Notice that a lot of neat shadow puppet films and videos have been popping up in the past year or so? Here’s another good one from the March Fourth Marching Band.

Via Mary Robinette Kowal.

Shadows are arguably the most simple form of puppetry in the world. I think that strong shadow, or more specifically, silhouette is key to doing great puppetry. If a puppet’s pose or movement reads well in silhouette it clearly communicates to the audience visually what a character is doing, thinking and/or feeling.

“Silhouette value” is a fundamental concept in most visual arts. John K. has written about the role of silhouette in animation a lot and Spline Doctors touched on the subject recently as well.