True puppetry as an art form requires the almost magical ability to bring your puppets to life. A puppeteer’s greatest responsibility is to develop the skills to create the illusion that the puppet is a living, breathing, thinking character. The puppet cannot just stand there and recite lines, it must also react to what is happening around it. When he speaks, his mouth and body movements must be in unison with his dialogue. This skill is known throughout the puppetry world as lip sync.

Since puppet characters are often too exaggerated, sometimes their movements are too. Lip sync must always be carefully calculated and practiced perfectly so that the hand that moves the puppet’s mouth always appears to have a natural flow. Proper lip sync should eventually become automatic for any experienced puppeteer. This is very important for your success as a puppeteer!

Even though the audience knows the puppets aren’t real, if you can perfect the art of lip-syncing, the crowd will literally eat right out of your hands! Just like music, conversation and dialogue have rhythm. The secret to lip syncing is pretty simple once you get the hang of it.

Here’s a creative way to instruct someone in the art of lip-syncing. Let’s take the word “syllable”. There are actually three syllables in the word. In most cases, your puppet’s mouth should open and close once for each syllable. For example, if your puppet says “Hello! How are you?” the mouth must open and close four times, once for each syllable! This movement must match the actual words spoken by the puppeteer. There are only a few exceptions to this rule. Once you develop an understanding and application of lip sync, you should be able to operate the puppet’s mouth automatically so that you can focus on other important movements.

Take the time to carefully observe how other puppeteers manipulate their puppets. You will see that the syllable rule is applied. Look closely and you will see the exception to this rule. Let’s use the word “syllable” again. When you make your puppet say the word, you only need to move its mouth twice! Although the word “syllable” contains three syllables, your puppet’s mouth only needs to open and close twice! Why is this? Be observant as you watch people when they speak. Some syllables are articulated from inside the human mouth. The tongue presses against the back of the upper teeth for the sounds “TH”, “L”. For the “Z” sound, the mouth usually closes the teeth and the tongue presses against the roof of the mouth. Some vowel sounds can also originate from inside your mouth and don’t require you to close your lips. When you translate these sounds into lip sync, the puppet’s mouth can skip an occasional syllable movement.

There is no better way to develop professional puppetry skills than to practice! The mirror is the most common and least expensive method, but using a video camera can be a lot of fun! If you can watch a monitor while rolling a video camera, you can not only hone your lip sync skills, but you’ll also learn how to make your puppets play on a camera. When her puppet directs her dialogue directly at a camera, she is looking directly into the viewers’ eyes! Even the most famous puppeteers desire and strive to be skilled in this area. Practice, rehearse and see how your audience responds!