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Ken Kwapis
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Ken Kwapis
Kenneth William Kwapis (born August 17, 1957) is an American film and television director, screenwriter, and author. He specialized in single-camera sitcoms in the 1990s and 2000s and has directed feature films such as Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (1985), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), and He's Just Not That into You (2009).
Kwapis was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Belleville. He is the son of Marge (née Wells) and Bruno Walter Kwapis, who was an oral surgeon. He is of Polish descent and was raised Catholic, attending the Jesuit preparatory academy at St. Louis University High School.
He earned a bachelor's degree at Northwestern University's School of Speech, after which he traveled west to enroll in the M.F.A. program at the USC School of Cinema-Television.
Kwapis' twenty-four-minute thesis film, For Heaven's Sake, won the Student Academy Award in 1982. The film is a contemporary adaptation of Mozart's one-act opera Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario).
In 1983, Kwapis directed Revenge of the Nerd for CBS' Afternoon Playhouse, followed by Summer Switch for ABC's Afterschool Special. Starring Robert Klein, Summer Switch is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, the sequel to a young adult fantasy, Freaky Friday. For the Scholastic Book Company, Kwapis directed his first feature film, The Beniker Gang, starring Andrew McCarthy.
Kwapis' next film was Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (Warner Bros., 1985). The film was the big-screen debut of the Sesame Street ensemble (Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, The Count, Cookie Monster, Grover, Bert and Ernie, et al.). Follow That Bird tells the story of Big Bird's quest to return to his family on Sesame Street when a social worker arranges for Big Bird to move in with a family of his own kind, the Dodo Birds, in Oceanview, Illinois.
In 1987, Kwapis made his prime time television debut, directing an installment of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.
Kwapis' second feature Vibes (Columbia, 1988) was made under Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's fledgling Imagine banner. Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Vibes is the tale of two psychics (Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper) who are enlisted by a fortune hunter (Peter Falk) to divine the whereabouts of a treasure hidden in the Andes. The film was shot on location in Ecuador, and features a pan pipe-flavored score by James Horner.
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Ken Kwapis
Kenneth William Kwapis (born August 17, 1957) is an American film and television director, screenwriter, and author. He specialized in single-camera sitcoms in the 1990s and 2000s and has directed feature films such as Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (1985), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), and He's Just Not That into You (2009).
Kwapis was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, and grew up in neighboring Belleville. He is the son of Marge (née Wells) and Bruno Walter Kwapis, who was an oral surgeon. He is of Polish descent and was raised Catholic, attending the Jesuit preparatory academy at St. Louis University High School.
He earned a bachelor's degree at Northwestern University's School of Speech, after which he traveled west to enroll in the M.F.A. program at the USC School of Cinema-Television.
Kwapis' twenty-four-minute thesis film, For Heaven's Sake, won the Student Academy Award in 1982. The film is a contemporary adaptation of Mozart's one-act opera Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario).
In 1983, Kwapis directed Revenge of the Nerd for CBS' Afternoon Playhouse, followed by Summer Switch for ABC's Afterschool Special. Starring Robert Klein, Summer Switch is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, the sequel to a young adult fantasy, Freaky Friday. For the Scholastic Book Company, Kwapis directed his first feature film, The Beniker Gang, starring Andrew McCarthy.
Kwapis' next film was Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird (Warner Bros., 1985). The film was the big-screen debut of the Sesame Street ensemble (Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, The Count, Cookie Monster, Grover, Bert and Ernie, et al.). Follow That Bird tells the story of Big Bird's quest to return to his family on Sesame Street when a social worker arranges for Big Bird to move in with a family of his own kind, the Dodo Birds, in Oceanview, Illinois.
In 1987, Kwapis made his prime time television debut, directing an installment of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.
Kwapis' second feature Vibes (Columbia, 1988) was made under Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's fledgling Imagine banner. Written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, Vibes is the tale of two psychics (Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper) who are enlisted by a fortune hunter (Peter Falk) to divine the whereabouts of a treasure hidden in the Andes. The film was shot on location in Ecuador, and features a pan pipe-flavored score by James Horner.
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