Puppetables

Puppetables are a series of videos featuring puppets made by German puppet builder extraordinaire Norman Schneider. Due to the language barrier, I really don't know much else about these, but there are three videos in the series, Marie Luise Sparbier, Schildegart Kröt and my personal favourite, Wurmini.

Via Puppeteers Unite.

Soccer Marionettes

Kick `08 recreates the German national soccer team in puppet form.

Kick 08 is a neat film that features a marionette version of the German national football team. My German is bad non-existent so I don't really understand much of it, but along with the main video there's also a neat behind-the-scenes one that shows how the film was made using a variety of green screen techniques. I also don't know who the key people behind this are, except for the gentleman with the dark bushy beard and shaggy hair seen working on puppets in the behind-the-scenes video; he's Juergen Maassen, one of Germany's most respected puppetry artists.

Special thanks to Mike Horner for sending this in!

Figurenschneider on German TV

German puppet builder Norman Schneider was recently interviewed by a local television station.

If you read many puppetry blogs than you probably already know that a lot of us puppeteer/bloggers have been oohing and aahing lately over the beautiful work of German puppet builder Norman Schneider and his company Figurenschneider (I blogged about him over at The Bear Town Production Journal a few weeks back). Norman was recently interviewed by a local TV station in Germany. The video is in German, but Norman's work looks great in any language.

Via Thistledown Puppets.

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.

Subway's New Puppet Ads in Germany

The subway sandwich chain is using puppets to help convince German consumers to "eat fresh".

Subway has been using a puppet character in TV commercials in Germany as part of a recent campaign to promote their chicken teriyaki sandwich there. You can watch the ads here and here.

Special thanks to Mark in Berlin for sending these in!

Puppetmastaz

Puppetmastaz is an indie "puppet band" that tours internationally.

I can't believe that I haven't heard of Puppetmastaz before. They are a German puppet band (think Gorillaz with puppets instead of cartoon characters) and have a strong cult following. I have not heard much of their music yet, but just the idea of this alone sounds like a lot of fun. The puppets look pretty interesting too.

Thanks to Mikael for writing in about this!

Puppets Pitching Biodiesel

Puppet Trees are used in this biodiesel commercial from Germany.

This commercial for biodiesel fuel was made by Jan Schönwiesner, a student in the design program at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Germany. Jan says, "We really do love the Muppets and think there should be more puppets in ads. So we did just that."

A Zombie Puppet Western

It Came From The West is a zombie-splatter-cowboy-western inspired by Sergio Leone.

Tom over at Puppeteers Unite has been following this one for awhile...It Came From The West is a German puppet short directed by Tor Fruergaard that's billed as "the first ever hand-puppet animated zombie western". I'm not really a horror movie fan, but this looks really well done. The English version comes out on DVD March 2nd, but a brand new trailer is up at YouTube to help tide all you zombie-puppet fans out there over until then.