The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/114745
N AUGUST 6, RICHARD COURNOYER WAS RUNNING ON PURE ADRENALIN. HE'D BEEN UP ALL NIGHT, STARING AT THE COMPUTER AT HIS HOME OUTSIDE OF LOS ANGELES, WAITING ON PINS AND NEEDLES FOR CURIOSITY TO LAND ON MARS. 32 I Winter 2013 T WAS DINOSAURS that set Pete Travers on the path to Hollywood. Fresh out of WPI in 1993, he was expecting to use his mechanical engineering degree for more pragmatic purposes. That was the summer Steven Spielberg brought cloned dinosaurs to life on-screen, scaring kids to death, and accelerating the evolution of computer animation. Watching Jurassic Park, Travers felt his own DNA being altered. ÒSuddenly a light went on in my head,Ó he says. ÒI thought, ÔWhat is that?ÕÑand once I began to research it, I knew it was what I wanted to do.Ó His Ƃrst stop was the Vancouver Film School, but a few months after enrolling, he realized he had taken a wrong turn. ÒWe were competing for workstations, and I wasnÕt getting enough time to truly absorb what I wanted,Ó he says. Determined to Ƃnd a way into the Ƃlm industry, he started calling companies that made special effects software, to offer himself as an unpaid intern. At the time, there were three. Only oneÑWavefront TechnologiesÑreturned his call. A lowly post on WavefrontÕs customer support hotline evolved into a role on the development team for Dynamation, the animation technology used in the 1995 thriller Crimson Tide. Travers netted his Ƃrst Ƃlm credit creating digital torpedo wakes for the Ƃlm's nuclear submarine—and his career was launched. He worked at several small studios and, for a time, ran his own before joining SONY Pictures Imageworks (SPI) in 1999. His Ƃrst project with SPI, Hollow Man, starred Kevin Bacon as a scientist injected with his own invisibility serum. The Ƃlm features