MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
Carl L. Marxer
Motion Designer, Video Production Services
The Evolution – The Revolution - The New Solution

written by Phil Jones

We’re extremely honored to accept Carl Marxer as the a past President of the Atlanta Chapter. We welcome him not only for his consistent efforts to support the Chapter but also for his impressive experience in video production, which spans nearly 40 years! Additionally, his membership in MCA-I (previously ITVA) has continued now for 31 years. During that time his company, Video Production Services, has served the corporate and industrial communications needs of AT&T, Coca-Cola, IBM and Bellsouth and many other clients.

Carl has been a first-hand witness to the evolution of broadcast TV and video. His dad was the assistant station manager at the Alabama ETV Network and later was hired as the GM of a station in Huntsville, Alabama. There he was instrumental in creating the Space and Rocket Center. As a child, Carl literally grew up in TV stations. He went to work with his dad on weekends and during the summer vacation. That’s when he picked up a lot of experience in the graphics and film editing department, plus some practical knowledge of location production on remote shoots.

In high school he worked in the ETV audio/visual department and crewed with several touring Broadway shows and community productions, and in college he worked at NASA and ran the big screen projectors in mission control during Skylab missions. Soon he expanded into theatre where he built and painted the set for a production that ended up on Broadway . . . “Sugar Babies” starring Mickey Rooney.

In addition to working in the theatre department, he also had a job with public radio and also at the university PBS TV station . . . and all this was in addition to a full load of broadcast sales and management courses! It was a challenging curriculum, emphasizing accounting, law, music and sales . . . knowledge that would soon provide him with a foundation in the video business.

After he graduated from the University of Tennessee he moved to Atlanta and immediately sought to make some business connections through ITVA. Three meetings later, he was hired by Video Duplications, a post and duplication house that specialized in broadcast and corporate work. Corporate TV was a large part of the video revolution, and through the development of camcorders and the ¾ inch tape format, production was easier and cheaper than the 16mm film and bulky studio cameras previously in use.

Then came MTV and music videos. Through Carl’s interest in music, he landed a part-time job at the Agora Ballroom, a club across from the Fox Theatre. There, he began to shoot local and national musical acts, and when the club bought a video projector and satellite system, he became Agora’s video DJ.

With years of engineering and production experience, he was hired as a service manager at TAVS, a large AV staging company. There he continued to stage live corporate events and to better understand the corporate television business. As Carl evolved into the creation of his own production business, he became a local stringer for WPIX-TV in New York City. When Ronald Reagan kicked off his second term campaign in front of the press, Carl was able to ask him a question about social security. Reagan’s comments created a big controversy, however, Dan Rather grabbed the credit for posing the question.

Carl’s business kept expanding as he moved into an office with VanDerKloot Film and Television. They kept him busy in his ¾ offline suite, but he discovered that he could increase his business by offering graphics with a Quanta character generator. Later he moved in with Technicalities to further increase his staging and corporate meeting business. Soon he was traveling all around the US, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico and Canada creating motion graphics for corporate presentations.

Over the course of 10 years, Carl taught video production part time at the Atlanta Art Institute. After that, he taught part time at American Intercontinental University, where MCAI member, Tom Anderson, headed the media department chair. To further his commitment to education, it became evident that Carl had to earn an MFA degree, so he spent 2 ½ years at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) working on an MFA in Broadcast Design and Motion Graphics. He believed that his graduate studies really increased his computer skills and helped him to gain a better understanding of design for moving media.

Over the years, Carl has weathered some real changes in our business. The good times . . . and the bad, like in 1982, when he was starting up his business in the middle of our last great economic recession. Along the way, he has discover the new solution to a successful career . . . to accept the current career crisis and realize that it is easier to accept many small jobs rather than attempting to find a single full time job.

Over the past year, this award-winning motion graphics designer and documentary producer has worked for Doug Grimmett at Primal Screen, working on broadcast projects for PBS Kids, HBO and Turner Classic Movies. In November 2008, he has freelancing at CNN in the on-air promotions department for about 6 months. His After Effects projects were seen almost daily on CNN domestic and international networks. In addition, he ocassionally teaches Broadcast Design and Motion Graphics on a part time basis at SCAD Atlanta.

As Past President of the Atlanta Chapter, his main objective is to help members become more aware of the tools the web offers our businesses. He says, “Now it seems like everyone can shoot and edit video. That means we need to understand how to manage video production so that it is both profitable and effective. It also means developing programs beyond standard braodacast and DVD distribution.”

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