James Travers
Director of Visual Art, Ergopedia, 2007-
A Twelve Year Old with a Movie Camera
Possibilities! That's is what a forty dollar Super 8 camera means to a twelve year old boy.
The M22 Instamatic with a Ektanar f/2.7 14 mm lens. A fifty foot film magazine running at eighteen frames per second gives three minutes, twenty seconds of experimental film time.
This was the beginning of my work as a visual artist. Soon I realized that the film making process was more than turning a camera on and off. Sets and models had to be designed and built. Technical aspects of light and film speed were researched and tested. The film language was explored by reading and watching others films; then incorporated the results into my projects.
Through grades 6 through 12 I spent as much time as I could drawing, painting and film-making. Moving on to collage I spent two years at Kent State University in there fine arts program, then graduated from the University of Akron's commercial art program.
As I attended school I worked at the Charles Mayer Studio, supervising the manufacturing of a three door display station. This experience taught me how a group of people could work as a team to produce a final product. It also exposed me to the manufacturing process. Soon it was obvious how this process is applied to the construction of art.
During the nineties I worked as a graphic designer for Fruit of the Loom's Sports and Licensing Division. This was the time when desk top publishing began entering the work place. We retooled the art departments production line; replacing stat cameras and half tone film, with Apple Quadra 900s and Quark Express.
The M22 Instamatic with a Ektanar f/2.7 14 mm lens. A fifty foot film magazine running at eighteen frames per second gives three minutes, twenty seconds of experimental film time.
This was the beginning of my work as a visual artist. Soon I realized that the film making process was more than turning a camera on and off. Sets and models had to be designed and built. Technical aspects of light and film speed were researched and tested. The film language was explored by reading and watching others films; then incorporated the results into my projects.
Through grades 6 through 12 I spent as much time as I could drawing, painting and film-making. Moving on to collage I spent two years at Kent State University in there fine arts program, then graduated from the University of Akron's commercial art program.
As I attended school I worked at the Charles Mayer Studio, supervising the manufacturing of a three door display station. This experience taught me how a group of people could work as a team to produce a final product. It also exposed me to the manufacturing process. Soon it was obvious how this process is applied to the construction of art.
During the nineties I worked as a graphic designer for Fruit of the Loom's Sports and Licensing Division. This was the time when desk top publishing began entering the work place. We retooled the art departments production line; replacing stat cameras and half tone film, with Apple Quadra 900s and Quark Express.