Even More Kobe & LeBron Puppet Ads

Nike's MVPuppets campaign has been a huge hit with basketball fans.

Nike's MVPuppets campaign (see previous posts here and here) keeps rolling right along. I think the bigger a fan of the NBA you are, the more you can appreciate these. The storyline in the ads has been following along with the NBA playoffs; in one of the newest ones LeBron - who's never won an NBA championship - is stuck at home with Lil' Dez while Kobe Bryant plays in the finals.

The ads have gotten a lot of attention and really prove that clever, well-done puppetry appeals to just about everybody. Click "Read More" to see some of the latest spots:









To see all the videos in the MVPuppets series visit the Nike Basketball video page.

The Making of Abba's The Last Video

Take a look behind the scenes of Abba's The Last Video.

This is a follow-up to the post about Abba's The Last Video; it's a making of video that shows how the puppetry and effects in the video were achieved.

Special thanks to "Scuba Steve" for finding this!

Plato: Sony's Little Blue Alien

Plato is a little blue alien created to promote Sony's Walkman brand.

"Plato" is a blue alien character created for a series of Sony Walkman ads (watch them here and here). It's always a little hard to tell watching heavily compressed video on YouTube, but I'm pretty sure he was realized as a Bunraku-style puppet.

Special thanks to "Rockin' Rob" for originally pointing these out!

Just In...The Latest Kasou Taisho Results

Kasou Taisho - a semi-annual competition with skits that frequently involve Bunraku-style puppetry- aired in Japan Wednesday night.

The latest Kasou Taisho special aired in Japan tonight which, in Japan, is already yesterday (it's like they live permanently in the future!). Click "Read More" to see some of the best entries:



This was the winning entry, a cartoony Manzai comedy routine.



I like this one too. Apparently, it's the boy's father playing soccer ball (this is also the only entry my limited Japanese allows me to actually understand).



How to get a doughnut without waiting in line.



Little kids recreate a conveyor belt sushi restaurant.

Via Japan Probe.

The Amazing Puppetry of Warhorse

The National Theatre's Warhorse features stunning puppetry by South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company.

The puppetry of Warhorse - a runaway hit currently playing in London's West End - is absolutely stunning (you can watch a video here). As longtime PuppetVision readers already know, I love this sort of very realistic, highly technical puppetry and I dare anyone to say they're not impressed by what South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company has accomplished with this show.

Special thanks to Dave H. in the UK for sending this in!

Dancing Cat, Bunraku-Style

Cats can be used for so many things...including apparently Bunraku-style puppetry.

Steve put together this cute video of a dancing cat using an animated gif he found on an image board (the original source is unknown). He calls it Kitty Kitty Cancan. I call it adorable.

Bunraku-Style Mario

Super Mario gets the Kasou Taisho treatment.

OK, this is pretty awesome. I'm not entirely sure, but I assume this is from a recent Kasou Taisho (see previous post).

"Hungry" Weight Watchers Commercial

A monster puppet stars in a recent commercial for Weight Watchers' Momentum Program.

I love Hungry, the mascot of the Weight Watchers' Momentum Program. We're seeing a lot of this kind of thing in commercials and music videos and I think that this style of performing is probably the future of puppetry in film and video in general.

Hat tip to Ron for sending in yet another great link!

Best of 2008: Kasou Taisho

A Bunraku aquarium is performed on Japan's Kasou Taisho.

Something that really seemed to really catch on in a big way on the web this past year was Kasou Taisho (see earlier post), a sort of semi-annual costume contest on Japanese TV that features amateur groups and solo artists performing short skits which frequently utilize Bunraku-style puppetry. Kasou Taisho is actually a fairly old show (it first aired back in 1979), but didn't really become well known outside Japan until a clip of its now-famous "Matrix Ping-Pong" sketch became a hit viral video on the web a few years ago.

To get an idea of just how creative some of the performances on Kasou Taisho are, check out this montage of 79 grand prix winning sketches from the show's 30 year history (one of my personal favourites is Chameleon, a runner-up in one of the most recent competitions).

Kasou Taisho seems to be slowly, but surely growing in popularity and has a dedicated cult following around the world. It has provided the inspiration for a Japanese Pepsi commercial as well as the Scissor Sisters' music video for She's My Man. Clips from the show also appear in the Pet Shop Boys' Flamboyant music video. An adaptation called It's Showtime airs on TV in Singapore and I've heard rumours that a North American adaptation is being developed.

Piece of Me, Piece Of You

Piece of Me, Piece of You makes use of grotesque zombie puppets and green screen puppetry.

A Santa Monica studio called Three Legged Legs just finished a funky little music video/short film called Piece of Me, Piece of You that's available to watch online along with a generous helping of behind-the-scenes goodies. The short features some creepy-cool zombie puppets built by Adam Parker Smith and makes good use of Bunraku-style puppetry and wire removal techniques.

Special thanks to Reza at Three Legged Legs for writing in about this!

Scissor Sister Inspiration (or is it the other way around?)

The puppet-loving Scissor Sisters' video for She's My Man draws inspiration from Kasou Taisho.

The Scissor Sisters are well-known for incorporating large-scale puppetry in to their act (see previous post), but I couldn't help noticing that their music video for She's My Man looks an awful lot like this video that I first saw last spring. Truthfully, I don't know which video inspired the other, but given the reputation of avant garde Japanese filmmaker Nagi Noda I'm inclined to assume that The Scissor Sisters went there first.

Either way, the Sisters' video obviously drew inspiration from the Kuroko/Bunraku-style acts that are popular on Kasou Taisho and it's great to see this particular style of puppetry catching on and influencing the work of artists outside Japan.

January 2008 Kasou Taishou Competition

A boy makes friends with a stick figure in a sketch from the most recent Kasou Taishou competition in Japan.

I've mentioned the Japanese TV show Kasou Taisho before (see previous post), a semi-annual competition on NTV in Japan that features amateur groups and solo artists performing short skits, often using Bunraku-style puppetry. I've spent some time researching the show (not the easiest thing to do when you don't read Japanese or have access to NTV broadcasts) and found out that it began as a sort of costume competition. Competitors started adding performances to show off their costumes in action and the show has slowly become more and more about performance and creativity, with the Bunraku-style skits being especially popular.

The January 2008 Kasou Taisho special aired recently in Japan and featured a number of impressive acts, including a one-woman Snow White act, some Olympic Highlights and a sketch about a boy becoming friends with a stick figure and an enka act that won a technical prize ("enka" is a type of sad Japanese love song). You can see more videos from past competitions on the official Kasou Taishou web site.

If anyone out there has more info about Kasou Taisho please write me at puppetvision {at} gmail dot com and I'll be happy to post it here. I'm also on the lookout for information about It's Showtime, an adaptation of Kasou Taisho in Singapore if anyone knows anything about that.

Video links via Japan Probe.

11/01/08 Update: I added a link to a video of a winning entry from the most recent competition.

In Conversation with a Bunraku Master

A Bunraku master discusses his craft on YouTube.

YouTube has a video of a discussion with a Bunraku Master (or Omozukai) about how traditional Bunraku puppets are built and performed. Even though Bunraku is a very old form of puppetry, the mechanisms used to control Bunraku puppets are incredibly sophisticated and not all that different from the latest state of the art puppet animatronics and mechanisms. As the Omozukai points out in the video, it's difficult to improve on two hundred years of craftsmanship.

Cross-posted from PuppetBuilding.com.

Taking It Off Bunraku Style

A Bunraku style puppet strips down to her skivvies.

Stripping and burlesque are two little-known yet common influences on puppet theatre, especially in Europe and Latin America. Here's a fun example of a Bunraku-style puppet taking it all off from Chile's Payasiteres Compañía (the video is mildly NSFW due to puppet nudity).

Pepsi, Bunraku Style

No, that's not a digital effect you're seeing in the picture above, just some good old fashioned Bunraku-style puppetry from Japan.

Recently I wrote about Kasou Taisho, a crazy-fun Japanese TV show where amateur groups of black-clad performers compete for prizes by staging skits and routines using Bunraku puppetry techniques. The show is extremely popular in Japan and I can't help but think that it probably inspired this Pepsi ad featuring a Bunraku-style performance that would be right at home on Kasou Taishou. Watch it and see for yourself!

More Crazy Bunraku-Style Fun From Japan

A Bunraku aquarium is performed on Japan's Kasou Taishou.

That great Bunraku-style skeleton dance I linked to earlier this week is from Kasou Taisho, the same biannual Japanese TV show that the famous "Matrix Ping Pong" sketch originated on. I've only seen clips of Kasou Taisho, but as far as I can tell it's built around amateur groups of black-clad performers competing for prizes by staging skits and routines using large-scale puppetry. Think of it as a Japanese Bunraku version of American Idol.

One of my favourite skits is called the Card Duel. You can find it and many other popular routines from the show on the Kasou Taisho website, but Internet Explorer is required to view the videos properly. If you don't have IE don't worry, just search YouTube for "Kasou Taisho".

Bunraku-style Skeleton Puppet Dance

A Bunraku-style skeleton dance, as perform by Japanese pop group Morning Musume.

Morning Musume (don't you just love the names of J-Pop groups?) performs some cool-looking Bunraku-style puppetry on Japanese TV. Just watch, I think you'll like it.

Excellent German Puppet Manipulation

A Bunraku-style puppet is performed by a team of puppeteers in Berlin.

I'll freely admit that I can be a bit of a snob when it comes to puppet manipulation. I like proper lip sync and good, solid technical puppet manipulation. I think if a puppet is supposed to be a dog, it should move in a dog like manner and if it's supposed to be a person, the puppet should move like a person. I suppose that's part of the reason I love German puppetry so much - almost all the German puppeteers I've seen and met are really well trained and take puppetry very seriously. A great example of really excellent technical puppet manipulation in Germany is this video of a Bunraku-style puppet being performed by a team of puppeteers in Berlin.

Fun Monkey Boys Puppetry

Here's some neat Bunraku-style puppet movement tests done for a commercial shot in Mexico City recently by Monkey Boys Productions.

Thanks to James for the video link!

(The Monday Morning Inspiration feature will return in a week or two).

A Sushi Western

Badlands is a new puppetry "Sushi Western" from Sam K. Hale.

Sam K. Hale (see previous post) is pitching a new projet called Badlands, a "Sushi Western" that combines the Wild West with Bunraku-style puppetry. There's a Badlands demo video available on YouTube that explores the concept. I think the idea of mashing up traditional Japanese stories and puppetry with the Wild West is interesting and I hope Sam gets to develop this further.