concept…Barry Purves, set should mirror the materials of the puppet.

Bringing theatre aestherics to stop motion.

It’s not magic it’s all work.

Don’t spend too much time on the uncanny or animism. My emphasis is on craft and materials.

Also, although I had hoped to extend this investigation beyond stop motion, to encompass cinematic uses of puppetry, such as in Star Wars and Jurassic Park (animatronics), and into CGI, it is becoming apparent that this topic is so broad, with so many different facets, that I have given myself too much to work with, and it would be best to concentrate solely upon theatrical and stop motion forms of puppetry.