Ken has worked as principal talent in films, television and commercials as well as crew. He has done everything from stunt fighting to consultant work on commercials for cable tv.
It has been a fun ride but Ken has the scars to prove the dangers including a broken back in the filming of the Barry Levinson picture, The Bay. Nevertheless, he has NEVER been injured by an animal in filming or injured an animal during filming.
Ken's first job in film was as a core soldier in The Patriot.
In that role, Ken did the day to day soldiering as a soldier in both armies from marching to battle scenes. He appeared in every battle except the surrender at Yorktown.
Not only did he do the basic soldiering, he was trained to do the basic stunt fighting spending hundreds of hours and takes on the field. This included marching over bomb pots with explosions in his face to being nearly trampled by horses at least a dozen times.
Behind the camera, Ken served as animal wrangler but also provided real life props (including the only REAL LIVE Isopods on the set of the project working titled, Isopods), animal safety and talent safety in wild locations.
He was the first death in the outbreak.
He supplied live sea bass for shooting in a pond set to simulate the Bay scenes. He designed and coordinated scenes with animals he trained for an attack scene. He is credited as "Chicken Feeder" as well as animal wrangler in this production.
In his first documentary, Ken showed off his skills as a shark biologist assisting in placing surgical tags in Blacktip Sharks off South Carolina (his home territory). He was in between shoots on the television set of The Fugitive driving back home from the Savannah location shoot.
The video of this appearance is on the videos page. He was handling sharks up to 7 feet long whose jaws were only inches from his face during their manual releases (largest beasts not included in final cut). And he did the final satellite tag placements for Dr. Jose Castro (world famous shark reproductive biologist and personal friend).
Ken's first principal talent commercial was for the US Cellular "But it takes 6 Weeks" Campaign. Ken fabricated cages for the original location in the Florida Keys. Prepared crew from his own shark crew and worked with the editors to pick and prep the necessary stock footage for integration into the live actor shoots. He designed and built safety devices that could even function unseen on camera to protect divers from fatal injuries by shark bite.
(Click image to the left for popup window of completed commercial)
Ken's first principal talent commercial was for the US Cellular "But it takes 6 Weeks" Campaign. Ken fabricated cages for the original location in the Florida Keys. Prepared crew from his own shark crew and worked with the editors to pick and prep the necessary stock footage for integration into the live actor shoots. He designed and built safety devices that could even function unseen on camera to protect divers from fatal injuries by shark bite.
(Click image to the left for popup window of completed commercial)
Ken's first principal talent commercial was for the US Cellular "But it takes 6 Weeks" Campaign. Ken fabricated cages for the original location in the Florida Keys. Prepared crew from his own shark crew and worked with the editors to pick and prep the necessary stock footage for integration into the live actor shoots. He designed and built safety devices that could even function unseen on camera to protect divers from fatal injuries by shark bite.
(Click image to the left for popup window of completed commercial)
Ken's first principal talent commercial was for the US Cellular "But it takes 6 Weeks" Campaign. Ken fabricated cages for the original location in the Florida Keys. Prepared crew from his own shark crew and worked with the editors to pick and prep the necessary stock footage for integration into the live actor shoots. He designed and built safety devices that could even function unseen on camera to protect divers from fatal injuries by shark bite.
(Click image to the left for popup window of completed commercial)