Submissions to the PuppetVision Blog are always welcome

Submitting News

We’re always on the lookout for interesting puppetry to share here on PuppetVision. Submissions are always welcome via email at puppetvision@gmail.com, but please read the following guidelines below before submitting anything.

Submissions for the PuppetVision Blog

If you have something that you’d like to be considered for an article in the PuppetVision Blog, this is what we need from you:

  1. A video hosted on a video site like YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion – Embedding on third party sites should be enabled and it should be geographically unrestricted so that it can be viewed internationally. HTML5 video is preferred to Flash (YouTube and Vimeo currently use HTML5), since Flash is being phased out across the web.
  2. One or more high resolution press quality photos – These should be well composed, correctly exposed, in sharp focus and have a minimum width of 1920 pixels wide (please do not submit screen grabs, YouTube thumbnails or GIFs).
  3. A press kit or link to where we can find detailed background information about your project/work.
  4. Behind-the-scenes materials – “Making of” photos and/or videos are optional, but extremely helpful. The PuppetVision audience is interested not just in what you do, but how you do it. Posts that include the process of how a piece of puppetry was created are consistently shared and viewed more frequently than those that don’t, so we’re highly biased towards submissions with behind-the-scenes material.
  5. Credits – If it’s not included in any of the materials listed above, a list of all puppetry-related credits, including the names of the puppeteers and/or companies involved with building and performing the puppets involved.

Things we usually don’t share in either the blog include:

  • Anything submitted as a one or two line email with just a hyperlink – You don’t need to write us an opus, but sending us a few complete sentences with the information listed above is very much appreciated. Unfortunately, we often receive one line emails that include just a hyperlink and almost no information.  Although posts on PuppetVision are often brief, they typically take anywhere from one to three hours (or more) to research, write and share. If someone can’t be bothered to invest a few minutes to make a detailed submission about their work, we’re usually not inclined to invest several hours writing about it and sharing it.
  • Crowdfunding Projects – We generally don’t promote Kickstarter/Crowdfunding projects on the blog due to some negative experiences in the past (sorry!). Exceptions are sometimes made for projects that either document the history of puppetry or benefit the puppetry community as a whole and not just one particular artist or company.
  • “Puppets behaving badly” – This takes on many forms, but usually involves Muppet-like puppets cursing, swearing, having sex and/or being otherwise very naughty. Our problems with this particular puppetry subgenre are best summarized by a blog post Andrew wrote a long time ago. Generally speaking, if your project falls in to this category and doesn’t have technically exceptional puppetry, we’re probably not inclined to share it (sorry).
  • Unpaid Internships – We do not share or promote unpaid internships with individual artists and private companies because they are often of questionable legality. Exceptions are made for legitimate not-for-profit volunteer organizations and training programs where students receive course credit.

Please note that while all submissions are read and reviewed, we can’t share every great video or link that is sent in. When it’s not possible to share something via the PuppetVision Blog, we do try to share it via our Facebook Page and/or Andrew’s personal Twitter account.

Submitting Links

Space on our blogroll and links page is unfortunately limited for practical reasons. These are the guidelines we generally follow when adding sites:

  1. Links in the Resources section – Priority is given to listing organizations, centres and web sites that serve multiple puppetry companies. Due to space and time constraints, individual companies are generally not listed unless they serve as a physical hub for puppetry in their country or community.
  2. Links in the blogroll are generally blogs about puppetry (or primarily puppetry-related) that update on at least a somewhat regular basis. In the interest of keeping the blogroll a useful and up-to-date resource, blogs are usually removed if they do not post updates for several months.
  3. Link exchanges are appreciated – If we link to you, a reciprocal link on your site is very much appreciated!