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Bio

Stepping out onto the curb just beyond the University of Southern California campus, John tightly clasped his diplomas in one hand and the classified section of the newspaper and trades in the other. Having transferred to USC from Arkansas Tech University where he had majored in commercial art and journalism, he now contemplated the question of how to get his filmmaking career off the ground. As irony would have it, he returned to USC, not as a student, but as an employee working for the television broadcast facility in the School of Engineering. It was a temporary position editing a video series of lectures on artificial intelligence.

Throughout the course of editing the lectures on artificial intelligence, which included over a hundred hours of classroom footage, John became familiar with the operation of the station and began proposing ideas for a new video magazine series which he called USClose-Ups. He produced over two dozen USClose-Ups. These programs were used as filler between the station's satellite broadcasts to off-campus engineering students. It wasn't too long before Alex Romano, the station's operation manager, recognized John's various talents and abilities and began to exploit them.

Almost simultaneously, John began to edit educational programs and write scripts for The Seigerson Foundation. After leaving Instructional Television Network and The Seigerson Foundation, John took a job as an assistant editor for Flamingo Films, a company in Hollywood specializing in making television, theatrical, and radio trailer for feature films.

Being an assistant editor essentially meant that one got the menial chores the editor didn't want such as driving around Hollywood dropping off film elements to be transferred and copied. While sometimes tedious, the position allowed John the opportunity to occasionally off-line edit some of the television spots. His first editing assignment at Flamingo Films was cutting the off-line for Paramount's Pet Sematary.

John left Flamingo Films to join the R.B. Davies Company, also in Hollywood, as an assistant editor. The R. B. Davies Company was in business essentially to maintain one account - the Russ Reid agency, a non-profit ad agency responsible for such programs as World Vision Telethons and St. Jude Children's Hospital.

Within the first year at R. B. Davies, John began to supervise on-line edit sessions and audio sweetenings. The experience was invaluable and enabled John to gain experience working with international versions of the same program: World Vision Telethons were produced in English, French, and Spanish. John's responsibilities also included creating storyboards, writing last-minute changes in voice-over narration copy, and developing new business in the area of Electronic Video Presskits for the motion picture studios.

Work as an editor led to segment producing and post-production supervision assignments for Comic Relief 1991 through 1992. In 1992, John met fellow USC alum, and video producer for the Taco Bell Corporation, Edward Garcia to discuss writing a feature screenplay based on Mr. Garcia's science-fiction story idea about a secret organization that tracks down children with special telekinetic powers. As John began work on the science-fiction screenplay, Mr. Garcia commissioned him to write marketing and training scripts for Taco Bell. Before long, Mr. Garcia was asking John to do more work for Taco Bell including work as a videographer, lighting director, storyboard artist and music composer.

John "discovered" Orange County by attending meetings at the Taco Bell headquarters in Irvine. John decided to move. He picked up his roots, traded in the parking problems, heavy smog, and prolific violence for virtually no parking problems, much lighter smog, and a fraction of L.A.'s crime rate. The date of this L.A. to O.C. transition is easy to remember: it happened on the day of the L.A. riots.

It was a dark period...not only because of the riots, but because of the dreaded recession of '92. The fresh start in Orange County meant networking from scratch. John knew nobody in corporate video except Edward Garcia at Taco Bell, and while Taco Bell was still a client, writing and production assignments were few and far between. John began to market himself as a copywriter and producer.

Within a month, John had his first freelance writing assignment creating financial profile articles for Quest Capital - an investment brokerage firm in Newport Beach. He also produced television commercials for Carrow's Restaurant and several local businesses including Arrowhead Pond shopping center.

Little did John know at the time of the riots, that the only man from Orange County to be shot during the lootings and burnings would be the one man who would later give him his next full-time production job as Marketing Director/Producer. That man was entrepreneur videographer Bruce Gleason, and the name of his company was Thumbs Up Productions. During the first year at Thumbs Up, John brought in the first ad agency account and successfully repositioned the small video company, with an average per project budget of $5,000 to a mid-sized production company with an average production budget of $35,000.

After spending two years at Thumbs Up, John accepted a contract from the Long Beach Fire Department to develop a video training program and create a 24-hour cable channel for public relations and decentralized training purposes. The work with the fire department led to an offer from the city's board of education to research, write, produce and direct a series of documentaries on the history of Long Beach. John met with the content specialists and began to review the scope of material. He quickly realized that the budget was not going to be enough to produce an educational series on Long Beach history for a third grade audience.

John felt the concept needed to involve characters; be narrative in nature; and include as much fun, puppets, and music as possible. He wrote a treatment for five 10 to 15 minute chapters (a length that could easily fit within an hour classroom situation) and submitted a revised budget for twice the amount. Even at the revised figure, John knew the production was going to be a stretch. As a producer, John was able to negotiate token fees with highly talented artisans based on the merits of the project, the script and the fact that it was an important education tool for children.

As post-production was wrapping up on the Long Beach history project, John was hired by Gallo Winery to write employee training scripts for videos and interactive CD-ROM projects including an employee orientation program and a brand category management multimedia presentation.

Working as a creative consultant, John teamed up with Rob Wagner and Mike Smith on a series of radio and TV commercial campaigns. These accounts were awarded to John based on compelling presentation to in house marketing departments in front of people with whom John had previously worked with in a non-broadcast collateral capacity. For example, because of his background with non-professional on-camera talent in reality-based, emotionally-charged settings, John was able to convince PacifiCare to allow him to utilize real clients giving heart-felt testimonials about their SecureHorizon plan as part of their broadcast advertising strategy.

In addition to these key points in John's career development, he has written and produced Public Service Announcements, documentaries, corporate marketing-communication programs, and broadcast commercial spots. Recently he formed Next Step Productions with his Southeast Asia partner - Ascensia USA, Inc. Next Step Productions focuses on high-level marketing, publicity and education using new media technologies.

John maintains active relationships with key contacts within the entertainment industry including Tim Johnson at PAX Television and Dawn Tarnovksy at LifeTime. He has created and written series bibles for Teacher's Lounge (a sitcom), The Art Stealers (action-adventure one-hour drama), and Ghostwalker. As a director/producer, John has worked with Sylvester Stallone, Kurt Russell, Dustin Hoffman, Danny Aeilo and novelist Ray Bradbury. He has worked as a freelance illustrator since 1990. Interests include foreign languages, black and white photography, fine art, music composition, teaching piano and practicing Aikido.