Supermarionation (a portmanteau of the words "super", "marionette" and "animation") is a style of television and film production employed by British company AP Films (later Century 21 Productions) in its puppet TV series and feature films of the 1960s. These productions were created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed at APF's studios on the Slough Trading Estate. 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. They also made extensive use of scale model special effects, directed by Derek Meddings.
The term "Supermarionation" was first used during the production of Supercar, whose final 13 episodes were the first to be credited as being "filmed in Supermarionation". 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.
The term was coined by Gerry Anderson, who regarded it as APF's trademark. In later life, he said that he invented the term to increase the "respectability" of puppetry, a medium that he had not originally intended to work with. According to Sylvia, the productions were described as "Supermarionation" to distinguish them from traditional puppet theatre. 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.
Definition
The term was coined in 1960 by Gerry Anderson. Sources describe Supermarionation as a style of puppetry, a production technique or process, or a promotional term. 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. According to Jeff Evans, it "express[es] the elaborate style of puppetry" used in APF's productions. 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. This was motivated by his embarrassment in working with puppets as opposed to live actors, and his wish to dispel the notion that APF's marionettes were "the sort of puppets that were used in pre-school programmes". He also likened Supermarionation to a "trademark". According to Sylvia Anderson, the term was used to "distinguish the pure puppetry of the stage from our more sophisticated filmed-television version". Lou Ceffer of the website Spy Hollywood calls Supermarionation a "marketing term".
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, -scale filming stages, back projection, live-action inserts and live action-style special effects, and video assist to guide the crew. According to Chris Bentley, the term encompasses "all of the sophisticated puppetry techniques" used by APF – the foremost being the automatic mouth movement – "combined with the full range of film production facilities normally employed in live-action filming" (such as front and back projection, location shooting and visual effects). Other commentators have cited the complexity and detail of the puppets, models and sets as aspects of Supermarionation. 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."