SCOTT LAND: The head's been cast.
[MASTERING MARIONETTES PART 1] The neck-- this is a piece of wood that I
[WITH SCOTT LAND] put on a wood turner.
And then I shaped it to get that exact shape,
so it's basically a ball, and a ball down here.
Two balls, and then where the head receives it,
is a socket.
So you have this incredible, beautiful connection.
That's a ball and socket joint.
But what is holding that ball to that socket?
Just a piece of chord.
Just a small little rope
that runs all the way through.
Down here, same thing. Ball and socket down here.
And then there's a chord that comes through.
We'll show you that, and it's tied off
in the back so I can adjust it.
I can pull it up or down.
So you have all this movement.
Not terribly sophisticated,
but very, very effective.
As I said this puppet is over 20 years old,
and it's never failed.
A question many times people have...
"How do you keep them from getting tangled?"
Most of the time the audience doesn't know.
If you make a big deal about it
during the show, by shaking it or jerking it
then they're going to know.
So you just want to move through it.
The only times usually they get tangled
is when it's really windy.
Let me show you this real quick.
This is a nice little move.
The mouth... right there.
Okay, like that.
We're going to show you how to do the mouth movement,
and we're also going to show you eye blinks.
Everybody will be able to create the mouth
and the eye blink, by the end of the day.
And he also has an Adam's apple,
that's what that is.
So here's one of the bodies,
again this matches up with this.
So this is the body.
Again this is my blue print.
And then we've shaped the head,
we cast the head, and we're putting
all the pieces together.
Now let me show you the hips.
'Cause you couldn't see it on cousin Victor.
These are cast pieces.
But I'll show you how I do that later.
This is just again, a coat hanger.
It basically runs in, bend at a 90 degree angle,
straight across and back up.
They're designed so they can bend in and out.
That really sophisticated hip joint...
it's just a piece of fabric,
a tube of fabric that's glued
onto the top of the thigh.
So that you get this simple movement.
If you make this wider and longer,
then you have more movement.
More flexibility.
If you keep it tighter,
then it's more structured.
So if you're going to make an elderly character,
you'd want it smaller.
So it wouldn't have as much movement.
But also want to make it
so he can do things like this.
Be able to cross his legs.
Or if it's a contortionist,
you'd give it more so it can do a full
spread out as it does it's act.
This joint is very, very simple to make,
but it's also highly effective.
That's where a lot people get it wrong.
The do a very hard
tongue and groove joint in here,
and then the legs always stay right here
in this position.
If you do that,
then it's like a walking toy solider.
You want to have the play... all of that.
It's easy right now when I
put my hands on it and move it.
It's completely different
when you have the strings,
'cause in this case the string will be on the knee.
And also you can put it on the calf.
So we can cross.
And that will all be done later
up on the strings.
This is an invention that I created.
It's called the land link.
Very sophisticated. I created that.
It's basically a universal joint.
It's made with two links of plastic chain.
I was in the hardware store and I was
trying to figure what I was going to do
and then I looked and I said
"That is very, very strong.
Very easy to make."
And I'll show you how you make it.
So you guys see plastic chain?
Comes like that.
You pick two. There they are one, two.
And then you take this and you cut that.
You can cut it with anything,
I like to use a band saw.
(Offscreen): We'll get you doing that in slo-mo later.
The land link... Wow.
And people say "How do you set that in there?"
Hey, in this case these are cast pieces again,
I love cast pieces.
And then I make them out of injected foam.
And we'll talk about that later.
Everything is light weight, extremely durable.
Does not break down.
But I drill that out on both sides,
and then I just pour epoxy in and set it.
And before you set it in there,
we'll show you this also, always dremel it
and rough the surface up.
'Cause if it's smooth it will slip right out.
You want to make it so it bonds.
And then you get this incredible joint.
If you wanted to do a better bow,
you keep sanding away this and it'll take
the surface farther and father and farther.
And just break down the
surface where it's hitting.
And it's silent.
This joint is worth at least
three thousand dollars.
But today... $18.95. (laugh)
And I really like that,
I'm very proud that I found that.
Okay, and here's the-- I forgot to say.
There's the socket.
Take the neck.
And then there's a hole.
The hole goes straight through
the back of the body.
And that's where you're going to
put your core joint.
And then you tie it off.
And you always have access to it,
because even a chord stretches within time.
You want to be able to pull it tight over time,
to pull it in to that little cup
for the neck to fit in... okay?
So here's the basic body.
You can shape it and cut it out, in wood.
And then you can glue foam on it
to give you more width.
The pelvis, the same thing,
you can basically cut a basic frame
out of wood on a band saw, put it together.
And then fill it with foam.
But what I've done is I've done basic shapes
and then made molds, and then I pour them
and inject foam into it all the time,
so they're extremely light weight and durable.
This just gets me time, I can whip out
eight to ten bodies in an afternoon.
Whereas if you're carving it,
and again, I have nothing against wood carving,
I have nothing against papier mâché,
it's just time consuming.
So these are processes that I've discovered
that work for me.
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