Puppetry.

Phoebe Hyder is a multidisciplinary puppeteer, creature-FX performer, and maker working across theatre, film, and television. She began her puppetry career as a volunteer at Little Angel Theatre, where she went on to perform and assistant-direct on a wide range of productions, grounding her practice in both traditional and contemporary approaches to puppet performance.

Phoebe’s work now spans tabletop, mouth-flap, shadow/OHP, object manipulation, large-scale/three-person puppetry, and VFX-integrated creature performance, with a particular focus on emotionally grounded movement, tactile design, and CFX-driven character work. She has contributed to multiple major film and television productions for Warner Bros., DreamWorks, Netflix, Disney, Lucasfilm, Neal Scanlan’s Creature Department, John Nolan Studio, and Creature Cantina, working across creature FX, practical puppetry, and hybrid performance systems.

Alongside her screen work, Phoebe leads Tracked Illusions, her R&D puppetry studio specialising in motion- and performance-tracking for puppets inside a mocap volume. The studio is at the forefront of exploring how real-time motion capture, VR, and physical puppetry can merge to create new forms of digital-physical storytelling for CFX, virtual production, and immersive media.

In 2021, her short film Perspectives—created entirely through OHP projection puppetry—was selected for the Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival, where it received the Rising Puppetry Talent Award. She later trained in puppet design and construction under master maker Nick Barnes, and now designs and fabricates puppets for Chichester Festival Theatre’s outreach and community programmes.

Phoebe’s practice continues to bridge analogue craft and emerging digital technologies, pushing the boundaries of what puppetry, creature performance, and motion-driven character work can be on stage, on set, and in virtual environments.

Below you can Phoebe’s winning puppetry film ‘Perspectives’ from The Tunbridge Wells Puppetry Festival. This film was all made on one OHP projector during lockdown and is was written, performed and filmed by Phoebe. The music is composed by Lia Todd.


Past Puppeteering Projects:

  • TBA Warnerbros
    CFX Puppeteer

  • Jurassic Worl: Rebirth
    CFX Puppeteer

  • How to train your dragon
    Previs Pupeteer


  • TBA Lucas Film, Dysney
    CFX Puppeteer


  • Dragons and Mythical Beasts
    (OlivIER Nomination)

  • Moon River,
    Chichester Festival Theatre


  • His dark Materials, bbc/HBO


  • Mid Summer Nights Dream
    Norwich Puppet Theatre



  • Midsummer Nights Dream,
    Norwich Puppet Theatre



  • FunnyBones, The Lowry



  • The Lips UK Tour, Puppets with Guts



  • Gnomus, Finn Caldwell, Puppets with Guts



  • Perspectives, Tunbridgewells Puppetry Festival
    (Online)



  • The Prism, Les Enfants Terribles
    (Online theatre experience)



  • Jess/ Puppeteer, Fulfilment by SharkLegs co.
    (Underbelly Ed FRinge, Camden Peoples Theatre, WATERSIDE Arts



  • Julia/Puppeteer, The Flying Bath, by Samantha Lane for Little Angel Theatre
    (UK Tour, Lyric Hammersmith, Horse and Bamboo) 2019. Timeout (****)