James Demer with sound equipment while on location with the CBS reality show “Survivor.” Photo by Robert Voets

James Demer was 11 or 12 years old when he figured out how to build a radio speaker using a shoebox and parts he found at the dump.

“I probably went into Radio Shack and saw one of those kits where you could make a radio, but I didn’t have any money, so I just made my own,” said Demer, 55, of Falmouth.

After building his shoebox speaker, Demer was hooked, and sound became his passion. For the past 25 years, he’s worked all over the world as a location audio mixer, the person who holds the boom microphone and makes sure all the important sounds of the scene are captured.

His resume includes hit reality TV shows like “The Apprentice” on NBC (starring Donald Trump before he was president) and “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor” on CBS, as well as 2010 film “Winter’s Bone,” starring Jennifer Lawrence. He’s been working on “Survivor” since 2012, including the season airing this fall and filmed in Fiji. He’s also worked on the documentary series “Vice” on HBO, “America’s Toughest Jobs” on NBC and Michael Moore’s 2002 Oscar-winning documentary on gun violence “Bowling for Columbine.”

Though his skill with audio gear helped him get his start, Demer says he’s come to really love working on location, staying out of the way of what’s happening – almost becoming unseen – while capturing all the action and emotion in front of him.

“One of the things I love about it, especially on ‘Survivor,’ is that I feel like I’m an anthropologist with a microphone,” said Demer. “It’s just hours and hours a day of observing human behavior. I get up every day, and I say my mantra, which is, ‘I’m not here to judge, I’m here to understand and capture the story.’ ”

James Demer, an audio location mixer from Falmouth, has worked all over the world on TV shows and films. He’s seen here on Portland’s Eastern Promenade. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

SOUND AND MOVEMENT

Demer grew up in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, but always felt drawn to Maine. His family has deep roots here: His mother grew up in Portland and his father was from Pittsfield.

A lot of his early interest in audio equipment came from his love of listening to music on the radio. He remembers working menial jobs one summer as a junior high student to save enough money to buy a Sony Walkman. The now-obsolete technology was state-of-the-art in the ’80s, a portable way to listen to the radio or cassettes well before iPhones and Spotify. He also spent a lot of time in record stores, looking for the new or most interesting releases.

He said his mother was “crafty” and always making things or restoring old objects in their house, which also appealed to him. Besides teaching himself to make audio equipment, he soon became something of “gearhead,” with bikes and cars too.

After high school, with no specific career plan, he decided to travel around the country. He often hitchhiked and worked various jobs, mostly at restaurants. Partly because of his family roots, he ended up in Portland in the early 1990s and got a job at CycleMania, a bike shop then on Federal Street and now on Cove Street. He met his wife, Sara Gray, here. They married and had daughter.

In the late ’90s, he started thinking about a job that would be “more financially sustainable” for his young family. He read about a new digital audio tape machine and rekindled his interest in sound. He decided to take a weeklong course in audio at Maine Media Workshops in Rockport. Then, he sold a rare vintage BMW from the early ’80s that he had bought years earlier. He used the money to buy about $10,000 worth of audio equipment and started working as a freelance audio mixer.

He worked on short films and other projects in Boston but got his break  while doing sound on an R.E.M. music video. It was directed by Michael Moore, who later asked him to work on “Bowling for Columbine.”

James Demer while working on the filming of a marathon in Sydney, Australia this fall. Photo courtesy of James Demer

HEAR AND NOT BE SEEN

Having an Oscar-winning film on his resume made it easier for Demer to get work on major TV and film projects. Around 2006, he started working on the reality show “The Apprentice,” with Donald Trump. Then known mostly as wealthy entrepreneur who made tabloid headlines, Trump was the star of the show, with contestants competing for a job as his apprentice.

Demer said most of his job on that show involved following contestants around New York City on their various tasks. But he did spend a good amount of time with Trump, mostly when Trump was having his makeup put on just before the boardroom meeting scenes of each episode. During the boardroom scenes, Demer ran a backup audio recorder and sat in a space very near Trump, though they were both focused on their tasks at hand.

“Generally, he’d ignore me, or he might say something about the Yankees or whatever. He did, at one point, acknowledge that I had been with the show a long time (eight seasons) and told me he appreciated that,” said Demer. “It seems like such a long time ago. We just looked at him then as a rich guy with a TV show.”

Because he’s a marathon runner and an a lover of the outdoors, Demer soon became sought out by producers of shows filmed in exotic locations and that required the crew to be able to move quickly. He worked on “America’s Toughest Jobs” on NBC around 2008, following gold diggers, oil drillers and mountain rescue workers. He started working on “Survivor” around 2012 and, in the last couple years, has also worked on “The Amazing Race.” Besides holding a microphone, Demers has to carry some pretty expensive and high-tech recording equipment, and know how to run it.

 

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For much of the time he’s been with “Survivor,” the location has been on islands that are part of Fiji, in the Pacific Ocean. Usually they film one season for 26 days, then take a two-week break, then film another season in 26 days, Demer said.

The point of the show is that people have to survive in a remote location – without food except what they can find – and compete in various physical and mental challenges set up by the show’s producers. He says people always ask him if the contestants are given food, but they never are, Demer said. However, accommodations are pretty nice for the crew.

“We have chefs that cook us amazing food. And sometimes they have trivia nights or events for us,” said Demer. “On off days, we can go to another resort and go surfing or whatever.”

James Demer gets wet while on location with “Survivor” in Fiji. Photo by Robert Voets

Demer and others in the sound and camera crew work in three shifts, filming the contestants doing whatever they’re doing between about 4 a.m. and midnight. The crew sleeps in a hotel, usually a resort, on a different island than the one the contestants are camping on.

He usually goes to work by boat, but sometimes the weather has been so rough, he’s had to be dropped off to work from a helicopter.

Demer says he thinks “Survivor” has lasted so long because the show is true to the reality of what’s going on. Producers or crew never talk to contestants – unless interviewing them for a segment. The crew never asks the contestants to do or say something  a second time. That’s why Demers job is so important; he has to get everything recording as it happens. He’s often surprised at how quickly the contestants seem to forget he and other crew members are there.

“It’s crazy because I’ll be standing there, 10 feet from them with a microphone, and these people just forget I’m there,” he said.

Co-workers say one of Demer’s great strengths is his calmness, which comes from experience.

“One moment, he will be mixing a conversation of two sitting on a log and, the next moment, running down a jungle path or into waist-high surf to get the sound of another conversation, all the while making the necessary adjustments to capture ideal sound, ” said Robert Voets, a CBS photographer who has worked with Demers for years on “Survivor. “Along with this knowledge, his awareness of the story and his anticipation of contestant reactions to a given scenario always puts him in position to get the best results.”

Demer is so focused on his job that, after he’ s done recording, he rarely remembers much about the contestants. But he says he was probably in the crew when Dan Foley of Gorham appeared on the show, in 2015. At least a half-dozen Mainers have been on “Survivor,” but most before Demer starting working on the show. Former Gorham High School teacher Bob Crowley won the show’s $1 million prize in 2008, the only Mainer to do so. Gorham resident Julie Berry was also on the show in 2004.

Though he’s traveled around the world, Demer didn’t forget how he started – with that shoebox speaker. About a decade ago, he built a rugged, waterproof wireless speaker he called a DemerBox. He eventually partnered with country musician Zac Brown in the business, but later sold the company. He’s developing a new speaker called Honcho, which he hopes to release next year.

But he has no plans to quit his day job, traveling around the world and being a high-tech fly on the wall.

“I’ve worked in over 40 countries, and I love my job so much,” said Demer. “It can be very challenging at times, but after 25 years I still crave travel and new experiences. Some people say they hate living out of a suitcase, but I live for it.”