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Hacker News and puppetry, a relevant-to-me crossover I never thought I'd see, and here I am at the start of the business day with no time to really dig in, beca

Hacker News and puppetry, a relevant-to-me crossover I never thought I'd see, and here I am at the start of the business day with no time to really dig in, because of the day job. "Two years ago, the number of students hovered near zero" - I get the larger picture, but any guesses as to what might have hurt attendance to a performing arts major in 2021? Puppetry is everywhere once you pay attention, and the skills you learn in puppetry can go well beyond, you know, the entertainment industry. But arts and humanities in the American education system have been gutted over the last few decades, starting in primary education, and continuing up into higher education. I stumbled across the puppetry community over a decade ago, and it's been one of the most enriching parts of my life ever since. It's a real shame how much of a struggle it is to get support for the fine arts in this country. Edit: This is a really great read. Thanks for sharing!

awesomeMilou 3y ago
> Puppetry is everywhere once you pay attention, and the skills you learn in puppetry can go well beyond, you know, the entertainment industry. I am genuinely curious to hear where in the day to day of the tech industry you'd draw parallels to puppetry.
- akiselev 3y ago
  The most widely used browser automation frameworks for scraping, end to end testing, and so on is literally called Puppeteer [1] :-) [1] https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer
- leviathant 3y ago
  >I am genuinely curious to hear where in the day to day of the tech industry you'd draw parallels to puppetry. The line you're replying to is more general purpose (puppetry as a vehicle for storytelling in television, movies, theater, parties, festivals, concerts, one-on-one conversation, etc.) however to address your curiosity, a few thoughts since I'm between meetings: Puppetry involves problem solving and story telling. Maybe we start off with the idea of bringing the novel War Horse to stage - you can't teach a horse to act, so you've got to do puppetry. You choose a framework: is it shadow puppetry? Rod puppets? Marionettes? Bunraku? Hand puppets don't scale, you're not going to do that. The technology you choose will shape the end result, and it's tempting to go with something flashy and huge, but a seasoned puppeteer can make you cry just by using a sock on their hand. (see also: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/war-horse https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/war-horse) Some styles of puppetry are going to need more skill in manipulation or crafting than others, which is going to affect what hiring looks like, and what training looks like. Some of the easier styles of puppetry are more popular, and certainly work on smaller projects like a puppet slam - but won't be as effective at getting results on a large scale production. Putting on a puppet show involves project management and collaboration. Depending on the size of the production, it could be a one-person show, although even those often have one or two people helping to run, for example, light and sound cues. A larger scale production could have a director, a writer, multiple crafters, multiple manipulators, a project manager... These are almost direct analogies to PMs, engineers, developers, department directors. Projects can be small scale - a more personal puppet slam piece performed in front of an audience of 50, and a talking monstrosity of a cake as part of a Saturday Night Live set piece might involve similar amounts of work, but one's going to pay better than the other. On the far end of the spectrum, you have projects like The Dark Crystal series on Netflix - which is analogous to an enterprise project. Multiple systems operating together, up against tight deadlines while simultaneously taking years to complete, compromises are made that few who see the end result will ever see or recognize... And in both tech and puppetry, a lot of the people who put in the hard work never get recognized :D

awesomeMilou 3y ago

> Puppetry is everywhere once you pay attention, and the skills you learn in puppetry can go well beyond, you know, the entertainment industry. I am genuinely curious to hear where in the day to day of the tech industry you'd draw parallels to puppetry.

akiselev 3y ago
The most widely used browser automation frameworks for scraping, end to end testing, and so on is literally called Puppeteer [1] :-) [1] https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer
leviathant 3y ago
>I am genuinely curious to hear where in the day to day of the tech industry you'd draw parallels to puppetry. The line you're replying to is more general purpose (puppetry as a vehicle for storytelling in television, movies, theater, parties, festivals, concerts, one-on-one conversation, etc.) however to address your curiosity, a few thoughts since I'm between meetings: Puppetry involves problem solving and story telling. Maybe we start off with the idea of bringing the novel War Horse to stage - you can't teach a horse to act, so you've got to do puppetry. You choose a framework: is it shadow puppetry? Rod puppets? Marionettes? Bunraku? Hand puppets don't scale, you're not going to do that. The technology you choose will shape the end result, and it's tempting to go with something flashy and huge, but a seasoned puppeteer can make you cry just by using a sock on their hand. (see also: https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/war-horse https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/news/war-horse) Some styles of puppetry are going to need more skill in manipulation or crafting than others, which is going to affect what hiring looks like, and what training looks like. Some of the easier styles of puppetry are more popular, and certainly work on smaller projects like a puppet slam - but won't be as effective at getting results on a large scale production. Putting on a puppet show involves project management and collaboration. Depending on the size of the production, it could be a one-person show, although even those often have one or two people helping to run, for example, light and sound cues. A larger scale production could have a director, a writer, multiple crafters, multiple manipulators, a project manager... These are almost direct analogies to PMs, engineers, developers, department directors. Projects can be small scale - a more personal puppet slam piece performed in front of an audience of 50, and a talking monstrosity of a cake as part of a Saturday Night Live set piece might involve similar amounts of work, but one's going to pay better than the other. On the far end of the spectrum, you have projects like The Dark Crystal series on Netflix - which is analogous to an enterprise project. Multiple systems operating together, up against tight deadlines while simultaneously taking years to complete, compromises are made that few who see the end result will ever see or recognize... And in both tech and puppetry, a lot of the people who put in the hard work never get recognized :D