Life in Motion
Project Director: Erika Simon
Associate Producer: Randy Benson
Camera: Erika Simon, Randy Benson, Bill Elias, Nic Beery, Carol Thomson
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Joseph Cashore travels and performs nine months of the year with his wife Wilma, and thirty marionettes. Emotions run high at a performance by the Cashore Marionettes. All eyes are riveted on the puppets — no one takes time to look at the puppeteer. Life in Motion is a documentary of short revealing vignettes with views above the strings and behind the scenes.
The control mechanisms are themselves works of art and invention. They are designed to achieve unusually graceful fluidity resulting in high emotional impact. Joseph Cashore's process of creating a new marionette is an act of discovery, trial and error. He's been making them for over 30 years.
The bodies of the puppets, their controls, and the strings that run between them hang listlessly, lifeless without the puppeteer. Life in Motion captures this contrast. It gives a glimpse of the people and processes involved in bringing the marionettes alive.
