| History of Elixir Entertainment and its sister corporation Kuri Productions |
In 1976 Kuri Productions, Inc. was formed in California, by John Kuri. Co-founder Emile Kuri, John's father and two time Oscar® winning designer, joined the board of directors. The company produced musical variety documentary motion picture for television, Vegas! Vegas! Vegas! that John Kuri directed. The film features major artists including Juliet Prowse, Robert Goulet, and Wayne Newton and captured the last days of Vegas before its rebirth. Sponsored by Hughes Airwest the show was successfully syndicated in more that 80% of the domestic U.S. television markets as well as many foreign television markets. In the immediate years that followed the company commenced development of a number of motion picture projects for both the feature market and television. As well, John Kuri produced several films, including the award winning GE Theater for NBC movie Skyward, directed by Ron Howard and starring the legendary Bette Davis. In 1985 Kuri Productions was asked to produce aerial sequences at the Reno Air Race for the hit CBS series Airwolf. John Kuri directed the sequences and flew the camera plane in formation flying with race modified WWII fighter aircraft and also photographed the Blue Angels in flight. In 1985 Kuri Productions formed a subsidiary corporation, Kurissama Productions, Inc., based in Montreal, Canada. Kurissama, initially backed by one of the founding directors of Hawaiian Airlines, was the production company that produced the MGM released feature film Captive Hearts, which was produced by John Kuri. He also co-wtote the film's screenplay with actor Pat Morita, and directed 2nd Unit. The film released theatrically in 1987 in all markets worldwide followed by a successful home video release by CBS/Fox Home Video. It was during this time John Kuri succeeded in publishing his original historical story, Determined to Live: An American Epic. This resulted from months of research along the Oregon Trail. Determined to Live tells the story of James and Margaret Reed and their children, members of the ill-fated Donner Party. The now famous wagon train made its way west in 1846 and met with many unfortunate delays that ultimately placed them in the Sierra mountains during a very early and heavy winter snowfall where the party became trapped. Ultimately it was through James and Margaret's undying dedication to their children and each other that the family survived and went on to prosper in California. Then, after producing the very popular and successful award winning motion picture, Conagher, that stars Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross, Kuri elected to develop the screenplay based on Determined to Live. His script was acquired by Disney Studios television and Kuri produced the film for Walt Disney Productions.
Interested in all film related opportunity, Kuri produced several commercials and documentary videos over the years. Included in those were films for the Los Angeles Sheriff's department. Ron Howard was featured in a commercial/recruitment spot that Kuri directed and edited. Kuri also directed and edited Officer Survival, IV, a widely distributed police training video which depicts actual major crimes.
Continuing with its interest in all aspects of entertainment, in early 2004 KPI completed production of the first three episodes of a Live Music television series titled, Stay Tuned, hosted by Peter Coyote. The essence of this program is capturing the experience of live music in actual major music venues.
Additionally, the Staytunedtv website is a rich source of video recorded biographical information on the artists featured in Stay Tuned. In 2005 Elixir Entertainment was formed as a development and production partner to KPI. Elixir and KPI have produced multi-camera video of several concerts presented on our entertainment portal www.staytunedtv.com. Among the many productions are: the Lincoln Center for the Performaning Arts North American premiere of Mongolia: Concert; the New York City Central Park Summer Concert in the Park Sudanese Music and Dance Festival; the Chicago Millenium Park/Pritzker Pavilion "Music Without Borders" United States Debut of Enzo Avitabile & I Bottari. In 2008 at the request of the Grammy Foundation Elixir made four documentary shorts celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Grammy®. The titles, all presenting the effect music has had during definitive periods in the history of the Grammy®, include The Birth of Rock and Roll, The Civil Rights Movement, and The Protest Movement. In addition to Elixir's film development the company is currently developing multiple titles in digitial media for sub channel development within www.staytunedtv.com including Talk4Teens which is based on the documentary by John Kuri Talk to Me.
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After publishing Determined to Live Kuri's interest in historical writing continued. When offered the very sacred history of the Northern Cheyenne Indian, Kuri decided to write an historical novel that is the literary basis for the film the company plans to produce in coming months, Cheyenne Rising Sun. The hardcover edition of the novel released in September of 2004 and was received very favorably at Book ExpoAmerica, Chicago, where it was previewed. It went to number one best seller 
