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John Travis is a gay pornographic film producer and former studio whose career began in the early 1970s in San Francisco with 8mm loops. He began directing for Falcon Entertainment, Brentwood Studios, Huge Video and Catalina Video. He formed Studio 2000 in 1992 with producer Scott Masters; in April 2006, he and Masters sold Studio 2000 to former Falcon Entertainment consultant David McKay and financier Trace Wendell. Travis is best known for discovering and grooming Jeff Stryker, perhaps the most popular and widely recognized gay adult performer.

Early career

Travis' career in adult entertainment began when he was 22 years old when he met what he has referred to as a "dirty old man" in San Francisco who managed a theater on Market Street in San Francisco, California. This man also took softcore amateur photographs of local young men wearing posing straps, as nude photography was illegal. Travis worked in the dark room developing those photographs and eventually graduated to taking his own photographs, which he submitted to Womack Publications in Washington, D.C..

A short time later, two local bar owners, Bob Damron and a partner, as well as J. Bryan, started Calfran, a small publishing house that produced glossy, full-color magazines featuring male nudes. Travis was invited to join the company as a staff photographer. There he met John Summers, who piqued Travis' interest in film work, starting with 8mm loops. Summers brought on two others: industry pioneers Chuck Holmes, who would eventually found Falcon Entertainment, and Matt Sterling, who would later form Dimension Studios, which eventually became Brentwood Studios.

Early career: 8mm loops, Telstar

Travis' early 8mm loops took approximately four hours apiece to shoot, and used roughly 200 feet of film. Travis had no film school experience and was entirely self-taught. They were made available primarily through home sale, although Travis has noted that it was "not really legal" to do so. He first met Holmes when Travis embarked on a cross-country trip to meet his customers and query them on their interests. He would pull into a city, rent a hotel room and invite over local customers. There he would show snippets of his recently produced loops and question the audience afterwards about its production quality, performances and other aspects of the production. During one such trip to Cincinnati, Ohio Travis sold several loops to Holmes, who had been making a living selling prefabricated homes in the area.

Travis formed a company he called Telstar to sell 8mm loops and developed a mailing list, a highly prized commodity in the decades before computerized marketing. Travis has described how his mailing list vanished and was eventually sold to Holmes and Sterling. He feels this information was then used to found Falcon Studios and Dimension Studios. Travis eventually closed Telstar to avoid inviting a potential prosecution for obscenity.

Early career: Falcon, Brentwood

Holmes offered him a position directing 8mm loops for Falcon Studios and he accepted. He estimates that he directed 40% or more of Falcon's output at the time. Falcon and Brentwood, both based in San Francisco, were fiercely competitive and Travis moved back and forth between the companies. Each had a different set of rules that Travis would follow: "Brentwood wanted to make Pepsodent-smile, mainstream prettyboy movies. Falcon was just the opposite. They liked leather and hard, more forceful sex. So each company used the models a little differently than the other."

Although certain performers became well-known, Travis notes that virtually none were what he termed "stars." He remembers only one genuine star of the era, John Holmes. Travis and Holmes shot two gay 8mm loops for Falcon.

Directing: Los Angeles

After ten years of directing in San Francisco, Travis burned out. He quit Falcon just as Brentwood Studios closed down. He moved to Tustin, near a military base in Orange County, California. He spent two years doing what he describes as "developing talent" among the local Marines. Soon, he says, "Falcon came down to raid the roost." Chuck Holmes had agreed to finance films for a studio being developed by Matt Sterling, with the condition that Travis direct them. He agreed and shot Huge 1-2. Soon he was directing again for Falcon and produced some of the company's most popular early titles,

Studio 2000 years

Masters announced his retirement in 1999. But he quickly returned to making adult film.

During the 14 years in which Masters co-owned Studio 2000, the studio won numerous awards at the Grabbys, Gay Erotic Video Awards, and GayVN Awards.

In April 2006, Masters and Travis sold Studio 2000 to former Falcon Entertainment consultant David McKay. Masters continued with the studio as a consultant until October 2006.

He is now semi-retired and lives in West Hollywood, California.

References

• Adam Film World 1993 Directory to Gay Adult Video. John W. Rowberry, ed. Los Angeles: Knight Publishing. Adam Film World. 14:11 (February 1993).
• Lawrence, Doug. "The Films of John Travis." December 2000.

• Lawrence, Doug. "J.C. Adams New Production Chief at Studio 2000." Adult Video News. July 2006.

External links

• Scott Masters at IMDb

Category:American LGBTQ people Category:LGBTQ erotica Category:American gay porn producers