Don Davis (artist)
Don Davis (Donald E. Davis, born October 21, 1952) is a space artist known for his portrayals of space-related subjects. His work is characterised by attention to detail and authentic portrayals based on what is known of the subject. Chesley Bonestell, considered by many to be one of the most accomplished practitioners of the space art genre, critiqued Davis' early paintings and encouraged him to pursue an artistic career.
Davis worked for the U. S. Geological Survey's branch of Astrogeologic Studies during the Apollo Lunar expeditions and has since painted many images for NASA. The NASA art included portrayals of interiors of giant space colonies, based on the work of Gerard O'Neill. He was part of the team of space artists gathered to provide the visual effects for the PBS series Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Later he painted the cover of Sagan's Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Dragons of Eden. Other books by Carl Sagan including Don's work are Comet and Pale Blue Dot.
Davis has made numerous paintings of impact events for publications and for NASA. In the early 1980s he created planetary texture maps for use in Jet Propulsion Laboratory computer graphic simulations of the Voyager encounters with the outer planets. During the 1980s and early 1990s Davis created models and film animations as part of the visual effects production teams for the PBS shows Planet Earth, Infinite Voyage, Space Age, and Life Beyond Earth with Timothy Ferris.
Donald Davis
Donald Davis or Don Davis may refer to:
Sport
Politics and activism
Entertainment and culture
Don Davis (composer)
Donald Romain Davis (born February 4, 1957) is an American film score composer, conductor, and orchestrator. Best known for his work on The Matrix, he has worked on a variety of films, from horror to comedy.
Early life
Davis was born in Anaheim, California. After graduating from high school, Davis enrolled at UCLA. He continued his study of musical composition with tutor Henri Lazarof. Additionally, he learned orchestration from Albert Harris. During their orchestration lessons, Harris introduced Davis to the TV composer Joe Harnell, who supported Davis during his search for work—his first job was working for composer Mark Snow's TV show Hart to Hart. He also worked as additional orchestrator for Michael Kamen on the film Die Hard 2.
Film and television scoring
Davis won Emmys in 1990 for Beauty and the Beast and 1995 for SeaQuest DSV. He wrote scores mostly for television series up until 1995, in which he wrote a few of the cues for the animated Disney motion picture A Goofy Movie. He continued to score television series until the two then young directors, the Wachowski brothers, hired him to score their neo-noir film Bound. It was reasonably successful at the box office. Bound was the film which led Davis into becoming the composer for the entire Matrix trilogy. Subsequently, Davis has composed scores for films such as Jurassic Park III (recommended to the filmmakers by John Williams, the composer of the scores for the first two films in the series), House on Haunted Hill, Behind Enemy Lines, and The Unsaid. In 2004, he produced the music score for the BBC science fiction documentary series Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets, released as Voyage to the Planets and Beyond in the United States.
Don Davis (record producer)
Donald Davis (October 25, 1938 – June 5, 2014) was an American record producer, songwriter and guitarist, who combined a career in music with one in banking.
Biography
Born in Detroit, he started playing music in the mid-1950s and after leaving Central High School formed his own jazz group, the Don Davis Trio, before becoming a session musician. He played guitar for many Detroit record labels, including Golden World and Ric-Tic, as well as on early Motown records such as the hits, "Money (That's What I Want)" by Barrett Strong and Mary Wells' "Bye Bye Baby".
He moved on to writing and producing records in Detroit and then joined Stax Records in Memphis, aiming to achieve a fusion of the Stax and Motown sounds. He achieved his first major success as a songwriter and producer in 1968 with Johnnie Taylor’s hit "Who's Making Love", which reached no.1 on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart and no.5 on the Billboard Hot 100. Davis also played guitar on the track, together with Steve Cropper. He worked with Taylor on many of his hits in the 1970s, including the 1971 R&B no.1 hit "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone", which Davis co-wrote. Later, in 1976, he also co-wrote and produced Taylor's "Disco Lady", which spent four weeks at no.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and six weeks on the Billboard R&B chart in the US. It was the first single to be certified platinum by the RIAA.
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