An Interview With Conrad Hartz – Part 3

by | May 3, 2013 | How To Build A Ventriloquist Dummy, Ventriloquism, Ventriloquist Video

Part three of an eight part interview with ventriloquist puppet and figure maker Conrad Hartz.

Conrad Hartz Ventriloquist Dummies are works of art – and in this interview you will find out why!

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Click here for part four of the Conrad Hartz interview.

Video Transcript:

now did you teach yourself to paint or
did you take classes your paint no I
didn’t take any classes I just uh you
know I I knew you started out with a
white base and I do that still and uh
then mix the color
um um just from habit you know mhm well
but um uh I don’t like um I like a
little bit of suntan looking
color you know your paint jobs your
paint jobs are incredible um well thank
you the uh I the first time I actually
got to hold one of your figures I was in
uh Florida visiting Don Woodford oh okay
Donald you got to know Donald he
probably has more of your figures than
anybody do he does he a great guy and uh
he said oh you’ve got to try this you’ve
never you’ve never held one of Conrad’s
figures and uh the mechanics were
incredible the carving was incredible
did you teach yourself the mechanics or
did Foy help you with those well after
um after Foy got me started Foy got me
started basically with a the pattern
type thing but then I started getting in
uh Frank Marshall figures from friends
for little repairs uh broken string or
whatever and uh I started studying Frank
Marshall figures and u i noticed the
mechanics were
hard you know like the moving eyes and
things like that M so
um I I kept trying to figure out what
was wrong and sometimes he would cut the
mouth a little too wide and on the sides
there would be a split years later down
in the paint job and uh of course he GL
he uh screwed the back half to the front
half and there would also be a split
there because of wood moving you know MH
but uh so I figured okay we’re going to
try to improve these things so anyway on
the um like a pulley which I still use a
pulley for the mouth instead of a direct
pull I use a backwards pull okay so that
your um your bar in
back extends from the mouth in the back
of the head and then it gives it more
leverage so that’s something that I
just uh discovered by mistake
almost uh the moving eyes
um
uh I just came up with my own moving eye
system and my own self- centering eyes
and things like that
um and it works it works well um I
finally figured out that you can glue
both half of the heads together forever
and the paint will never split along the
neckline which is was so common in all
the Marshall figures coming in the shop
M so uh I do a good trapo in the back uh
so you never have to take the two halves
together anymore and
uh uh made a better uh control stick for
some reason Marshall control sticks were
not very
good so but anyway um I still
like uh his the greatest thing I think
he did was his uh proportions in facial
features
and I keep telling people if
you if you take a Marshall from
1941 and you take the width of the
head I can almost give you the a depth
of the head and every measurement on the
head because no matter whether he made a
big or a small figure the proportions
were the same where the eyes were where
the mouth was in relation to everything
else and once I figured out that I
knew why his figures always look you
know decent on television and things
like that