When Trey Stokes was in his senior year in high school, he had a passion
for puppetry, but he had no idea what to do with it -- until he saw Star Wars.
"I thought: 'Oh my God, I've got to do that. He must have an
amazing job.'"
Since then, Stokes has realized his dream. He got his first job as a puppeteer
for a movie -- The Blob. Since then, Stokes has worked on numerous films.
Stokes still shakes his head when he thinks of himself as
a young teen staring at the big screen wondering how to get there. But he
did his research and figured theater was the thing.
He majored in cinema production at the University of Southern California
and then went on to the Bob Baker Marionette Theater -- one of the oldest
puppeteering schools in the country.
Stokes loves his work and loves the new direction movie puppetry is going.
We're in the age of computer graphics where the "puppets" are manipulated
with a joystick.
"We find that for every 100 people who know how to operate the equipment,
there's only one in 100 who has any kind of aptitude for animation,"
he says. "You still need the stop motion and animation skills."
The movie life is a straining one, even for puppeteers. Stokes has to work
long hours, sometimes well into the night and on weekends. Projects can drag
on for years, and that makes it hard to keep up the energy and focus.
But the other challenge is one shared by all puppeteers in the movie and
theater business -- "making people think that something exists, that doesn't."
Bob Shimer, an Indiana puppeteer and ventriloquist, faces the same challenge.
He often takes his favorite puppet, Drango, to church with him to greet
attendants. Sometimes adults refuse to play along, preferring to talk to Shimer.
Naturally, Drango the dragon is a little miffed. But it doesn't take
long for the puppeteer to drag older folks into the conversation.
The beauty of puppets is that people will talk to puppets when they may
not talk to people. Shimer learned that lesson when his late mother, who suffered
from Alzheimer's, cheered up whenever Drango came into the room.
"She wouldn't remember anyone else, but she would remember Drango,"
he says. "She said he was the only one that understood her."
Now Shimer takes his puppets into nursing homes and hospitals. Often kids
whisper secrets into Drango's ear and Shimer never butts in. He lets
the children interact with the puppet however they feel comfortable.
"I try to be honest with kids. If they ask Drango if he's real, Drango
says he's a puppet and then asks the children if they're puppets
too."
That childhood fascination with puppets also drew Bev Johnson into the
field. It was her mother that introduced her to the world of puppets.
"My mother was a puppeteer and used to do marionette performances in libraries,"
says Johnson. She fell into her mother's footsteps. A teacher librarian
in charge of the fine arts program, she now brings puppets into the school
as well.
"Kids that are interested in puppets are usually the ones who wouldn't
be able to stand up and put on a show, but somehow they can do it with a puppet.
They're usually quick with their timing and they do their performances
while improvising their lines. They can get very engrossed."
Alain Boisvert says his love of puppetry comes to life when he sees the
look on children's faces. Like Shimer, he recognizes the healing qualities
of puppetry.
His company built rod puppets for an education film designed to help children
with leukemia deal with the illness. "We normally never do this type of educational
work, as we're more interested in the artistic aspects of puppetry art,"
he says. "This being said, it was one of the most touching works because we
had to meet many children and afterwards I could see how the puppets helped
for this specific project."
The beauty of puppetry is its uncanny ability to bring the worlds of children
and adults together. "It's very fulfilling. It demands an openness to
art. It's a very satisfying way of communicating ideas, or simply expressing
the beauty and diversity of what surrounds us."