Ken Karn: Producer, Co-Writer

Dr. Karn took a long and winding path to filmmaking. He started out at the University of the Pacific Dental School (D.D.S. degree 1976) and the University of Maryland School of Dentistry (Postgraduate Certificate in Periodontics, 1981). Despite being a periodontist, his passion for film burned brightly. He was a film critic for various local publications and completed screenwriting courses at UCLA when he was a Major in the Air Force stationed in Southern California.

This led to a deeper interest in filmmaking. While he was in private dental practice in San Jose, California he enrolled in the film program at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA. His final film project there was Speed of Light . It has been screened at the 1992 Film Front National Student Film Festival (Salt Lake City, Utah), 1993 Cleveland International Film Festival, and the Melbourne International Film Festival (Australia). It also won the prestigious Joey Award from the San Jose Film Commission as Best Student Project of 1993. His work in over 20 short films includes experience in all technical crew positions as well as director, writer, producer and actor. The Secret Princess , a film he produced with writer/director Mike Rabehl, won the CINE Eagle award, one of the highest honors for a short subject film. Subsequently, Dr. Karn formed a company, Outland Films, with his screenwriting partner Bill Bivins. They have 7 completed feature film scripts, two of which are in various stages of development by producers in Los Angeles and New York.

Dr. Karn was the Programming Director of Cinequest: The San Jose Film Festival from 1992 through 1994. He was responsible for selecting films and developing the festival program during the years when Cinequest made its mark as a popular stop on the U.S. festival circuit. He left that position to pursue the full time job of bringing the scripts of Outland Films the big screen. In addition, he is director of the Camera Cinema Club in San Jose, CA, Executive Director and programmer for sneak, a film club in Seattle, WA., on-air film critic and news correspondent for "Celluloid Dreams," a cinema-themed weekly radio show on KSJS (90.5 FM), and a freelance film writer and columnist for "Film/Tape World Magazine", a San Francisco-based monthly trade publication. He recently worked with ESPN as Executive Director of the Tube Film Festival: an action sports film event in conjunction with the summer X Games in 2000 and 2001.

Back to Team Roster