MakerPlace by Michaels’ puppet state

Directed by Conor Finnegan through Nexus Studios, this fun hero film for MakerPlace by Michaels sees homemade puppets burst into life, sing and dance to Aretha Franklin’s Respect and even lay knitted eggs. 

Created in collaboration with New York agency Oberland, the campaign Respect the Handmade was inspired by actual products on the platform. 

The puppets and crafts were all handmade, and Finnegan strived to capture as much character performance in-camera as possible. The bag, cushion, stool and socks were all puppeted entirely in camera. This approach offered the advantage of preserving on-set flexibility as well as a sense of spontaneity during puppeteering. 

Finnegan also used digital techniques to enhance the traditional ones. Each lip earring was crafted individually and shot as substitute stop-motion animation, while the dog portrait on the plate was animated and painted in 2D before being composited into the live-action sequence. 

When selecting the characters, the director knew he wanted to exploit the human tendency to recognise faces in objects that don’t have them – a phenomenon scientifically known as pareidolia.