Thanks to our team behind the scenes, here are some great 1970 Ceralbus photos!
Jim's senior photo
Jim as BHS Yell Leader
Jim with Debbie Rubinstein the Varsity Cheerleader and Yell Leader Photo
Jeff Kouf, Jim's younger brother
ORIGINAL POST
Cathy,
Jim Kouf, who was in my 1970 class has been associated with Disney/Buena Vista Films for over twenty years now. His first big hit was "Stakeout", then "Another Stakeout", "Con Air", "National Treasure", and the recent sequel. He is a screenwriter, and also a producer and director. You can see all of his work listed at www.imdb.com
He went all the way through Jefferson with me, then John Muir, and BHS. He was a Yell Leader when we were seniors. His younger brother, Jeff Kouf, was BHS '72. The last I knew their parents still live in the same house on Birmingham in Burbank. Jim and his family primarily live in Montana on his ranch.
Also, we've talked before about "a small world" and "six degrees of separation"! I have a friend, Peter Brooks, in Woodland Hills who played Don Grady's best friend on "My Three Sons". He can also be found at www.imdb.com
Alan
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Thanks Alan! Found this very brief video snippet of a interview with Jim:
CLICK HERE to see more.
2005 ARTICLE
Corvallis students taste the real world
Sunday, 25 September 2005
"National Treasure" screenwriter and MAPS board member, Jim Kouf, gives Corvallis students a taste of the real world. Director offers tips to Corvallis students
By VINCE DEVLIN of the MissoulianCORVALLIS
Director, producer and screenwriter Jim Kouf, whose long list of credits includes "National Treasure," "Rush Hour" and "Stakeout," is light years ahead of the aspiring Corvallis High School filmmakers he spoke with Monday. But, he told them, they are light years ahead of where he was at their age. Kouf was interested enough in movies to make some short films on his own time while he was in high school, recruiting pals to do the acting while he filmed them using old 8-millimeter or 16-millimeter cameras.
"There wasn't even any sound," he said. But it wasn't until, as an English major at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, he found his calling in a playwriting class. "New York was too far to get to after I got out of college," he told the students, "but I grew up in Burbank, so I got back to L.A. where I could get ahold of some scripts. I didn't even know what a movie script looked like - I didn't know exterior or interior (indicating whether scenes are to be shot indoors or outside), I didn't know you had to say whether it was day or night."
By contrast, the Corvallis students he spoke to first thing after the lunch hour have already written, directed, cast, produced and edited one movie, and will have more under their belts before they're done this year. "By the time you get to college, you'll have so much experience, it's amazing," Kouf said. Kouf, who moved his family to the Bitterroot Valley years ago, spoke to the students at the behest of his friend, Peter Rosten of Darby. Rosten, a retired movie and television producer, started Media Arts in the Public Schools, or MAPS, at Corvallis, plus the
foundation (named after his mother, Florence Prever Rosten) to fund it. In the two years since, the program has grown to include a class for middle-school students, plus Media Arts 1 and 2 classes in the high school. Kouf, who is on the foundation's board of directors, spent Monday speaking with all three classes. He told the Media Arts 2 class he is currently at work on a TV movie based on the newest Medal of Honor computer video game being developed. The movie and game will be released at the same time. Video games are opening a whole new market for screenwriters, Kouf told the students - another screenwriter is working on the game while Kouf writes the movie - just as cable TV did several years ago.
Kouf wrote six screenplays before he made any money at screenwriting, and then it was being hired to rewrite someone else's script. He spent 14 years on the Disney lot. "They'd bring me material they wanted me to work on," Kouf said. "I was fortunate - I was just given stuff to do. It was like the old studio system that doesn't exist anymore. Now, you have to go out and make things happen. I've also been a producer and a director. Really, I'm a bit of an entrepreneur now, and I also raise cattle."
Students wanted to know how much screenplays are worth ("Anywhere from nothing to $2 million," Kouf told them), and which movie had been the most lucrative for him financially. "I really don't know," Kouf said. "There is significant after-market revenue in the form of residuals when the film comes out on DVD or is shown on TV. It's how screenwriters survive the down periods in their careers. I'm still getting money for movies that were made in the '80s. Now 'National Treasure,' which I wrote in 1998-99, I was still part of Disney, and it was part of my overall deal. I didn't get paid per script, I got paid on a yearly basis."
Writing for television "will eat the life out of you," Kouf told them. "Every eight days, they're shooting an hourlong show. Every eight days, they need a new script, and it's brutal. They have teams of writers, and sometimes that's not enough. I love writing movies. Nobody's under the pressure of 'it's got to be done by Wednesday.' "
He has been steadily employed for 25 years in the industry, "which is not easy," Kouf told them. "I'm always at work on five to 10 projects at a time, hoping to get one going." Kouf has many films on his resume he'd rather forget, but added that often a screenwriter is blamed for things beyond his or her control. "It's really a miracle anything ever comes out good," he said. "With writers, directors, studios and actors, you have so many hands in the pie. You can have a screenplay that is good, but what they did on the set screwed it up. And if you get bad actors, I don't care how good the words are, the movie will suck."
But there are surprises, too. "Rush Hour," the comedy starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker which Kouf was hired to rewrite, turned out far better than he expected. "I was hired to fix a really bad script, which I essentially threw away," Kouf said. "The original had a Chinese cop and and FBI agent searching for a kidnapped girl while Los Angeles was about to be blown up with biological weapons." Kouf dumped the biological weapons and turned the story in a radically different direction. The FBI wants the visiting Chinese cop out of the way while it works the kidnapping, and the Los Angeles police department provides a cop it's not too happy with (Tucker) for the dog of an assignment. The pair inadvertently end up solving the crime.
Kouf, a history buff, encouraged Rosten's students who want to pursue a career in the movie industry to attend a university, such as Montana State, with a film school and to take a lot of history courses as well. "All history is is stories," he said. "And good stories are what you want to tell."
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6/21/08 UPDATE
Just received this added info from Alan Landros...
CP,
In the article on the blog about Jim Kouf, it mentions Peter Rosten. More "small world"! My friend, Larry Segall, who is living in La Manzanilla, Mexico, which is near Puerto Vallarta, is a lifelong friend of Peter Rosten! Larry's father is also a friend of Peter's. Peter's ranch in Montana neighbors Jim Kouf's ranch. Larry is flying up here on August 2 to drive his dad and step-mom in a two car caravan up to Montana to visit the Rosten's on their ranch! I'm sure Larry will visit Jim Kouf while there if Jim is there at that time. When Larry gets back here he will stay on for the Centennial, and then go back to Mexico on September 20. I sent Larry a message today with the blog address so he could read the story about Jim Kouf and Peter Rosten. He responded with a compliment, "Nice Website". I will introduce you to him at the Centennial. Our friend, Jana Jordan Guest, is also coming from Ridgecrest for the Centennial to meet up with Larry. (While we were in high school Jana's boyfriend was from your class. I think he went to Viet Nam during that time. He is Neal Hershenson.)
Alan
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