Kris Koenig | |
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Born | |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Gilroy High School, Gavilan College, |
Occupation(s) | Film Producer, Screenwriter, Director and Cinematographer |
Known for | Producer, Writer and Director of 400 Years of the Telescope and Astronomy: Observations and Theories . |
Kris Koenig is an American film producer, screenwriter, director and cinematographer known for his roles in the documentaries; 400 Years of the Telescope and Astronomy: Observations and Theories . [1] [2]
Kris Koenig was born in 1962 to Ramon Lee and Inez Koenig. The Father was an Air Force fighter pilot and the family moved around a lot until Kris was in Middle School. Kris graduated from Gilroy High School in 1980. He attended Gavilan College.
Kris Koenig joined the US Coast Guard where he was trained in navigation and visual signaling to serve as a Quartermaster. He attended the US Navy Dive school in Pearl Harbor and earned the rating of SCUBA diver. He later left the US Coast Guard 1985. [3]
Koenig was licensed as a Master of Near Coastal Water (100 ton limit) and PADI Master SCUBA Instructor. He worked as a dive instructor and boat captain at Peter Hughes Dive Bonaire from 1987 -1989. He also worked for Skin Diver Magazine, Petersen Publishing, from 1989 – 1994.
In 2003, Koenig was hired by his future partner Anita Ingrao to work as a consultant on the PBS telecourse Astronomy: Observations and Theories (20 x :30). His role grew to become one of the project producers and writer. [4]
Kris currently produces films under his company Koenig Films, Inc. [5] [6]
Kris Koenig was awarded two Los Angeles Area Emmys in 2006, one for "Non-news Writing" and one for "Instructional Programming". [7]
In 2017, Kris was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters from the New England College of Optometry and was the keynote speaker for the 2017 Commencement. [8] [9]
Kris has received numerous Telly Awards for his works. [10] [11]
Kris Koenig has a catalogue of films and documentaries he produced, wrote and directed. The table below chronicles some of the films and documentaries in his filmography.
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
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2006 | Astronomy: Observations and Theories | Producer, Writer, co-cinematographer | TV Mini-Series documentary (19 Episodes) |
2009 | 400 Years of the Telescope | Producer, Writer, Director | Documentary |
2009 | Two Small Pieces of Glass | Producer, Writer, Director | Short |
2013 | Assaulted: Civil Rights Under Fire | Producer, Writer, Director | Documentary |
2016 | Sight: The Story of Vision | Producer, Writer, Director | Documentary |
Despite the tragic loss of his partner, Anita Ingrao in 2014 due to stage four breast cancer, Kris pushed through the loss to finish Anita’s last film "SIGHT: The Story of Vision". [4] Kris has four adult children and recently married his wife Marianne.
The Chico Community Observatory, also known as the Anita Ingrao Observatory, is a non-profit astronomical observatory owned and operated by Kiwanis Club of Greater Chico. It is located in Chico, California's upper Bidwell Park. Entrance to the observatory is free as the facility operates on donations and volunteers.
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The International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame (ISDHF) is an annual event that recognizes those who have contributed to the success and growth of recreational scuba diving in dive travel, entertainment, art, equipment design and development, education, exploration and adventure. It was founded in 2000 by the Cayman Islands Ministry of Tourism. Currently, it exists virtually with plans for a physical facility to be built at a future time.
Brian Skerry is an American photojournalist and film producer specializing in marine life and ocean environments. Since 1998 he has been a contributing photographer for National Geographic magazine with more than 30 stories to his credit, including 6 covers. In 2021 Skerry won a Primetime Emmy Award for his role as producer in the miniseries, Secrets of the Whales.
Astronomy: Observations and Theories is a documentary television series that aired for one season in from 2005 to 2006. It consists of 20 twenty-eight-minute episodes which are also called lessons and are most often viewed on college-run public television stations.
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John D. Craig (1903–1997) was an American businessman, writer, soldier, diver, Hollywood stunt man, film producer, and television host. He worked in the commercial surface-supplied diving industry from the 1930s on, and filmed aerial combat over Europe during World War II. He is best known for using film and television to show the United States public the beauties and dangers of Earth's underwater worlds.
Wesley C. Skiles was an American cave diving pioneer, explorer, and underwater cinematographer. Skiles lived in High Springs, Florida.
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Dive RAID International is a dive training organization which was founded in 2007 to support diver training for the Poseidon Mk VI Discovery Rebreather. It has since extended its scope to include open circuit scuba training and training for both recreational and technical diving sectors as well as snorkeling and freediving.
The history of scuba diving is closely linked with the history of the equipment. By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from the exhaled breathing gas, which is then recirculated, and more gas added to replenish the oxygen content. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid-twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented a free-swimming oxygen rebreather. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA, an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
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