The Big T: Testosterone

John’s career began at Walt Disney Productions where he worked for thirteen years. This experience included his apprenticeship as an art director, encompassed work in management in all areas of the company, ranging from television and motion picture production to theme park design and operations for both Disneyland and Disney World. Following his Disney years he gained broad experience with many of the major studios in Hollywood on a variety of feature films and television productions. John's films have received awards and nominations including the Emmy®, the Cable Ace, the Christopher Award for excellence in television, the Western Heritage Award, and the Golden Halo. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, and the Art Directors Guild. John has production experience in many U.S. states including Hawaii, and internationally in Canada’s Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal, as well as Ireland, England, and Japan.

In addition to writing screenplays, eleven of John's works have been published. His historical novel, Cheyenne Rising Sun, arrived in bookstores in September of 2004 and rose to #1 on bestseller lists in several cities. His third novel, Takin’ It Back, previewed in June 2005 at Book Expo America in NYC and its hardcover edition was released in September of that year. Shaquille O’Neal, Bill Walton, NYPD Commissioner William J Bratton, and the NBA endorsed the book. A CBS one-hour special “Pride, Passion, and Power” introduced John and promoted the novel. His fourth book, ROD, released June 2008 at Book Expo America and is a true-life, inspirational, sports themed story.

During his career John has produced numerous films and television movies. His IMDB filmography lists forty titles. He is the co-creator of the Warner Brothers/ABC police drama, Ohara, starring Pat Morita and Catherine Keener. Through his company he co-wrote, produced and directed 2nd unit for the MGM movie, Captive Hearts. Following that John wrote Determined to Live: An American Epic, and it was published. He followed with the screenplay adaptation that became a motion picture he produced–and directed 2nd unit, for Disney and ABC titled One More Mountain. He designed, wrote and directed a cutting-edge multi-media CD-ROM science fiction game, Dreggs. In addition, he has credits in art direction on over twenty film and television projects. He has written, directed and edited several documentaries, commercials, and music videos. Earlier in his career he was nominated for an Emmy® for NBC’s movie of John Steinbeck’s, The Red Pony, starring Henry Fonda. He produced Ron Howard’s film, Skyward, starring Bette Davis, as well directed the flying sequences, for which he also piloted the camera plane. He has flown wingtip formation with WWII aircraft–P-51 Mustang and Hawker Sea Fury, for the TV series Airwolf. The NY Times praised John’s aerial work as being “Swoopingly beautiful.” An LA Times story in the "Calendar" section praised one of John's films, Conagher, ranking it in the top 20 westerns and one of the most historically accurate movies set in the old west.

John directed and edited two documentary shorts that present the affect music had on the Civil Rights Movement and Protest Movement, and a third short film on the Birth of Rock & Roll – for the NARAS 50th Anniversary Grammy® celebration. He produced the pilot for a music performance series titled Stay Tuned, hosted by Peter Coyote, that presents a variety of performance and biographical video of music and dance artists, and historical footage related to entertainment. The full program streams on Amazon and Stay Tuned is a partner channel on YouTube. John produced, wrote, directed, edited, and operated one of the principal cameras during the production of several of the concerts covered for StayTuned TV, in cities including New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. In-concert performances were shot with multiple HD cameras. ABC News Now did an extensive story on this emerging site. The NY Times covered a Central Park summer concert StayTuned TV produced that presented artists from Sudan. As an adjunct to StayTuned TV, John has worked with the Grammy® Foundation directing and interviewing for biographical videos of music icons. A devotee of jazz guitar, John plays in Los Angeles with his jazz sextet, Elixir & Friends.
John is computer literate in Final Cut Pro, Adobe’s After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Macromedia Flash. He has guest lectured at UCLA and moderated a panel on “Interactive Writing” for Media World at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. He was a panelist for the seminar “Digital Dreams” at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and was a panelist on the subjects of “Feature Film Distribution” and “Screenwriting” for the Newport Beach Film Festival, as well as a continuing juror for their film awards. He was a panelist for the LA Latino Film Festival’s conference “From Financing to New Media Distribution.” In addition to an Emmy® nomination John has been honored by the Cowboy Hall of Fame for his film Conagher with their Western Heritage Award, and in 1994 he received the Christopher Award for his film One More Mountain. His script for Takin’ It Back was selected by the 2015 Global Script Challenge, carrying those laurels. John is participating in the Red Bull High Performance “Hacking Creativity” project, an exploration of human potential studying what creativity is, means, if it can be learned, and how it can be applied.

As a part of a major effort to present positive stories through entertainment media John has been a Senior Fellow with the Washington, D.C. based National Strategy Information Center, an education and research foundation. The NSIC Culture of Lawfulness Project is sponsored in part by the State Department and Georgetown University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society. http://www.cultureoflawfulness.org/ The NSIC project has taken John to Italy, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico and Colombia as a key speaker / participant in their conferences.

For more information on John Kuri please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Kuri