William Todd-Jones

2018 was spent in Wales with Bad Wolf, as Master Puppeteer and creating the Creature FX department for the BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman's, His Dark Materials. Working closely with the Vfx vendors Framestore, the series directors and the actors, Todd developed a methodology & style that permitted the successful use of puppet proxies and acting rigs, "So that the actors would believe and the characters be made real". The work gained the 2020 BAFTA for best Vfx.

He spent 2017 as puppet shop director for Cirque du Soliel affiliates Monlove in Montreal, where he helped build the workshop, assemble the team and oversee the build for the theatre version of the successful animated film The Nut Job.

From 2012-2015, he toured the world as the Master Puppeteer and Manny performer in the Stage Entertainment arena show Ice Age Live.

Todd-Jones has started that he is determined to use his art to help people be aware of environmental issues. He spent 2009 helping create the Ice Bear Project, aimed at drawing the public's attention to the issues around ocean temperature increase and how it affects the Arctic. He and his team took a life size ice sculpture of a polar bear to the Copenhagen Climate Conference; as the ice melted, the bear's bronze skeleton was revealed.

For TV, he performed in Aslan the lion (rear legs) and played Glenstorm the centaur, in the BBC's rendition of C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia; he played the starring role of Mopatop in the BAFTA Award-nominated children's television series Mopatop's Shop from 2002-2005; and has performed creatures as diverse as a troll, a lap dancing mouse, and a three-toed sloth.

In 1997, he created an outdoor theatre spectacle, Spirit of the Rhino Drum, for the rhino charity. He wrote, designed, and directed this extravaganza on the theme of wildlife conservation, which was performed at major festivals across the UK, by African musicians, puppeteers, dancers, aerialists and acrobats. Todd-Jones also designed puppets and full-body costumes for River of Kings, a puppetry festival in Bangkok, Thailand, performed in front of the Thai Royal Palace in January 2003.

William Todd-Jones (born 1958) is a Welsh puppeteer, puppet designer, performer, director, movement consultant and writer for film, television and theatre in the UK and abroad.