Well, the thing is, if I plan on cultivating this skill (and I do) I need to be able to muppeteer convincingly enough to hold an audience's attention. Bad puppetry, just like bad acting, bad singing, and bad dancing, can often be detected by the layest of laypeople.
Second, I do want to go somewhere with this eventually, so if I suck, it's not as though it's a neutral predicament. I plan on auditioning for Sesame Street after a few years in the law profession, so until then, I'm going to keep practicing and (hopefully) improving.
Prikanko! I challenge your analogy. I do not believe that the layperson can detect bad acting or dancing. Dancing is too esoteric for the average person to accurately critique, imo. And bad acting? I hear people saying things ALL THE TIME like "Oh, I like Matt Damon," and "300 is a good movie!" and "Yeah, I'm glad they made 3 Pirates movies." (This last one could just as easily be 3 Spiderman movies or x-men 3.)
Anyway, the point is, good job with the muppet madness. Have children!
Well, if you're challenging the value of Spider-Man 3, you're on thin ice with me.
What people don't realize (about acting) is that so much of what you see onscreen is the director. Hence even a meathead like, say, Ben Affleck has the potential to be at least passable in a movie. I agree with you that the average person does not always have the capacity for appreciating the best of the best.
This does not mean, however, that laypeople are not capable of detecting the worst of the worst. Good artists (no matter what kind of art) can always hold their audience's attention. Can you imagine Yo-Yo Ma getting booed?
Likewise, no kid physically present on Sesame Street during its heyday ever came away bored or upset. If you watch Frank Oz's Grover interact with children, every atom of the kid's attention is on Grover. They don't even notice the man behind the curtain, so to speak. This is the kind of puppeteer I'd like to be.
So my point when it comes to puppetry is, like the truth, at length the good will out.
Fact: Most people you perform in front of know nothing -- and never will know anything -- about muppeteering.
There's nothing to worry about. Even if you suck, most of us lack the knowledge to call you out on it.
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Second, I do want to go somewhere with this eventually, so if I suck, it's not as though it's a neutral predicament. I plan on auditioning for Sesame Street after a few years in the law profession, so until then, I'm going to keep practicing and (hopefully) improving.
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That's pretty cool.
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Anyway, the point is, good job with the muppet madness. Have children!
-Zac
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What people don't realize (about acting) is that so much of what you see onscreen is the director. Hence even a meathead like, say, Ben Affleck has the potential to be at least passable in a movie. I agree with you that the average person does not always have the capacity for appreciating the best of the best.
This does not mean, however, that laypeople are not capable of detecting the worst of the worst. Good artists (no matter what kind of art) can always hold their audience's attention. Can you imagine Yo-Yo Ma getting booed?
Likewise, no kid physically present on Sesame Street during its heyday ever came away bored or upset. If you watch Frank Oz's Grover interact with children, every atom of the kid's attention is on Grover. They don't even notice the man behind the curtain, so to speak. This is the kind of puppeteer I'd like to be.
So my point when it comes to puppetry is, like the truth, at length the good will out.
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