Sam Koji Hale is an illustrator, sculptor, puppet designer and builder. He has a master of fine arts in illustration from Academy of Art University in San Francisco and has designed and built puppets for a variety of film, video and theatre productions. His credits include Elf
and Playhouse Disney
's “Clay,” as well as Ahoy Captain Sid
, which earned him two regional Emmy nominations. He received The Kennedy Center Award for his puppet design and construction on The Inland Emperor's New Clothes
. Hale recently designed and built puppets for a Triumvirate Pi Theatre presentation of The Fox's Lantern (Kitsune No Chochin), a project he co-created and will puppeteer in.
Hale is Adjunct Professor of Theatre Arts at California State University San Bernardino. I asked him to share his thoughts on puppet design.
PJ: What makes a character design strong or interesting? SH: Design can be very subjective, so answering this is tricky. However, I’d say that what makes a character design successful is whether it accomplishes its goal in an eye-catching, visually compelling and memorable way. First off, in this instant-gratification society, the image has to draw your attention immediately. Strong design is key to pulling the viewer’s eye to the work and generating interest in the show in the first place. Second, the design has to be powerful enough to stay in the mind of the viewer long after the work is done. If the design draws your attention and keeps it, I’d say it’s successful.
Various world cultures have evolved with radically different design aesthetics and motifs, so trying to encapsulate a perfect formula for design is misguided. For example, we may be taught that sharp angles or triangular shapes in a design generally represent danger or evil, but in Japanese pop art (with a writing system based on angular characters) images tend to have angular qualities without connoting negativity. So we get anime characters from
Dragonball or
Yu-Gi-Oh who are heroic but have sharp, angular hair and less softness than their American counterparts.
Generally speaking, I like working with basic shapes to generate a certain emotional response. Curved and round shapes can create a gentle response, while angles and edges create a startling response -- sometimes harsh and sharp, other times enough just to draw your attention to a character and make you go “Hey, that’s different!”
A good example of using angles in interesting design is the character design for Dreamworks’
Madagascar (I believe these designs were inspired by 1950s children’s book illustrations). The designs are unique and stand out against a background of Disney-fied overly gentle “soft rounds” (which is something they’re very good at doing -- even taking angular art like Mike Mignola’s and watering it down into soft characters in the animated film
Atlantis). Even a villain like Darth Vader, with all the angles of his helmet, has a soft, rounded top, which hints at a gentle, vulnerable side to the character.
Uniqueness is important in design. I think
Spongebob Squarepants is a good example. In the world of circular character design, a square-based character emerged and took the world by storm.
Powerpuff Girls did that too by taking round shapes to an extreme.
Also, in a practical sense, the design has to be true to the needs of each character and overall design. As I’ve mentioned before, characters should complement and contrast with each other well. A skinny character next to a plump character is whimsical and visually interesting (remember Laurel and Hardy?). Even in a realism-based show like my upcoming bunraku,
Fox Lantern, there is contrast -- albeit more subtle than the cartoonish, simplified style of
Inland Emperor’s New Clothes or
Japanese Fables.
Labels: interview, Sam Hale
