Editing Supermarionation (section)

====''Captain Scarlet''&thinsp; onwards====
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.<ref name="ToonhoundEntry"/><ref name="LaRivière151">La Rivière 2009, p.&nbsp;151.</ref><ref name="HowsWhys">{{cite web|last=Wickes|first=Simon|title=The Hows and Whys of Supermarionation – Part 4|url=http://www.tvcentury21.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81|work=tvcentury21.com|date=29 December 2003|access-date=26 November 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717115311/http://www.tvcentury21.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81|archive-date=17 July 2011|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="TVHeaven">{{cite web|last1=Marcus|first1=Laurence|last2=Hulse|first2=Stephen|title=''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'': A Television Heaven Review|url=http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/scarlet.htm|work=televisionheaven.co.uk|year=2000|access-date=1 October 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080629052514/http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/scarlet.htm|archive-date=29 June 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Puppets">{{cite web|last=Wickes|first=Simon|title=FAQ – Puppets|url=http://www.tvcentury21.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=112:the-puppets-look-different-between-thunderbirds-and-captain-scarlet-what-happened&catid=122:faqs&Itemid=179|work=tvcentury21.com|date=2 January 2004|access-date=1 October 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717115134/http://www.tvcentury21.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=112:the-puppets-look-different-between-thunderbirds-and-captain-scarlet-what-happened&catid=122:faqs&Itemid=179|archive-date=17 July 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> This made it possible to shrink the heads and make the puppets of ''Captain Scarlet'' and later series in natural proportions.<ref name="HowsWhys"/><ref name="TVHeaven"/><ref name="Puppets"/> Around this time, Century 21 also tried to make the puppets' faces more lifelike by crafting them in a new, flexible material, but the results proved unsatisfactory and the idea was abandoned.<ref name="LaRivière151"/> As the reduced head size made it harder to sculpt faces in Plasticine, guest characters were now played by a group of permanent, all-fibreglass puppets that were made to the same standards of workmanship as the regular characters.<ref name="LaRivière154-155"/> Likened to a "[[repertory company]]",<ref name="LaRivière154-155"/> these puppets could be superficially altered from one appearance to the next – for example, by adding or removing facial hair.

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.<ref>{{cite interview|last=Anderson|first=Gerry|subject-link=Gerry Anderson|interviewer1-last=Turnbull|interviewer1-first=Bill|interviewer1-link=Bill Turnbull|interviewer2-last=Raworth|interviewer2-first=Sophie|interviewer2-link=Sophie Raworth|work=[[BBC Breakfast]] |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/1950144.stm|location=London|date=25 April 2002|access-date=3 December 2009 | publisher=BBC News | title=The Godfather of ''Thunderbirds'' |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040701053808/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast/1950144.stm |archive-date=1 July 2004}}</ref> In 2006, he recalled that Century 21 had been "[[Typecasting (acting)|typecast]]" for its puppetry: "[S]o, knowing it was the only thing I could get finance for, I desperately wanted to make the thing look as close to live action as possible. And I think it was that that drove me on to bring in all the improvements and techniques."<ref name="Sellers105"/> Thom believes that the re-design reflected Anderson's desire for greater "realism and spectacle".<ref name="Thom"/>

Not all of Anderson's colleagues welcomed the change. Puppet sculptor and operator John Blundall pejoratively referred to the new puppets as "little humans" that lacked the personality of their precursors, also stating that the increased emphasis on realism hampered the puppeteers' creativeness.<ref name="Garland64"/> Fellow sculptor Terry Curtis believed that the re-design took away the puppets' "charm".<ref name="LaRivière2014,245"/> According to director [[Desmond Saunders]], APF was trying "anything to get [the puppets] to look like ordinary human beings. But they are not ordinary human beings! ... I often wonder it if would have been better to make them ''more'' like puppets, not less like puppets."<ref name="LaRivière151"/> A drawback of the smaller heads was that they upset the weight distribution; this made the puppets harder to control, to a point where they would often have to be fixed to [[G-clamp]]s to be kept steady.<ref name="Garland64"/><ref name="LaRivière2014,264-265">La Rivière 2014, pp.&nbsp;264-265.</ref> In addition, problems achieving realistic [[depth of field]] made it considerably harder to film close-up shots.<ref name="LaRivière2014,264-265"/>