Scott Land

Scott Land is a professional puppeteer and actor. His skills are on display in many scenes in Paramount Pictures’ Team America: World Police.

Notes

Scott Land is a puppeteer at the top of his game. His seasoned performing skills are on display in nearly every scene of Paramount Pictures’ Team America: World Police. During the making of the movie—the most expensive puppet-driven feature film ever produced—Scott did more than pull the strings on dozens of lead characters. Throughout the 4 months of shooting, Land lent his expertise to director/producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone who, shot by shot, relied on his 25 years of marionette experience to help them create their landmark film. Other screen credits include Disney’s The Princess Diaries 2, for which he created and performed a Julie Andrews look-alike marionette, seen on the Special Features section of the DVD. His other TV and film credits include Pee Wee’s Playhouse, The Ben Stiller Show, Still Breathing, Shakes the Clown and Rodney Dangerfield’s Birthday Bash.

Equipped with the skill, experience and a natural business sense, The Scott Land Marionettes opened for business in 1985. Since then, Land has performed some 10,000 shows worldwide at theatres, convention centers, theme parks, corporate events and on cruise lines. Scott has entertained at more celebrity private parties than any other puppeteer. His clientele reads like a “Who’s-Who” list of Hollywood: Sylvester Stallone, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Pee Wee Herman, Tom Hanks, Rod Stewart, Meg Ryan and many more. Scott has himself experienced the limelight having acted in dozens of national television commercials--without puppets—a little known fact. And he is one of a few marionette artists to be invited to perform at the legendary Magic Castle in Hollywood. In 2006, he traveled to Tibet and gave a special performance for the Dali Lama, delighting his Holiness with a “mini-me” marionette version of himself.

His first year in college, Scott landed a job with his childhood hero, Bob Baker, as lead puppeteer in his road show. He also worked as a puppet builder in Baker’s shop. This led to a summer job as lead puppeteer for Tony Urbano —four shows a day, practicing between shows with the beautifully crafted marionettes. Scott also studied for a summer under Albrecht Roser at University of Connecticut. Roser, the German puppet master was in his eighties, and considered to be the greatest marionettist in the world. From this experience Scott gained a profound awareness of the marionette tradition as an art form that he had become a part of. He also studied with renowned American marionettist Phillip Huber (the master manipulator behind Being John Malkovich), and hand puppet manipulation with former Muppeteer, Michael Earl (Mr. Snuffle-upagus on Sesame Street), from whom he learned the importance of specifics, such as the puppet’s breath, in creating character through movement.

Land was raised in Redlands, California—a small community that supported the arts. At age nine he joined the local community circus and learned juggling, tightrope walking, trapeze, unicycle and clowning. It was the lead clown of this community circus who introduced him to marionettes. But it was seeing puppetry pioneer Bob Baker skillfully perform his professional marionettes at the National Orange Show that really got him hooked and inspired the youth to create his own cast of whimsical variety marionettes. His first paying job was at age 12, performing at a birthday party as combination clown, juggler, balloon sculptor and puppeteer for a full hour. He earned ten bucks that day. The next gig he raised the price to twenty dollars, and by age 13, his birthday party puppet shows were being booked all over town. At age __ he went on his first audition—the part of a circus performer/puppeteer in a Mountain Dew TV ad. He got the job

External links

• Scott Land
• IMDb