JAMES BONNER
(writer / director)

James Bonner is one of those natural born film obsessives whose life, whether by design or divine accident, has structured itself entirely around the study and production of movies. “It was special effects make-up that first got me started in film production,” he says. “It was a small enough piece of the entire process to start me problem-solving and thinking about cinematic illusion.”

Jim studied film at Michigan State University, where he worked on “The Show,” which today is the longest running student-run TV show in the nation. “We were skipping classes to actually learn something. We had all these resources and nothing but creativity to stop us.” He was rewarded early on: his directorial efforts, music video “The Others: On Your Own” and short film “Seduction Story,” both won Student Emmy’s.

It was also about this time that the seeds of a small thriller called TRAP began to grow. In the fashion of Hitchcock, Stephen King and the Coen Brothers, his film would be a creepy, claustrophobic and heart-wrenching horror tale based on lies and murder. He developed it with one core tenant in mind: “I wanted to make a strong dramatic situation out of the fewest possible tools.”

After graduation, he set out to craft a career that would give him the education he would need to helm a feature film: an on-set one. Jim has worked to the top of the Detroit-area lighting field, and has lent a hand (in a dizzying array of crew positions) in hundreds of commercials, industrial, student and independent films. He became a fixture on the local film scene, ignoring the lure of Hollywood in favor of the more complicated spirit of the Detroit area. Resisting any career path that might distract him (or pay the bills with regularity), he learned film the old-fashioned way – hands on. It all came into play when it was time to shoot TRAP. “I drew from my experiences sculpting, painting, digital effects, and lighting design. I’ve taken acting classes and have performed in other people’s films. The last ten years of my life have been about preparing for this, and I used everything I had.”

Jim wasn’t alone: his deep ties to the Michigan film community resulted in huge added value for his film in the form of free labor, free equipment and all manner of trades, favors and good wishes. The result is the essence of independent filmmaking: this born filmmaker with a ridiculously diverse skillset inspired great passion in his over-worked, blood-splattered cast and crew to deliver a painful, transcendental film about husband and wives… killing each other.