Bill Ferster
I have spent the better portion of my professional career developing tools for creative professionals. I received a doctorate in Education and am currently on the faculty at the University of Virginia with a joint appointment with the Center for Technology and Teacher Education at the Curry School of Education and the Virginia Center for Digital History at the College of Arts and Sciences. I am director of the PrimaryAccess Project which enables middle and high school students to create digital documentaries using primary source documents online.
My Background
I came into technology from design and animation, having received a BFA in Design from George Washington University in 1980. I worked as a graphic artist for ABC News, a nitrate film preservationist for the Nation Archives, a cameraman for the animated feature "I Go Pogo," and then started an animation production studio called, West End Film.
The emergence of the personal computer as a tool coincided with my need for automation in the studio, and I began to develop products for motion-control of Oxberry animation stands. Over time, the company grew and developed the first PC-based 3D drawing system. This eventually spawned a successful family of products for commercial artists and animators, ranging from graphic paint systems to page-makeup systems.
In 1988, I developed a technology that enabled video and film editors to move around video scenes in the same way that writers manipulate paragraphs on a word processor. The product was very successful and has changed the way all video and film is edited today, resulting in an EMMY award for "Outstanding Technical Achievement" in 1993. The process is now called "Nonlinear Video Editing" and is exemplified by editing systems such as Avid and Apple’s Final Cut Pro. I founded StageTools, in 1996 which is the leading developer of Motion Control software, and used by all the major television and cable networks.
34313 Welbourne Road
Middleburg, VA 20117
+1 (540) 592-7001
+1 (509) 694-0435 fax
bferster - @ - stagetools.com
