|
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. 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 numerous 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. He is also a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, and the Art Directors Guild. John has production experience in many states within the U.S. including Hawaii, and internationally in Canada’s Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal, as well as in Ireland, England, and Japan.
During his career John has produced numerous films and television movies. He is the co-creator of the Warner Brothers/ABC police drama, Ohara, starring Pat Morita and Catherine Keener. Through Kuri Productions Inc., he co-wrote and produced the MGM feature, Captive Hearts. Following that John wrote Determined to Live: An American Epic, and it was published. He followed the publication with the screenplay adaptation that became a motion picture he produced for Disney and ABC titled One More Mountain. He designed, wrote, produced, 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 director Ron Howard's film, Skyward, starring Bette Davis, as well as directed the film’s flying sequences, for which he piloted the camera plane also. A Los Angeles Times story in the Sunday "Calendar" section praised one of John's films, Conagher, considering it to be one of the most historically accurate movies set in the old west. The film, based on the novel by Louis L'Amour, stars Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross. John recently completed two documentary shorts that present the effect music had on the Civil Rights Movement, Protest Movement, and a third short film on the Birth of Rock & Roll – for the NARAS 50th Anniversary Grammy® celebration. He recently completed the pilot for an Internet TV music channel, www.staytunedtv.com. John produced, wrote, directed, edited, and operated one of the principal cameras during the production of several of the concerts covered for StayTunedTV, 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 StaytunedTV produced that presented artists from Sudan. As an adjunct to StaytunedTV, John has worked with the Grammy® Foundation directing and interviewing on-camera biographical videos of famous music icons. A devotee of jazz guitar, John played acoustic guitar on the recording of the title theme music for StayTunedTV and he plays in Los Angeles jazz clubs. His sextet performed a 2007 summer concert at Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena, is viewable on StaytunedTV.com. John 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 juror for their film awards for five years. In May of 2006 John was the keynote speaker at the National Police Activities League convention in Cleveland, presenting Takin’ It Back. 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.
As a part of a major effort to present positive stories through entertainment
media John is 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 Georgetown
University’s Center for Democracy and Civil Society found at
http://www.strategycenter.org The NSIC project has taken John to Italy, Abu
Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain and Jordan. This program will also involve John with Latin
American media on the
Culture of Lawfulness Project.
|
As
well as writing many screenplays, eleven of John's works have been published.
His historical novel,