Puppet Size

Very often the size of a character will determine what type of puppet it will be. Sometimes different versions of the same character will be designed and built, depending on the demands of the script.

For example, in The Magic Meadow, a short I wrote and directed, I needed a bear to interact with an ant. The bear was built as a large moving-mouth hand puppet. I designed two versions of the ant, one as a hand puppet and the other as a small rod puppet. The hand puppet was fully articulated and played mostly in close-up. The rod puppet was used when the two characters were in the same shot together. The rod puppet had limited movement but helped convey the ant's proper size.

I also designed and built a small rod puppet of the bear, but you'll have to watch the short to see why.