Assistant Puppet Maker

On an assistant puppet maker apprenticeship course, you’ll support puppets’ design, manufacture and performance.

As an assistant puppet maker, you will help design, produce, and perform puppets for theatre, cinema, television, carnival, animation, applied puppetry, and outdoor arts. Working for a single senior puppet maker or as part of a larger technical and performance team headed by a creative director is an option.

You will be in control of how your puppets are handled, kept, transported, and utilised during a performance or presentation. In addition, you will learn how to conduct basic puppet repairs and choose suitable materials for manufacturing for them to last.

Along with puppet design and fabrication, you will require expertise in puppet performance for both live and recorded performances and innovative performance concepts to guarantee puppets can be animated according to performance scripts.

What you’ll learn

On an assistant puppet maker apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:

• Create puppetry and performance-appropriate joints and mechanisms, such as leather hinge joints, wooden pin joints, and plastic pipe joints.
• Demonstrate the basic mechanics of puppetry, such as the puppeteer’s connection with the puppet, focus, reaction, use of breath, and emotion, to bring an inanimate object to life.
• Verify that a puppet is suitable for its intended purpose and location, and demonstrate how to handle and animate it based on its kind, such as rod, tabletop, bunraku, glove, shadow, muppet-style, large size, and digital.
• Make puppet garments that allow for necessary movement and withstand the frequency and circumstances under which the puppets are used, such as outfits made of fabric, plastic, or hand-painted clothing directly affixed to the puppet.
• Produce accurate technical drawings of puppets using to-scale graphic illustration techniques, which may include using CAD design programmes such as Rhino or Fusion 360, per agreed-upon specifications and/or designs.
• Create necessary maquettes and/or prototypes in line with the agreed-upon project timetable to assess the puppet’s suitability for the intended performance/environment.
• Select and use the best Personal Protective Equipment available (PPE)
• Follow health and safety regulations such as IOSH and COSHH.
• Prevent damage and aid the puppeteer’s safe and efficient handling of the puppet, include relevant H&S considerations in the puppet’s design.
• Select and utilise the appropriate construction and finishing techniques and materials to ensure the puppet’s resistance to damage caused by various conditions, such as weather, heat and light, performance wear and tear, audience interaction, and insect corrosion.
• Construct basic storage containers out of materials such as wood, plastic, or metal to aid puppet preservation before, during, and after performances to avoid damage/corrosion, particularly during transit.
• Maintain focus on the work to accomplish tasks within the given periods.
• Workload should be effectively organised to ensure that time is used wisely and tasks are completed in the agreed-upon priority order.

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need:

• Depending on the employer, likely GCSEs or equivalent qualifications or relevant experience for an advanced apprenticeship.
• Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this before taking the end-point assessment.

Assessment methods

The End Point Assessment comprises two distinct assessment methods: 

• Project and Presentation
• Professional Discussion underpinned by a portfolio

Duration, level, subjects and potential salary upon completion

Apprenticeship standard

More information about the Level 3 Assistant Puppet Maker Apprenticeship standard can be found here.

Apprenticeship end point assessment

For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page.