Name Travis Draft | Role Television Actor | |
TV shows Buzzkill, Canoga Park, Home James (US), Trigger Happy TV (US) | ||
Travis draft
Travis Draft began his career at Chicago's The Second City in 1992 as an observer, working behind the scenes while attending film school at Columbia College. After working his way through the ranks at the famed theater, Travis directed and acted in a gonzo television pilot in 1994 that chronicled the exploits of three young comedians (Travis, Dave Sheridan and Frank Hudetz) traveling the country in a van shooting sketches using the unknowing public as supporting cast members. This was accomplished by the use of Glasses cam, eventually leading to the creation of the MTV cult-hit Buzzkill, in 1995.
Contents
The ground-breaking, character-driven, hidden-camera show has been recognized as having paved the way for such shows as Jackass, Tom Green, The Jamie Kennedy Experiment and Spy TV—the latter of which Draft wrote, directed, co-produced and acted in for NBC. In 2002 He directed Oblivious, a hidden camera game show starring Reagan Burns. When Animal Planet wanted in on the then hot genre he was hired to write, and produce a special titled Animal Pranksters.
It was only natural that Travis was called in for The Sci-Fi Channel's first hidden-camera show—the now infamous Scare Tactics. Travis ended up staying with Scare Tactics for three seasons, splitting his time between acting and directing. During that time he was also cast as a regular on the Comedy Central hit Trigger Happy TV, and spent his time flying all over the country, pranking people for two different shows.
Travis Draft has now played over 500 characters on TV.
In the summer of 2003 Travis co-founded Van Stone, a shock rock band that had great success having placed his songs in numerous films, tv shows and Tony Hawk's video game.
In 2005 he was cast as homeless rocker "Dirty Don" for a VH1 international show called "Home James". The script-prov show was aired in Brazil, The UK, Japan, Australia and Israel.
In 2006 Travis was hired to write, produce, act and direct two projects for Playboy TV. The adult hidden camera show "Totally Busted" and "Canoga Park" (BBC's "The Office meets Boogie Nights".)
In 2008 Travis returned to work on Scare Tactics for the Sci-Fi channel, and started a new musical endeavor entitled "Knights of Monte Carlo", a tribute to the genre of Yacht Rock. After a three year hiatus touring with the Knights, Travis returned to TV as a producer of A&E's reality show, "The Hasselhoff's". He shortly exited the show soon after citing "No reality there".
In 2011 Travis wrote and directed a Trigger Happy TV style hidden camera show for NBC "Off Their Rockers " featuring Betty White .
In 2013, Travis began a new endeavor of flying camera equipped drones, meanwhile producing and directing two shows for the fledgling Esquire Channel for which he also supplied aerial cinematography. He also appeared on "Deal With It", a hidden camera game show executive produced by Howie Mandel.