Supermarionation
The characters were played by electronic marionettes with a moveable lower lip, which opened and closed in time with pre-recorded dialogue by means of a solenoid in the puppet's head or chest.
The productions were mostly science fiction with the puppetry supervised by Christine Glanville, art direction by either Bob Bell or Keith Wilson, and music composed by Barry Gray.
Some sources consider its precursor, Four Feather Falls, to be the first Supermarionation series because it saw the introduction of the electronic lip-syncing mechanism that featured in all of APF's later puppet productions.
Noting that a major disadvantage of APF's marionettes was their inability to walk convincingly, commentators have argued that the term expressed Gerry's preference for artistic realism and his wish to make the company's puppet techniques more lifelike.
[13] Emma Thom of the National Science and Media Museum defines it as APF's use of electronics to synchronise puppets' lip movements with pre-recorded dialogue.
[6] Anderson denied that the term referred to a process, stating that he coined it as a promotional tool to separate APF's output from other children's puppet series like Muffin the Mule and Flower Pot Men.
[13] A 1960s supplement of the British trade newspaper Television Mail described Supermarionation as a "technical process" whose main features, besides electronic puppet control, were use of 35 mm colour photography, 1⁄5-scale filming stages, back projection, live-action inserts and live action-style special effects, and video assist to guide the crew.
[11][17][18] Marcus Hearn states that the term reflected Gerry Anderson's desire to "promote his company's collective ingenuity as a proprietary process" and "[ally] his productions with Hollywood photographic techniques such as CinemaScope and VistaVision."
He adds that it "encompassed the full panoply of APF's expertise – production values in model-making, photography, special effects, editing and orchestral music that had never been so consistently applied to any type of children's programme, let alone those featuring puppets.
These early efforts were noticed by children's author Roberta Leigh, who had written a collection of scripts titled The Adventures of Twizzle and was looking for a film company to turn them into a puppet TV series.
[22] Somewhat embarrassed to be making a children's puppet series, Anderson and Provis decided to produce Twizzle in the style of a feature film, incorporating dynamic shooting and lighting in the hope that the results would bring them bigger-budget commissions with live actors.
[23] To add to this more sophisticated look, the series often used three-dimensional sets instead of traditional flat backgrounds, while puppeteers Christine Glanville and her team operated the marionettes not from the studio floor, but from a bridge above it.
[39][40] The term "Supermarionation" was coined during the production of Supercar, APF's first series to be made for Lew Grade's distribution company ITC Entertainment.
[7][41][42] Each marionette was suspended and controlled with several fine tungsten steel wires that were between 1⁄5000 and 1⁄3000 of an inch (0.0051–0.0085 mm) thick, replacing the carpet thread and twine strings that had been used prior to Four Feather Falls.
[49] In a 1965 interview, Reg Hill estimated that the Supermarionation productions contained "three or four times" as much cutting as live-action features because the puppets' lack of facial expression made it impossible to sustain the viewer's interest "for more than a few seconds" per shot.
[59][60] Between Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, the development of miniaturised electronic components prompted APF – now called Century 21 Productions – to create a new type of puppet.
The option to downsize the components in the head was rejected in favour of moving the entire lip-sync mechanism to the chest, where it was connected to the mouth by a cable that ran through the neck.
In a 2002 interview, Anderson said that during the production of Captain Scarlet he was hoping to move into live-action television and that he endorsed the new puppets as a compromise for his inability to use live actors.
[69] Tex Tucker, the hero of Four Feather Falls, avoids walking by riding a horse called Rocky, while the characters of Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds achieve the same through use of personal hovercraft.
According to interviewer Kevin O'Neill, this use of future settings for greater realism "almost accidentally" ensured that all of APF's subsequent series would be science fiction.
[77] Sylvia said that the reasons were budgetary, due to the fact that APF could not yet afford to work with live actors: "... we were picking subjects that we could easily do in miniature scale.
"[77] David Garland calls character movement Anderson's "bête noire" and states that the puppets' limited mobility resulted in "vehicle-heavy science fiction" becoming his "preferred genre".
[78] Carolyn Percy of the Wales Arts Review comments that the inclusion of "futuristic vehicles" like Supercar allowed APF to devise "more exciting and imaginative scenarios" and "work around the limitations of the puppets ... to give their 'acting' the integrity to match the material.
[49] A wide variety of materials were used in their construction – for example, rock faces were made from painted blocks of polystyrene, while miniature vehicles incorporated recycled household objects and parts from toy model kits.
[49] Effects were typically shot at high speed (72 to 120 frames per second) with the footage slowed down in post-production to give a sense of greater weight or steadiness, thus making the sequences look more realistic.
[87] In the pursuit of realism, newly built models and sets were deliberately "dirtied down" with paint, oil, pencil lead and other substances to give them a used or weathered look.
She also comments that APF's filming techniques "would not only result in a level of quality and sophistication not seen before in a family show, but also give birth to some of the most iconic series in the history of British children's television.
[112] Garland suggests that this drive towards increased realism echoed "19th-century marionette theatre's own attempts to distinguish itself from other forms of puppetry (especially glove puppets), which also involved a tethering to the newly-emergent realist aesthetic across the arts".
Century 21 Films also worked on "Apollo", a 2019 episode of Endeavour that is set partly in a TV studio which is making a puppet series called Moon Rangers.
[131] Team America: World Police, a 2004 puppet film by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, was inspired by Thunderbirds and has been described as an imitation or spoof of Supermarionation productions.
