Reflections on a career as a puppet master.

Walter Ryce

You may know Jim Dultz as the president of the board of Youth Arts Collective, promoting others’ creative endeavors. But then the 60-year-old Carmel Valley resident says “When I worked on Team America with Matt and Trey… ” and you’re like, hold on. The most brilliant, epic and funny string-puppet motion picture ever? Please, go on.

When did inspiration first strike?

At 5, I got my first marionette puppet and a little cardboard theater, in a window in Reseda. I instantly started doing puppet shows. Every semester from first grade to junior high I did a play for my class. [After] high school, I directed community theater.

How did your film career begin?

I started at the lowest rung of the art department at age 19. A year later, assistant prop master. Then prop master, set decorator, assistant art director, art director, then production designer. That’s the head of the art department.

What did you do on 1976’s Revenge of the Cheerleaders?

Both prop master and set director. Cheerleaders took off their tops, shower scenes and bubbles. Very ridiculous. There’s a making of, which is the silliest thing. When you’re young, low-budget films work you to death. And you love it.

What were your early jobs like?

I started working in TV commercials, real early rock videos, one for Alice Cooper – I don’t remember which one. The first union show I did was Amazing Stories, produced by Steven Spielberg, working with Rick Carter, co-production designer for Avatar. Other directors were David Fincher, Danny DeVito.

You worked on Last Action Hero. What was our former governor like then?

He was great. He took us out to dinner, was very personable, he smiled. He had a gym on the set. [Director] James Cameron I worked with on Battle Beyond the Stars, a 1980 Roger Corman film.

You worked on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Do you go to the conventions?

I don’t. I’m not really a Trekkie. I was just hired to do the TV show.

What is it about puppets?

Puppets are theatrical, they can’t do a thing for themselves. It requires a crew to do everything. I liked the low-techness of it – rubber bands and rigs. I was a huge fan of Jim Henson. [I worked on] Muppets Tonight in 1994-95. I was in heaven. [We had] guests like Michelle Pfeiffer, who was a dream, Prince, Tony Bennett.

Team America is awesome. What was it like?

There was not a project I wanted to do more. I loved South Park and Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Not only was it completely fun and chaotic, but Trey is the director I’ve had the most respect for my entire career. He was overseeing the editing, the second and third units, writing all the songs, shooting live, doing voiceovers – there were 120 miniature sets. He barely slept and he dreamed that puppets were trying to kill him. It was an epic puppet movie, and it was a blast. The other major film was What Dreams May Come. So beautiful. We won an Art Directors Guild Award.

You did Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Yeah. Another great pure joy. [Star] Jason Segel also wrote the script. It was completely autobiographical. Everything that happened in the film, happened to him. He broke up with his girlfriend. He wrote a Dracula puppet musical. [I was] the puppet supervisor. When Jason walked on the set, he started crying. He said it was [all] he hoped for and more.

Was [Overboard] funny to work on?

Yeah. Kurt [Russell] and Goldie [Hawn] were terrific. Goldie came on the set in a sleeveless undershirt, the shortest red miniskirt and red boots. The teen boys [in the cast] could not concentrate.

How has film changed over the years?

When I first started, the studios were a complete universe. Catering, teaching, hospital, scenic, matte, absolutely anything you needed, there was a department that did it. They’re all gone now.

What do you say about your career?

I think I was incredibly lucky to be able to do the things that I loved doing when I was 5.