A playful participatory workshop programme focusing on performing puppets for camera with Muriel Ann Macleod.

These advanced skills workshops will examine specialized puppetry skills for bringing arm puppets with mechanisms to life for filming (Cinema or TV). The workshops will cover areas like puppet design, puppet focus, lip synch,  puppet movement and expression,  rods and live hands,  improvisation,  Puppet character development, improvised script content and the voice of the puppet.

Participants will work with several practice puppet characters (practice arm puppets designed by Muriel Ann Macleod  inspired by the Henson legacy and partial marionette) to develop the individual puppets personality, voice and movement. Techniques for performing to camera and interacting puppets with live performers for camera will be explored. These techniques carry over into animation of objects and building creature characters. The course is designed for actors and animators who have an interest in developing unique, quirky puppet characters for screen -puppet film and animation.

Session 1:  Saturday 25^th January 2025 11am to 1.30pm

A introduction to arm puppets how they are built and function. Hands on puppet exercises puppet focus and eyeballs. Lip synch and basic puppet movement techniques to practice.

Session 2:  Saturday 1^st February 2025 11am to 1.30pm

Performing to camera techniques for arm puppets, Operating rods and live hands and  expanding the dynamic of the puppet. Creating the puppet’s individual personality and puppet interaction within the group.

Session 3: Saturday 15^th February 2025 11am to 1.30pm

Improvisation with puppets, developing  script content for characters. Refining techniques, recognising focus and engagement from film clips.

Session 4: Saturday 1^st March 2025 11am to 1.30pm

Developing storytelling, puppet emotion techniques and expressions,  developing the potential of the individual puppet, puppeteer imagination.

Session 5 :  Saturday 15^th March 2025 11am to 1.30pm

Refining performance to camera, possibilities and ideas. Each participant will perform a practice puppet to camera with their own devised character performance. (Film clips will be produced for the participants).

Tutor Information:

Muriel Ann Macleod is a theatre and film Director and Producer based in Renfrewshire.  She first trained in Puppetry with Ultimate Animates  in London through an EU funded Puppetry trans region collaboration on the  Gaelic Broadcast programme Mire Mara in the 1990s. Since then she has run her own puppet design company Geas in the Outer Hebrides where she produced film & theatre puppets and creature builds with willow and papier mache techniques for various film, theatre and Island Carnival events between 2000 and  2018, including the Nomadic Carnival for Change project with Teatermaskinen in rural Sweden in 2017.  Current puppet builds include a series of unique Hebridean puppet characters for a new short film project.  The arm puppets used in the workshops were designed and built by Muriel Ann for practice and character development.