Mark Crane is a Hertfordshire based puppeteer and filmmaker. After studying fine art, he went to the USA to study on-screen make-up under Bert Roth from ABC TV.  Mark has worked as an intern and junior technician in special effects for Labyrinth, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Superman IV, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Judge Dredd and Nightbreed.

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'Open heart and open mind will always lead to a new solution.'

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Not all my influences are literary or traditionally art based. Some are musical as music creates a feeling that fully transports your imagination and on other occasions you can find a street corner or a particular light or sound, an ambience or feeling that is unexpected and immersive. I love electricity pylons and watching the billowing steam emanating from power stations. I love derelict buildings and decaying mansions. Broken machines and the whirling crackles of electricity or the snapping of a fire and the beads of hot coal floating like dust motes. We can all drift off looking into space at these times, when your mind becomes empty and pliable. The darkness or the light can come in and you find that spark that ignites your imagination. That spark can come from anywhere and at any time.

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He has been director of photography and visual effects for art projects in The New Forest, Florence, the Venice Biennale and Heritage Open Days.  Following drama school, he has starred as Medvedenko in The Seagull and Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, and written and directed several original theatre productions.

‘Once you accept a symbiosis between all things then creativity is somehow easier. We don’t see a tree as separate from the earth or the sky. It needs them as much as we need it’

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His work has been exhibited at Figur I Fossekleiva (International Festival of Puppetry) in Norway, a complete works, and films at Watford Museum in 2020 alongside running puppetry workshops for Watford Borough Council.

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Sometimes when I’m walking, contemplating or observing other people. I see moments that can reach inside me and I feel a connection, for however brief a moment I empathize. It’s like the camera has stopped rolling and I’m seeing between the show yet, at the same time removed enough to find a voice for my protagonist. I love the moment in between. That moment when you’re looking a bit longer than you should. It has a beautiful tension. Creating that motion between the panels of our lives.​

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He was the Winner of Best Experimental film at the Jim Thorpe Film Festival in 2019 alongside nominations for Best LGBTQ and Cinematography for ‘Heaven’s Rage’. Winner of the Super 9 Mobile Film Festival in 2018 for best music video and winner of REEL Puppetry Film Festival with Best of the Festival 2019.