James Korris
Encyclopedia
James H. Korris, a pioneer of the current trend in game-based simulation for military training, served as Creative Director of the Institute for Creative Technologies
(Institute), University of Southern California
(USC) in Los Angeles
from its founding in August 1999 until October 2006. Dubbed "The Military Entertainment Complex", the modern collaboration of Hollywood and the Department of Defense at the Institute was first discussed in a National Research Council study published in 1997. At the Institute, Korris worked with talents as diverse as John Milius
, Randal Kleiser
and David Ayer
The initial $44.5 million contract grew substantially as basic research in immersive virtual reality and prototype application development was expanded.
At USC, Korris led projects including Full Spectrum Warrior
, the first military application developed for Microsoft
’s Xbox
, along with desktop training simulations Full Spectrum Command, Full Spectrum Leader, the Joint Fires and Effects Trainer System and the Department of Defense 2006 Modeling & Simulation Award-winner Every Soldier a Sensor Simulation.
Korris also led USC Institute work in Concept Development and Visualization, a process that brought Hollywood story-telling and production techniques to military informational films. Work included the award-winning video Nowhere To Hide, the US Army/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
vision of America’s future, transformed land force. His team supported the US Army’s Future Combat Systems
critical Block B review which resulted in approval of the $14.7 billion System Development & Design phase of the program.
Korris' work at USC was recognized in the 2006 Smithsonian Institution-Cooper Hewitt Design Life Now 2006 National Design Triennial
. He was a featured speaker at Richard Saul Wurman’s 2006 Entertainment Gathering, eg2006. Korris was also designated a Massive Change Visionary in Bruce Mau’s Massive Change exhibit in October 2004, which premiered at the Vancouver Art Gallery and travelled most recently to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
In 2007, Korris was appointed to the Naval Research Advisory Committee
, the senior scientific advisory group to the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Chief of Naval Research. In 2008, he was named to lead a US Marine Corps study on virtual simulation training for ground forces.
program and concept development and content production for The Boeing Company’s Space Segment Design Review for Transformational SATCOM. The FCS Experiment 1.1 Soldier Exercise marked CTI's entrance to the realm of large-scale live demonstration. In 2008, CTI teamed with Boeing to develop virtual training solutions for military and law enforcement.
and Brian Grazer
’s Imagine Films. Friends Rick Berman
, (Star Trek: Next Generation Executive Producer) and Maurice Hurley (Co-Executive Producer) named character Captain Korris after him in the episode Heart of Glory. He Executive Produced Showtime/Paramount's "The Killing Yard" which won the 2003 American Bar Association Silver Gavel. He is a member of the writers’ branch of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Writers Guild of America
, the Writers Guild of Canada
and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
. Korris earned his undergraduate degree in Economics at Yale University
and was awarded an MBA with distinction at the Harvard Business School
.
Institute for Creative Technologies
The Institute for Creative Technologies is a research institute of the University of Southern California located in Playa Vista, California. ICT was established in 1999 with funding from the US Army...
(Institute), University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
(USC) in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
from its founding in August 1999 until October 2006. Dubbed "The Military Entertainment Complex", the modern collaboration of Hollywood and the Department of Defense at the Institute was first discussed in a National Research Council study published in 1997. At the Institute, Korris worked with talents as diverse as John Milius
John Milius
John Frederick Milius is an American screenwriter, director, and producer of motion pictures.-Early life:Milius was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Elizabeth and William Styx Milius, who was a shoe manufacturer. Milius attempted to join the Marine Corps in the late 1960s, but was rejected...
, Randal Kleiser
Randal Kleiser
John Randal Kleiser is an American film director and producer, perhaps best known for directing the 1978 musical film Grease.-Life and career:...
and David Ayer
David Ayer
David Ayer is an American screenwriter, film producer and film director.-Early life:David Ayer was born in Champaign, Illinois in 1968. He grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota and Bethesda, Maryland, where he was kicked out of his house by his parents as a teenager...
The initial $44.5 million contract grew substantially as basic research in immersive virtual reality and prototype application development was expanded.
At USC, Korris led projects including Full Spectrum Warrior
Full Spectrum Warrior
Full Spectrum Warrior is a real-time tactics videogame. It was developed by the Institute for Creative Technologies in association with Pandemic Studios and published by THQ. It was released on June 1, 2004 for the Xbox, September 21, 2004 for Windows and on March 23, 2005 for the PlayStation 2...
, the first military application developed for Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
’s Xbox
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
, along with desktop training simulations Full Spectrum Command, Full Spectrum Leader, the Joint Fires and Effects Trainer System and the Department of Defense 2006 Modeling & Simulation Award-winner Every Soldier a Sensor Simulation.
Korris also led USC Institute work in Concept Development and Visualization, a process that brought Hollywood story-telling and production techniques to military informational films. Work included the award-winning video Nowhere To Hide, the US Army/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
vision of America’s future, transformed land force. His team supported the US Army’s Future Combat Systems
Future Combat Systems
Future Combat Systems was the United States Army's principal modernization program from 2003 to early 2009. Formally launched in 2003, FCS was envisioned to create new brigades equipped with new manned and unmanned vehicles linked by an unprecedented fast and flexible battlefield network...
critical Block B review which resulted in approval of the $14.7 billion System Development & Design phase of the program.
Korris' work at USC was recognized in the 2006 Smithsonian Institution-Cooper Hewitt Design Life Now 2006 National Design Triennial
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
Cooper–Hewitt, National Design Museum, a subsidiary of the Smithsonian Institution, is the United States' national museum of design history and contemporary design and the only museum in the U.S. whose collection is solely focused on contemporary and historic design...
. He was a featured speaker at Richard Saul Wurman’s 2006 Entertainment Gathering, eg2006. Korris was also designated a Massive Change Visionary in Bruce Mau’s Massive Change exhibit in October 2004, which premiered at the Vancouver Art Gallery and travelled most recently to the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.
In 2007, Korris was appointed to the Naval Research Advisory Committee
Naval Research Advisory Committee
The Naval Research Advisory Committee is a civilian advisory committee to the United States Navy.The committee was established in 1946 by Public Law 588, which also created the Office of Naval Research...
, the senior scientific advisory group to the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Chief of Naval Research. In 2008, he was named to lead a US Marine Corps study on virtual simulation training for ground forces.
Founding of Creative Technologies Incorporated
In October 2006 Korris launched Creative Technologies Incorporated (CTI) as a direct outgrowth of his work at USC. CTI efforts include a large-format, mobile simulation project for the Future Combat SystemsFuture Combat Systems
Future Combat Systems was the United States Army's principal modernization program from 2003 to early 2009. Formally launched in 2003, FCS was envisioned to create new brigades equipped with new manned and unmanned vehicles linked by an unprecedented fast and flexible battlefield network...
program and concept development and content production for The Boeing Company’s Space Segment Design Review for Transformational SATCOM. The FCS Experiment 1.1 Soldier Exercise marked CTI's entrance to the realm of large-scale live demonstration. In 2008, CTI teamed with Boeing to develop virtual training solutions for military and law enforcement.
Writing and Producing
Korris came to USC following work in Hollywood studio production, producing and writing. He began with several creative executive positions at Universal Television, moving on to serve as a staff producer for Ron HowardRon Howard
Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American actor, director, and producer. He came to prominence as a child actor, playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years...
and Brian Grazer
Brian Grazer
Brian Thomas Grazer is an Academy Award-winning American film and television producer who co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 with Ron Howard. Together they have produced many acclaimed films, including Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind .- Career :Brian Grazer began his career as a producer...
’s Imagine Films. Friends Rick Berman
Rick Berman
Richard Keith “Rick” Berman is an American television producer. He is most famous for his work as the executive producer of several of the Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager; and, several of the Star Trek theatrical productions, and...
, (Star Trek: Next Generation Executive Producer) and Maurice Hurley (Co-Executive Producer) named character Captain Korris after him in the episode Heart of Glory. He Executive Produced Showtime/Paramount's "The Killing Yard" which won the 2003 American Bar Association Silver Gavel. He is a member of the writers’ branch of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
, the Writers Guild of Canada
Writers Guild of Canada
The Writers Guild of Canada represents more than 1,800 professional writers working in film, television, radio, and multimedia production in Canada...
and the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE , founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is an international professional association, based in...
. Korris earned his undergraduate degree in Economics at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and was awarded an MBA with distinction at the Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
.
Selected publications
- Making Information Entertaining & Entertainment Informative,The Entertainment Gathering 1/2/3/ Feb 2006 Program Book (WiredWired (magazine)Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...
2006) - http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471681636,descCd-tableOfContents.htmlOrganizational Simulation “Application of Immersive Technology For Next Generation Simulation” (with Richard Lindheim) (John Wiley & SonsJohn Wiley & SonsJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc., also referred to as Wiley, is a global publishing company that specializes in academic publishing and markets its products to professionals and consumers, students and instructors in higher education, and researchers and practitioners in scientific, technical, medical, and...
, 2005)] - Every Soldier A Sensor Simulation: The Ninety Day Wonder – How the Army's Institute for Creative Technologies Developed an Award-Winning Training Application for the Global War on Terrorism in Record Time, 25th Army Science Conference (2006), (with Julia C. Campbell and LTC Raymond Compton)
- Learning To Win: How the Military (& You) Can Build Leaders Through Gaming, ELearning! Magazine October 2006 (cover story)
- How ICT Built A Cognitive Training Tool for the Xbox 24th Army Science Conference 2004
- JFETS: Using Immersive Technology to Train the “Universal Observer” – 24th Army Science Conference 2004 (with Randall Hill and David Hendrie)
Selected Invited Talks
- Technology as a Solution to Effective Homeland Security, Featured Speaker, British American Business Council Annual Transatlantic Business Conference (2007)
- Naval Research Advisory Committee Study on Distributed Operations (2006)
- eg2006 Featured Speaker (Entertainment Gathering 2006 - Richard Saul Wurman) (2006)
- Association of the United States Army, Winter Symposium, Featured Speaker (2006)
- Joint C4 and Space Operations for the Current and Future Force, Association of the United States Army, Greater Los Angeles Chapter, Keynote (2005)
- US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Senior Leadership Conference, Panelist (2005)
- Training Fall Conference & Expo, Featured Speaker (2005)
- Training & Simulation, 24th Army Science Conference, Panelist (2004)
- Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference, Panelist (2002)
- 23rd Army Science Conference, Panelist (2002)
- Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements and Training Conference, Keynote (2002)
- International Test & Evaluation Association Annual Modeling & Simulation Workshop, Keynote (2001)
- The Cinema – Now and the Future, Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers Seminar, Keynote (2001)
- Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference, Panelist (2000)
External links
- Smithsonian Design Triennial
- Massive Change: Visionaries (pdf)
- 23rd US Army Science Conference (pdf) – Paper
- Book Chapter, Application of Immersive Technology for Next Generation Simulation, 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- British American Business Council – Annual Transatlantic Business Conference (2007)