Overview
A four-day, hands-on stop-motion Puppet Lab with Oscar winner Chris Lavis — puppet building, animatics, and expressive movement.
Purchase a Ticket for 16-hour / 4 day Chris Lavis Puppet Lab
ANYTHING CAN BE A STOP-MOTION PUPPET, EVEN YOU!
Join acclaimed oscar-winning filmmaker and animator Chris Lavis for an immersive four-day stop-motion Puppet Lab. Best known for Madame Tutli-Putli and the Oscar winning The Girl Who Cried Pearls, Lavis brings two decades of puppet filmmaking experience to a hands-on intensive Puppet Lab and lecture series, covering puppet construction, animatic creation, and emotive storytelling through gesture and movement. Participants will create puppets, learn animation methods, and work to create short stop-motion sequences. Ideal for professional and aspiring animators looking to push puppets into new creative territory.
Event runs for four consecutive days from 13:00 to 17:00 CET each day for a total of 16 total hours of lab time with Chris Lavis and the up-to-14 other lab members. This lab will be limited to 15 persons and requires a separate ticket.
Contact info@viewconference.it for any questions.
Day 01 — Puppet Building
- Discuss workshop goals and overview of the four days
- 30-minute lecture: puppet creation and basic principles of stop-motion puppet design
- Puppet-building demonstration
- Participants build simple wire puppet armatures, individually or in pairs
Day 02 — Gesture, Animatics & Preparation
- 30-minute lecture: animation, gesture and animatics
- Introduction to the “Clyde Henry” technique of using live-action video animatics as reference for gesture, movement and performance
- Finish building puppets
- Shoot live-action reference animatics
- Set up cameras and prepare for animation
Day 03 — Animation
- 30-minute lecture: animation styles, approaches and techniques
- Animation demonstration
- Participants animate their puppets, individually or in pairs
- Review and discuss work in progress
Day 04 — Stop-Motion Beyond Puppets
- 30-minute lecture: stop-motion without puppets
- Explore unconventional animation techniques, materials and environments
- Move outside the studio to experiment with real-world objects and locations
- Participants create a short outdoor stop-motion film
- Assemble and screen workshop animations
- Group discussion and final questions