Jaakko Kurhi

1931 - 2023

Jaakko Kurhi
January 9, 1931 - December 8, 2023
Jaakko Kurhi was a headstrong hermit, entrepreneur and inventor, a self-taught mechanical mastermind whose deft hands opened new realms of possibilities for thousands of budding filmmakers. He passed peacefully on December 8th, a month and a day before his 93rd birthday.
Jaakko was born in 1931 in Karelia, then part of Finland, and fled his homeland as a child ahead of the advancing Soviet army during the Winter War in 1939. Post-war life was tough on his father, who was raising five children, and Jaakko left home and school at age 12 to work on an orchard. For the next eight decades, he never stopped working.
From farmworker to boat-builder to tool-and-die machinist, Jaakko worked at 43 different companies over the years – a literal "Jaakko (Jack)-of-all-trades." He was always an ambitious and diligent employee, but it wasn't until he started working for himself that his story really unfolded. It began with an amateur movie-making hobby – vacation shots from continental road trips with his beloved wife, Pirkko, whom he met and married in Finland before moving to the United States in search of opportunity and adventure. He found both, and wanted to document his adventures through film. He invested in a Bolex 8mm camera only to see Bolex soon upgrade the format to Super 8, and an irritated Jaakko decided that instead of buying a new model he'd convert his own to the new format. This uncompromising passion for "doing it yourself" was Jaakko's defining trait.
The conversion was a tricky and delicate task but within the scope of his talents, and soon he was doing similar jobs for other interested filmmakers. His skills won acclaim among the film community and he was approached to produce something unique – a budget optical printer, a special effects machine that was until then far beyond the means of independent and experimental filmmakers. His JK-103 was a stripped-down, no-frills but very functional version of the expensive printers, and cost a fraction of the price. The JK-103 changed everything, they say.
Kelly Egan, an associate professor at Trent University who runs the film program there, called the JK printers "the most coveted machines of the avant-garde."
"They are dream machines," she said. "They produce the impossible, they make possible the materialization of imagination. Jaakko made much of the avant-garde possible. He provided the space for imaginations to run wild."
Jaakko's equipment was known by big-time players; his inexpensive optical printers were popular with film schools and those who used them went on to create special effects for Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic.
Animation pioneer and director Phil Tippett approached Jaakko in 1989 to make custom printers on a tight deadline during the making of a Robocop sequel – one of the last major movies to use stop-motion animation before the rise and dominance of computer-generated graphics.
"I could not have executed the project without Jaakko," Tippett said. "These projectors operated perfectly and were the sole reason that we could complete or even manage the project. The movie's special effects were in the runoffs for the Academy Awards."
A description of Jaakko in the late 1990s courtesy of "Experimental Filmmaking: Break the Machine," by filmmaker Kathryn Ramey, who dedicated a 50-page chapter to the JK Optical Printer: "Meeting with him was like standing face to face with a real life Geppetto, complete with the very complicated spectacles of a watchmaker or diamond cutter," wrote Ramey, who continues to teach courses using JK printers. "They are beloved," she said of the machines.
Jaakko did not limit his innovation to the film industry. He had a foray into manufacturing windsurfers and was at the forefront of using computer-aided technology in the early '80s, building an enormous surfboard shaping machine at his production facility in East Oakland.
His relentless DIY ethic wasn't limited to his work, either. Jaakko designed and built his own home in Castro Valley in 1976, doing "everything but digging the hole for the pool," Pirkko said. No contractor nor repairman ever darkened Jaakko's doorway; he did absolutely everything himself. Automobiles never went to a mechanic for anything – all operations from an oil change to a full engine rebuild were handled in Jaakko's garage. He dabbled in home medicine in ways best described as borderline alarming.
Jaakko was a dinner-table provocateur. He had no patience for small talk but enjoyed an argument over current events, politics or scientific theory. He particularly savored holding an unpopular opinion that could dominate an uncomfortable and largely one-sided discussion, especially if it was over a holiday meal.
No challenge was off limits, no author, physicist or god untouchable. Later in life he dedicated considerable time to a self-published book on the origin of the universe, posing an alternative to the Big Bang. It was a cause close to his heart and he'd like anyone interested to pay respects by reading about it at www.jkcamera.com.
Jaakko was a highly respected and well-loved hermit-genius. A force of nature, an inventor to the end whose passing leaves a tremendous rift. He will be dearly and deeply missed.
Jaakko is survived by his wife of 68 years, Pirkko; his sons, Andy and Eric; and brothers, Vilho and Matti Kurhi. He was preceded in passing by his sisters, Eeva Kaksonen and Liisa Lötjönen.