Performing Puppets on Film

While I am primarily a visual and performance artist who uses puppetry and performing objects, from time to time I work in puppetry for film, television and the web – on other people’s music videos, pitches, commercials, and films.

On these projects, I  have experience animating robotic servo-controlled puppet faces for “Team America-style” marionettes, hand-mouth “Muppet-style” puppets, marionettes, toy theatre style puppets and other harder to categorize kinetic objects. Here are some examples:

Dave Made
A Maze

2017

In Dave Made A Maze, a frustrated artist must be rescued by his friends from a bloodthirsty Minotaur in a supernatural world of  the cardboard fort he built in his living room. For this film, giant oragami cranes in one of the rooms of the maze.

Gender Is
A Construct

2016

For Gender is a Construct, Do-Si-Doa Funny or Die video that received “immortal” status, I was an associate producer and puppeteer. As associate producer, I  advised the production on shooting for puppetry and helped assemble a team of puppeteers. In Gender is a Construct, the caller of a puppet square dance struggles with the modern politics of gender and sexual identity.

Speed Police 

2014

In TaylorMade’s “Stakeout” and “The Pull Over” commercials, I operated the faces of “Team America” style marionettes in the likeness of professional golfers with with radio controlled servos.

The Kickstarter Song

2013

In The Kickstarter Song, a satyrical music video that poked fun at the underbelly of crowdfunding, I performed hand-mouth puppets for the camera.

Not Alone

2012

In the official music video for Ben Taylor’s Not Alone,   I performed marionette-controlled sock puppets. Not Alone, directed by Trish Sie (Pitch Perfect 3), follows a lonely sock who searches everywhere for a soulmate.  Not Alone, was released online and twice screened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for their Puppets on Film series.

Calling Occupants

2010

I was one of the puppeteers in Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, a puppet film directed by Tim Lagasse and Martin P. Robinson. In Calling Occupants, a music assembly in which school children attempt to contact extra-terestrial life goes horribly wrong. Calling Occupants was created during the 2010 National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center.  

Bottle Stopper Project

2008

I operated toy theatre style puppets (hand carved Sicilian bottle stoppers) and assisted as set decorator. In the Bottle Stopper Project, life is good in an Italian bar until there is a break in reality.

Stuck
at Sea

2008

In the official music video for Honorary Title’s Stuck at Sea, I operated hard to categorize puppets (walking letters of the alphabet where the puppeteers were hidden in high contrast much like a green screen).

The Circus

2007

For The Circus, an eBaysodeTM (a pitch for eBay), I animated objects (bears on spinning balls, members of a monkey band, and other assorted toys).

Winter Windows

2007

For the official music video for Sea Wolf’s Winter Windows I animated the leaves of a forrest, and operated some hard to categorize puppets (including  flying books, a spinning globe that transforms into a feline, a table that transforms into some sort of mammal, and a suitcase that transforms into a turtle).

EDUCATION 

Beyond my MFA degree at CalArts in puppetry and object theater, I have also trained for five years with the Jim Henson Company on hand-mouth style on-camera improv and puppetry and for 11 years at the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center during which I gained experience with table-top puppetry.