Bill Etra

I have over thirty years experience in computer video imaging and computer graphics. I am a SIGGRAPH and Video art pioneer, with works in museums of modern art around the world. The following is a short list of some of my work experience and accomplishments. 1969- Artist in residence at Bell Labs and WNET's TV Lab. 1970- Completed work on an analog video synthesizer ( The Rutt/Etra ). 1971- I had interfaced with several digital computers to my analog machine - Instructor Experimental Television NYU School of The Arts. 1972- Director of the Second International Computer arts festival and Founding Director of Kitchen Theater. 1973- Assistant professor of Film and Television University of Maryland. Received a grants from the National Endowment for The Arts and The Rockefeller Foundation to investigate computers and pictographic languages as a Compositional tools for video production. 1974- Contributing editor for ROM and Creative Computing magazine. 1977- Director of video R&D for Processor Technology Corp. (makers of early S100 Desktop computers. 1979- Produced "Mind of The Universe" presented at the Budokan Tokyo (70 minute 4 screen Video to 35mm film presentation sponsored by Toshiba on the occasion of Emperor Hirohito's birthday). Worked on development of system to extract 3D from live and recorded video (us patent issued). 1981- Consultant to Francis Ford Coppola (video editing for film and the possibility of using Video or DV for film production. Worked with Video West on production of weekly music video show for TV (KQED. 1982- VP of R&D Via Video Corporation 1983- Warner Atari Labs Responsible for the T-Chip (after demise of the lab this project was Basis of Digital FX video special effects machine). 1985- Director of R&D and production for Vertigo Computer Graphics. 1987- Droid Works Division of Lucas Film Directed project to add computer graphics rendering hardware and software to Edit Driod. 1989- Video Researcher Sun Graphics Division (worked on video for CIA contract.) 1990- Worked for Nintendo and Sega's lawyers on prior art and courtroom demonstrations in Patent suits. Developed patent on computer video editing for Tektronics Corporation (Patent issued) Designed an off Broadway interactive computer video stage set. Performed in live video music concerts 1991- since then I have been: Consulting on Nano Chips for video storage, systolic array processing for digital imaging Consumer devices for automated home shopping, and 3D projection TV. Production of children's animation and computer animation automation software. In summation, I have a long history of developing concepts, hardware and software for video computer applications as well as experience in evaluating and applying new technologies. I am thoroughly conversant with software described related to server and web applications. I have the ability to run software, hardware or production projects with up to thirty-five employees.