One of the guest entertainers with us until tomorrow is a man named Michael Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld is an actor, puppeteer, ventriloquist and comedian. A day or two earlier I had seen his show and found it funny, so when I saw that he was doing a special 'behind the scenes' look at the puppetry techniques used in Star Wars and Sesame Street among many others, I thought it would be worthwhile taking a look.

It was a very interesting show as he explained how puppetry has evolved from the old school marionettes where the operator stood behind a screen to the multi person puppets used in modern day TV and film . We even got to see some test footage from his work on the Love Guru and indie film the Ventriloquist.

One of the more surprising things he told us was that in most productions where puppets are primarily used (such as Sesame Street and the Muppets) is that the background set is set about 5 feet off the ground. This allows the puppets to connect to the camera and move around the set in a way that lets the viewer forget that there are people underneath and operating it.

This eye contact with the camera/audience is an approach the Jim Henson (aka founder of the Muppets) started and further developed. As was the use of TV monitors to give the puppeteers an idea of what the view will see.

To demonstrate how important this skill is, Michael got a couple of passengers up on stage to practice doing hand puppets with two ping pong balls glued to a rubber band and with eyes drawn on them.

The idea was that the passengers would use the TV monitor and their puppet hand to count to seven. The key thing they needed to remember is that their puppet’s mouth should move for each syllable. They kind of got the idea. The final performance was of the passengers and Michael ‘singing’ staying alive, with hand choreography. All went well until they needed to sway in time with each other, then it was chaos.

Fun fact:
In the original Return of the Jedi, Jabba the Hutt was operated by several puppeteers – One to control the electronics that move his eyes and does the facial expression, one for his tongue, head and left arm, one for his right arm and mouth, one for his tail and I think another person who assisted the person working the tail.