Puppets have a timeless appeal. While they might appear to be made of fairly straightforward materials, when put together in the right way, they can conjure distinctive characters that viewers are willing to believe in.
It’s these personalities and the potential of simple objects made out of foam and fabric which first fascinated Zack Buchman, the founder of New York-based design agency Furry Puppet Studio, which specialises in creating custom puppets. Armed with a unique, outsider perspective, Zack has gone on to create a team which is reinventing puppetry for modern audiences, with clients including Apple, A-list musicians, and the comedy website Funny or Die.
“This childhood obsession laid the groundwork for my creative journey in what would later become Furry Puppet Studio,” he tells Creative Boom. “Our studio is driven by a desire to innovate and push the boundaries of traditional puppetry, infusing it with a modern, more fresh sensibility.”
Zack’s vision is clearly paying off. Stars such as Jon Hamm and Michelle Obama are just some of the celebrities who have interacted with his studio’s work. It’s a reassuring endorsement of a medium that may seem antiquated in an increasingly digital world. But then again, Zack is used to seeing things differently.
Despite respecting college and the value of a good education, Zack did not pursue this route. Instead, he moved to New York at a young age and worked as an animator before moving into puppetry. This career path forced Zack to “really rethink the basics” and approach things from a completely new angle.
A prime example of this is when he worked on the Missy Elliott music video for WTF (Where They From). “My team and the choreographer worked closely with a small group of street performers,” Zack explains. “They each had a unique method and style that they came up with independently. We kind of reverse-engineered it and restructured our marionettes so they’d be able to work with that same energy. It was really fun.”
The project was also one of the most satisfying and complex assignments the team has worked on. “You may not expect it, but marionettes are extremely challenging to work with. And it’s not as precise a science as other more modern forms of puppetry like animatronics. It was completely outside of the box, creatively, and we’ve had a blast.” As well as being fun, it was also crowned as one of the best music videos of 2015 by Rolling Stone, proving there’s still life in puppetry yet.
When it comes to designing puppets, Zack and the studio usually begin by working together on a bunch of sketches. “I find that intuitively, you make lots of clever choices without even realising it when you’re just drawing for fun in an intimate group,” he reveals. “And often, those initial sketches are what we keep coming back to throughout the process. Sometimes your brain just knows.”
In other instances,