• Home
• About
• contact

The Number One Goal When Working A Puppet

When it comes to working a puppet there are a lot of things that you have to watch for: proper height, dropping the lower jaw, proper lip sync, eye contact, and more. But what is the number one goal you should have in mind every time you put on a puppet?

The answer is simple. Your number one goal whenever working a puppet should be to make that puppet look as lifelike as possible. You know when you’ve arrived when someone comes up to you and says, “I forgot that they weren’t real.”

Why is this the most important goal? Good question. When putting on a puppet program, the primary thing you want to communicate is your message and the puppets are a tool to convey it to the audience.

The more lifelike your puppet, the more the audience will concentrate on your message. The less lifelike your puppet, the more the audience will focus on your puppet.

When you watch a movie or TV program with great actors what do you focus on, the actors or the story they’re expressing? You focus on the story and you enjoy the program. What if the acting is bad? Even if the program had a great story or content, the bad acting detracts from it and you probably won’t recommend it to your friends.

When performing a puppet program that is teaching timeless truths and principles, how much more important is it that the audience focuses on the message and not the puppets?

I’m not saying that you have to have great puppetry to convey your message, but it sure helps. If you set a goal to make your puppets as lifelike as possible and work to achieve it, you will improve the potential of your message reaching more people.

In the next couple of posts, I’ll talk about steps you can take to reach that goal.

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.