Michael Bavaro is a

filmmaker Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...

and creative strategist based in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. He grew up in

Milford, Massachusetts Milford is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 30,379 according to the 2020 census. First settled in 1662 and incorporated in 1780, Milford became a booming industrial and quarrying community in the 19th c ...

and graduated from

Fitchburg State College Fitchburg State University (Fitchburg State) is a public university in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. It has 3,421 undergraduate and 1,238 graduate/continuing education students, for a total student body enrollment of 4,659. The university offers und ...

Fitchburg, Massachusetts Fitchburg is a city in northern Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The third-largest city in the county, its population was 41,946 at the 2020 census. Fitchburg is home to Fitchburg State University as well as 17 public and private e ...

with a B.S. degree in communications and received the "Communications Student of the Year Award" for film and television. In 1980 while at Fitchburg he produced a 16mm documentary film about his hometown of Milford. The film was part of the bicentennial celebration and featured WBZ radio personality, Larry Glick as the narrator. Working the entertainment industry as an art director of broadcast promotion, Bavaro won several awards for his work for the

Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

network. In 1993 he established Digital Freeway, a new media company to design and create digital entertainment content. Bavaro was one of the charter members of the fledgling telco joint venture of

TELE-TV Tele-TV (also known as Galaxy-TV and Pacific Bell Digital TV) was a media and technology company formed by Bell Atlantic, NYNEX, Pacific Telesis, and Creative Artists Agency in February 1995. The company, based in Reston, Virginia, USA, set ou ...

formed by

Bell Atlantic Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

NYNEX NYNEX Corporation was an American telephone company that served five states of New England (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as most of the state of New York from January 1, 1984 to August 14, 1997. History ...

and

Pacific Telesis Pacific Telesis Group was one of the seven Regional Bell Operating Companies, sometimes also referred to as "RBOCs" or "Baby Bells", created in 1983 in preparation of the breakup of AT&T as a holding company for Pacific Bell and Nevada Bell, Pacif ...

. He was innovative in creating several concepts that would become part of the lexicon of digital media. He recently produced a one-hour documentary about his childhood hero,

Rex Trailer Rex Trailer (September 16, 1928 – January 9, 2013) was a Boston-based regional television personality, broadcast pioneer, cowboy and Country and Western recording artist. He is best known as the host of the children's television show ''Boo ...

. The film titled, " Rex Trailer's Boomtown" was broadcast on

WBZ-TV WBZ-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent station WSBK-TV (channe ...

and was nominated for a New England

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

award for best historical documentary. The broadcast master and archives are now part of the permanent collection at the

Museum of Television & Radio The Paley Center for Media, formerly the Museum of Television & Radio (MT&R) and the Museum of Broadcasting, founded in 1975 by William S. Paley, is an American cultural institution in New York with a branch office in Los Angeles, dedicated to ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Bavaro has recently finished a one-hour documentary film about the original

Filene's Basement Filene's Basement, also called The Basement, was a Massachusetts-based chain of department stores which was owned by Retail Ventures, Inc. until April 2009 when it was sold to Syms. The oldest off-price retailer in the United States, Filene's B ...

titled, "Voices from the Basement." It premiered on May 10, 2010 in the rooftop ballroom of the Omni Parker House in Boston. In attendance was former Massachusetts governor

Michael Dukakis Michael Stanley Dukakis (; born November 3, 1933) is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history a ...

, Academy Award-winning actress

Estelle Parsons Estelle Margaret Parsons (born November 20, 1927) is an American actress, singer and stage director. After studying law, Parsons became a singer before deciding to pursue a career in acting. She worked for the television program ''Today'' and ...

, and many of the people who worked and shopped in The Basement over the past 100 years. Also in attendance was the great-grandson of A. Lincoln Filene, David Robertson.

Review

Filmmaker Michael Bavaro was one of those kids who watched Rex Trailer on TV, thought it was real and never forgot the memory of its magic. "I grew up in Milford, Massachusetts and Boomtown was one of my first memories," he recalls. "I really believed it was the Wild West." He credits the show with sparking his interest in film and television."Happy Trails to Boomtown", ''New England Film'', 08/01/2006

References

External links

"Boston Globe", "Interview with Michael Bavaro"

"Michael Bavaro", ''New England Film''"Film review of Michael Bavaro's Filene's Basement film"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bavaro, Michael People from Milford, Massachusetts 1959 births Living people Fitchburg State University alumni Film directors from Massachusetts