Creative Inspirations: Harry MarksIntroduction| 00:00 | (Music plays.)
| | 00:05 | Harry Marks: I think good type matters
because type speaks to you.
| | 00:09 | Some of us are really passionate
about it, to a fault.
| | 00:13 | It pulls you into the screen,
| | 00:15 | and I saw it as a way to make the world
behind that little tube infinite and I think
| | 00:23 | what we did, it's opened
up the television screen.
| | 00:28 | It seemed that everybody wanted what
we were doing. They wanted that look.
| | 00:38 | We could explore type in the most
infinite ways. I mean, you could spread the
| | 00:44 | Queen Mary through a pea,
you know if you wanted to, because
| | 00:49 | the possibilities of scale were infinite.
| | 00:56 | I've always felt that it's very, very
important to know the rules, and there
| | 01:01 | are rules. When you know the
rules, then you can break them.
| | 01:08 | I've always been a great believer in
collaboration. I think that working alone
| | 01:12 | is fine, but you lose a synergy that
you get when you work with someone,
| | 01:17 | especially someone great, and I have been
fortunate. I have worked with fantastic people.
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| The love of type| 00:07 | Harry Marks: I love the idea of being
able to fly through this perfect typography.
| | 00:13 | I mean I was in pig heaven.
I mean I had perfect typography and
| | 00:20 | this wonderful imagery, making them
solid objects, and being able to travel
| | 00:26 | through them, which was just wonderful.
| | 00:28 | I got a job offer through my art
teacher at school to be an apprentice designer
| | 00:35 | at Oxford University Press. I just
went over there and fell in love. I mean,
| | 00:43 | I fell in love with everything they were
doing, everything about book publishing,
| | 00:49 | because they did everything from make
their own paper. To have like 17th century
| | 00:56 | actual fonts that were cut by masters,
that they would get out sometimes.
| | 01:01 | I spent three years there, three very,
very happy years, because I loved
| | 01:08 | what I was doing. I just loved it,
because they had such an enormous library of
| | 01:16 | typography from all over Europe,
everywhere, and from this country. They just
| | 01:25 | let me loose in there, and I just
spent all my time there. I just loved it.
| | 01:31 | That three-year shows up in everything
that I've ever done, because everything
| | 01:36 | is very typographically oriented.
It's like, I guess I'm a type snob, I really--
| | 01:45 | I get crazy if I see a letter up
backwards. Somebody puts an A up backwards
| | 01:50 | or an N up backwards, just drives me nuts.
| | 01:53 | On the other hand, I can stop and moon over a
beautiful G. Look at that, isn't that gorgeous?
| | 02:02 | So those were my formative years I think.
| | 02:07 | This was the title for 'The Six
Million Dollar Man,' which I rather like.
| | 02:12 | I tend to use the bright type. It's a
beautiful piece of light sculpture to me.
| | 02:23 | People always used to say to me, you're
a book designer, what's a book designer?
| | 02:27 | A book is pages and letters and
a story or something. I said no,
| | 02:34 | there are books you cannot read.
My job is to make this book readable and as
| | 02:41 | enjoyable and as informative as
possible, and I do it with the proper choice
| | 02:46 | of type. I do with the proper choice
of leading, proper size of page, proper
| | 02:51 | size of margins, proper numbering, proper
headlines, to organize this into an enjoyable document.
| | 03:03 | You see something in the newspaper
with no leading or you see a tiny column,
| | 03:10 | where they've justified it out, and
then you've got three letters on the line,
| | 03:13 | but you can't read that.
| | 03:16 | I remember, jumping ahead a little bit,
I went to a film school in San Francisco,
| | 03:23 | and for the first year you could
only use prime lens. We were using
| | 03:28 | Bolexes, and it was just the normal
lens, no zooms, no nothing, and
| | 03:34 | you figure it out and you learn what works and
what doesn't, and it was the same thing with type.
| | 03:41 | I think I looked at enough prewar
design, wartime design, postwar design,
| | 03:49 | American broadcast design, that I
kind of took on the mantle of this.
| | 03:57 | I did have a wonderful art teacher in
school. The guy was-- he was wonderful
| | 04:04 | and he taught me a lot and the
apprenticeship at Oxford, my boss taught me a lot,
| | 04:14 | about type and how it
works and how it doesn't work.
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| Breaking into television| 00:07 | Harry Marks: My parents took me to the
movies twice a week, but that meant four
| | 00:12 | movies a week because they were
always double features. And a stage show.
| | 00:18 | I mean, this was from the age of five,
and I really grew to love movies,
| | 00:24 | and I loved all the peripherals things around
the movies. I loved the trailers, loved
| | 00:29 | the trailers. It was my favorite part
really. I loved movie titles, even when
| | 00:37 | I was a little kid and I
used to make my own movies.
| | 00:43 | My dad made me an opaque projector
and I used to get under the dinning room
| | 00:47 | table with a tablecloth and have
little movie shows of my own. I think that
| | 00:54 | loving films and loving music and
loving-- coming to love typography really
| | 01:02 | fixed me up for the
television job. It was perfect.
| | 01:06 | The reason I got the call from ABC was
that when I was married, my wife worked
| | 01:14 | at an art studio, and there was an Art
Director there, Randy Grohowski, and
| | 01:21 | we became very good friends and then
he got an offer to go to ABC, he got an offer.
| | 01:27 | His job was Vice President of On-
Air Promotion, so he was the ad guy,
| | 01:34 | the on-air ad guy for ABC.
| | 01:36 | He was appalled. At the quality of
writing. At the way they looked on the air.
| | 01:43 | I mean, they weren't even color yet.
They were partially colored.
| | 01:48 | He called me about the way they looked on
the air and he said, you know, I know
| | 01:54 | your work. It's not that exciting, but
it's informationally very organized and
| | 02:08 | I think you could do a lot to
help us look better on the air.
| | 02:14 | I wanted to show you how broadcast
graphics were when I came into this. Well,
| | 02:20 | not exactly. I mean this is a little
before I came into it, but it wasn't much better.
| | 02:24 | We have to realize that
we're looking at a major television network.
| | 02:29 | I mean this is -- I think
it's NBC and the Republican National
| | 02:34 | Convention, and if you think of how
they posted the results a few months ago,
| | 02:41 | take a look at this. I mean,
this is really stunning.
| | 02:44 | (Male Speaker: There are other ways of expressing
visually of just what is happening a few moments ago.)
| | 02:48 | (Male Speaker: All of them in line say, yes
we agree, we fall in line with the decision.)
| | 02:52 | (Male Speaker: Vandenberg, Mac Arthur,
Stassen, Warren, Baldwin and Taft.)
| | 02:54 | (Male Speaker: Fairly, simply, completely, and wholly,
it's Tom Dewey of New York, Governor of New York,)
| | 03:01 | (Male Speaker: the nominee for President of
the United States of the Republican Party...)
| | 03:05 | Now, I slowed this down a little bit,
because I really felt that maybe
| | 03:08 | you'd be better off if you learn to do
this, better than going into broadcast graphics,
| | 03:16 | you could work in Vegas.
| | 03:21 | Little slight of hand.
| | 03:23 | So I went there and what I found was
there was this group of writers, a group
| | 03:33 | of film editors, and Randy, the Vice
President. I don't know what Randy told them
| | 03:41 | about who was coming in, but
I think he probably said something about
| | 03:46 | cleaning up the way we look on the air.
| | 03:50 | The reception was incredibly hostile.
They didn't want me there. They didn't
| | 03:55 | like me. They didn't want me there.
They didn't understand what I was trying to do.
| | 04:01 | It was as much of a disappointment
to me as it was to Randy, I think. Then,
| | 04:07 | after about four months of this, he
just up and quit. He said "I can't do this
| | 04:13 | anymore. I'm going back to YNR
in San Francisco." I felt totally
| | 04:18 | stranded. I didn't know what to do,
because now I had this whole staff turning on me.
| | 04:24 | So I had dinner one night with one of
the talent agents that represented one
| | 04:31 | of the announcers that we used and he
just gave me a lecture. I mean, he gave
| | 04:38 | me this. "Just go in and ask for his job,"
he said. Go and ask for it. I said,
| | 04:45 | "I don't know anything about his job." And he said,
"Well, neither do they. So just go in and ask."
| | 04:54 | So I asked and they said okay. That
was kind of the beginning of taking on
| | 04:59 | things that I really didn't know how
to do, but figured out how to do them my way.
| | 05:07 | And that was-- that's what I did.
I did what I thought I would like to see.
| | 05:16 | I was much more graphically
oriented than word oriented. I was much more
| | 05:22 | interested in film editing than
just chopping shots together that were
| | 05:30 | meaningless. I was much more interested
in music. So what had fallen in my lap
| | 05:39 | was a convergence of all the things I
loved. I mean music, film, and graphics.
| | 05:46 | I was in heaven.
| | 05:48 | I hired all of the hot young writers
and designers I could find. We had an
| | 05:56 | incredible group and we
started making some waves.
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| Looking beyond the edge| 00:08 | Harry Marks: I remember the first thing
that kind of caused a stir was a spot
| | 00:12 | from Mod Squad, because in
that idea of we don't have to tell the
| | 00:21 | whole story. We want them to see the
show; we don't want to present the show.
| | 00:27 | We just had one line. It was
'Three cops: one black, one white, one blond'
| | 00:30 | and that was it. People were saying, what?
That's it. It became a very popular spot and
| | 00:41 | it became a style for us.
| | 00:42 | I look at it now, I see how crude it is.
But it still broke through. I mean,
| | 00:49 | it's like breaking through the fourth
wall in theater. I mean we went outside
| | 00:54 | the box. I think that's what made all
the difference, of people being totally
| | 01:02 | drawn into this tunnel.
| | 01:08 | When Movie of the Week came out,
it was perfect. I think it was certainly
| | 01:15 | for me it was a turning point,
because it started to be seen outside of,
| | 01:21 | if this was the screen, to see outside of the
box, that there is a bigger world out here.
| | 01:28 | I just had a different viewpoint about
what I wanted to do. One of the things
| | 01:33 | that was changing the way I saw things
was this young man came into my office
| | 01:41 | one day, as a lot of people did.
"Would you like to look at my 8 mm reel,'
| | 01:49 | 'or my 16 mm reel, or my drawings, or whatever."
He, this guy came in and he had mud on his boots
| | 01:59 | and he had a Pendleton jacket, he was
big guy. He had two big 35 mm film cans.
| | 02:07 | I'm like this is different,
this is not the 8 mm thing.
| | 02:14 | He said, I just got back from England.
I've been working with Stanley Kubrick
| | 02:17 | for seven years on this film called '2001',
and I have some of the outtakes here,
| | 02:22 | and I thought you might like to see them.
| | 02:27 | We set it up. We had a 35 mm screening
room, we set it up, and I think I was on
| | 02:32 | the floor. I had never seen
anything like this in my life.
| | 02:36 | That last sequence of the Stargate,
it's called the Stargate Sequence, where
| | 02:41 | you've got Keir Dullea's face and
the helmet and all of these reflections
| | 02:46 | coming off the helmet and this journey...
I mean, a trip that was really visceral.
| | 02:53 | You know I felt really pulled into it.
| | 02:57 | I said to Doug, how did you do that?
He just told me, he said, we just
| | 03:02 | scribbled on the film and pushed the
camera down a 40-foot bed, with the lens open.
| | 03:09 | Then we pulled it back and we put up
another piece of film and we did it again.
| | 03:14 | My thought was if there was any way to
translate this graphic madness that
| | 03:22 | he'd created into something that was
legible, we would have something totally unique.
| | 03:31 | It was not repeatable. You couldn't
say could you do this a little different,
| | 03:37 | because it was all hand done,
hand pushed. It was quite remarkable.
| | 03:42 | I mean, when we looked at dailies,
we were both astounded that we could read
| | 03:46 | Movie of the Week, we could read
the ABC logo, and we had something.
| | 03:54 | It answered a question, I think,
that had always been in my head because
| | 04:00 | televisions were small then. 13 inch
was pretty normal. But I always felt that
| | 04:07 | I could feel that there was a much
bigger world outside there, that this 13 inch
| | 04:15 | was a window, porthole, and you could look
around here and maybe you could see something else.
| | 04:23 | I think that's what Doug's work brought
to us. We had a porthole and there was
| | 04:33 | a huge world out there and we were
going to travel through it. I think that
| | 04:38 | became kind of my mantra for the rest
of my working time, was flying and going
| | 04:47 | through things and scale, things that
were much bigger than you had thought before.
| | 04:55 | I think the idea of making things huge in
the person's eye, even thought it's not,
| | 05:05 | can be very spectacular.
| | 05:15 | (Music playing.)
| | 05:30 | (Male Speaker: The Movie of the Week.)
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| Motion with meaning| 00:08 | Harry Marks: This is just a straight
piece of lettering. It's black
| | 00:14 | lettering with a white outline. If you
move the film of this lettering, that's
| | 00:22 | all that's on the film. If you move
the film slowly, and controlled, while the
| | 00:30 | camera shutter is open, you build a
streak. What you have to do is go back and
| | 00:38 | do it again and go back and do it
again. With the stepper motors that we
| | 00:43 | finally introduced, it was very controlled
and we were able to get a smooth streak.
| | 00:51 | One of the challenges I faced getting
into television was that my discipline
| | 00:59 | was to design a page or a piece and
say move this, move that, that's good,
| | 01:10 | different color. Got it. Like it. Well,
you do that in television, you've got
| | 01:16 | to get it on there and you've got to
get it off there and replace it, and
| | 01:22 | that's a whole new discipline,
is how you do these things.
| | 01:30 | Working with Doug was fascinating,
it was an honor, but he really wanted to be
| | 01:38 | a director. When 'Silent Running' came
along and he got the job to direct it,
| | 01:45 | he just dumped everything, and
it was like, what do we do now?
| | 01:50 | Bob Abel bought all of Doug's equipment
and Bob had the foresight and also the
| | 02:01 | connections to get it computerized so
it was repeatable. So I did all of my
| | 02:09 | work with Bob, and it was all backlit
film, no computers. But what did start to
| | 02:17 | happen was we did a lot of backlit stuff.
We did candy apple. We called it
| | 02:25 | candy apple, because we were doing
reflections and all kinds of effects that
| | 02:32 | you could do by shining lights through
backlit film. Then we had the light table
| | 02:41 | on which the film was mounted. We had
that on the stop motors that would move it
| | 02:52 | in tiny, tiny increments, in sync
with the camera that was coming down this bed,
| | 02:57 | now driven by small motors,
and we did a lot of work like that.
| | 03:02 | This was his title of the show, 'TOMA',
that I wanted to do it like building up
| | 03:09 | a city, and these were very early
tests. But you can see here that there are
| | 03:15 | banding lines here. What that means
is that our calculations were off and
| | 03:22 | we were actually double exposing every
time we brought the camera back. It should
| | 03:29 | have been totally smooth, like that,
just whoosh! That's a perfect streak.
| | 03:38 | These were all done with dots. Same
technique. You move the camera, but this time
| | 03:44 | we were moving also the--
moving the light table that the dot fed--
| | 03:52 | the film of the dots were on and
we're also moving the camera at it so
| | 03:58 | we're getting compound moves now.
| | 04:01 | It was exciting experimenting with
these things. The o nly thing about film is
| | 04:05 | that you've got to wait till
tomorrow to see what you did yesterday.
| | 04:10 | We had a period of very beautiful,
exotic, textured motion graphics that were
| | 04:23 | extremely complex and extremely
expensive. I think we've gone back in many ways
| | 04:32 | to a very interesting textural thing.
| | 04:37 | I mean, I think when Kyle Cooper did
that title for 'Seven', that was almost
| | 04:44 | like watching a Doug Trumbull.
I was like, oh my God, look at this.
| | 04:49 | There was the Saul Bass era. He had such a
distinctive style that you knew instantly who did it.
| | 04:57 | What we've been seeing lately, I am
just thrilled with some of the things.
| | 05:04 | I am also appalled at some of the things
that the machines, the push button machines,
| | 05:09 | have brought us because I remember
going into a session once at ABC, and one
| | 05:18 | of the engineers was sitting there,
and he had one of my logos up, and he was
| | 05:26 | pushing buttons, and it was flipping
and flying and doing this and that.
| | 05:31 | He said, so, what do think of that?
I said, I think it makes no sense at all.
| | 05:37 | There is no path. There is no story.
It's clever, it's wonderful, but it's got
| | 05:46 | to do that for a reason and what
you're not understanding is a path and
| | 05:52 | the path can be very complex and you're
not understanding the scale. The scale
| | 06:00 | puts things into a whole different venue.
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| ABC fall campaign: Still the One| 00:07 | Harry Marks: So it had been
traditional with networks, because there was
| | 00:13 | a definite season of television. Not a
living season where things change 52 weeks a year,
| | 00:19 | but there was a season,
and it started in September.
| | 00:24 | We and CBS and NBC each produced a
campaign and it had the new song for the campaign,
| | 00:35 | the new look of the logo for the
campaign, and it framed the new stars,
| | 00:41 | the new people. ABC in 1976
decided they didn't want to do one.
| | 00:48 | They didn't have the money to do one.
| | 00:51 | I said I have an idea. I had been
in the rehearsal hall and Captain &
| | 01:00 | Tennille, just the two of them were
in there. She was singing the song,
| | 01:05 | 'Still the One', which was a country song,
but she was doing it totally differently,
| | 01:10 | and I loved what she was doing.
| | 01:12 | I shifted some money to do this idea
that we would go and shoot street people
| | 01:21 | all over the country, just doing this.
It was really like a whole thing of ones.
| | 01:27 | We hired the big billboard thing in
Times Square and had number one--
| | 01:35 | I mean, we just did every graphic trick
we could to cut in with the people going
| | 01:42 | like this. We had a runner being
number one. It was just about number one.
| | 01:47 | It was a great shoot.
| | 01:49 | We shot it in 16. There were no stars in it.
No one knew what we were doing.
| | 01:54 | The people that were being shot had
no idea what they were doing. Suddenly,
| | 01:59 | two guys like you come up and say,
could you do this, and they go, and it's over,
| | 02:07 | thank you. And it cost total
$60,000, the whole campaign.
| | 02:14 | We ran it at the owner's meeting first
and they got up on their chairs and applauded;
| | 02:26 | not standing applause,
climbing applause. I mean, they actually--
| | 02:30 | and my boss turned to me and said,
"What's happening here? They've gone mad."
| | 02:38 | They just loved it so much. I mean,
I just was beside myself, because I liked it.
| | 02:46 | I mean, I cut it myself and
I really liked it, but I didn't think it
| | 02:50 | would be this big a hit, because it
was a little iffy. There were no stars,
| | 02:56 | there was nothing about shows.
It was just kind of a call to action,
| | 03:00 | That's about all it was. It's like
hey, you know, we're still the one.
| | 03:05 | The sad part of all this was that we
could have gone on doing that for $70,000,
| | 03:13 | $80,000, $100,000. They came back,
they wanted to keep the One theme.
| | 03:22 | So we had to find another song that had the word
one in it, which I think was 'We Are The One'.
| | 03:30 | But they said this time we want you to
use all the talent. We had to film these
| | 03:37 | silly things with actors now and
all of the trappings that actors bring.
| | 03:43 | Trailers, handlers, makeup, hair,
I mean everything. Limos, it was a nightmare,
| | 03:51 | and it cost way over a million dollars.
| | 03:55 | It was done like a Broadway show, like
an Ed Sullivan show. They take a stage
| | 04:01 | and they put up things, risers and
columns, and half the stars walk on.
| | 04:11 | I just wanted to -- I just wanted to say
something really upbeat about ABC. I wanted
| | 04:17 | to show ABC as a really upbeat network
that took chances and we're out there
| | 04:25 | on the street with you. We're having fun.
I think it just had an incredible spirit.
| | 04:32 | I think it really had an
incredible spirit and it was good.
| | 04:36 | (Music playing.)
| | 04:45 | (Chorus singing: We've been together since way back when,
and this year's going to be a winner again...)
| | 04:56 | (Chorus singing: And we want you to know after all is said,
we're still the one you can turn to for a friend...)
| | 05:09 | (Chorus singing: Still the one
you can turn to for cheer,)
| | 05:12 | (Chorus singing: Still the one
that likes you near,)
| | 05:15 | (Chorus singing: You're still having fun
and we're still the one.)
| | 05:21 | (Chorus singing: Came into your home everyday
and you made us feel welcome to stay.)
| | 05:33 | (Chorus singing: As the seasons change,
we found warmth in your heart.)
| | 05:39 | (Chorus singing: With each special year,
and each brand new start,)
| | 05:45 | (Chorus singing: Still the one
that takes you away,)
| | 05:48 | (Chorus singing: Still the one
that makes your day,)
| | 05:51 | (Chorus singing: You're still having fun
and we're still the one.)
| | 05:58 | (Chorus singing: Still the one
that sings your song,)
| | 06:01 | (Chorus singing: Still the one
you want to take along,)
| | 06:04 | (Chorus singing: You're still having fun
and we're still the one.)
| | 06:10 | (Music playing.)
| | 06:22 | (Chorus singing: Turning the worlds within your view.
Though other things may change, we stay true.)
| | 06:34 | (Chorus singing: Still the one,
With something new,)
| | 06:37 | (Chorus singing: Still the one,
that will see you through,)
| | 06:40 | (Chorus singing: You're still having fun
and we're still the one.)
| | 06:46 | (Chorus singing: Still the one,
who can make you smile,)
| | 06:49 | (Chorus singing: Still the one,
that fits your style,)
| | 06:52 | (Chorus singing: You're still having fun
and we're still the one.)
| | 06:57 | (Chorus singing: We are...)
| | 06:59 | (Chorus singing: Still the one,
and we're glad to be,)
| | 07:02 | (Chorus singing: Still the one,
you like to see,)
| | 07:05 | (Chorus singing: You're still having fun
and we're still the one.)
| | 07:10 | (Chorus singing: We're still the one.)
| | 07:13 | (Chorus singing: We're still the one!!!)
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| Pioneering 3D graphics for television| 00:09 | Harry Marks: I got very interested in 3D,
but the only 3D that I could figure out
| | 00:13 | how to do was wireframe. But I like
wireframe. I think wireframe is very
| | 00:19 | exotic and attractive. This was from
a commercial we did, which was all wireframe,
| | 00:24 | except for the dashboard of the car,
which was a trip through the city.
| | 00:30 | Originally, it was for Philips in
Holland. We did it and it was successful.
| | 00:42 | They were pleased with it. Then
they gave us permission to resell it,
| | 00:51 | resell this trip through the city, and
we sold it to radio stations in this country
| | 00:57 | with, instead of Philips cassette
here, it was your call letters here.
| | 01:04 | I do love wireframes. I always have.
I really can't explain why, but I think
| | 01:14 | that we probably were maybe the first
people to actually pull something off
| | 01:21 | graphically different using only wireframes.
| | 01:25 | I was always looking for people who
were working in some area that used
| | 01:34 | graphics. I mean it could be scientists
who were making 3D graphs and anything.
| | 01:43 | How did you do that and how do you
make this thing work? Somebody said,
| | 01:47 | you should go over to Northrop, I'll get
you in there, because they do some really
| | 01:52 | interesting things with wireframes, doing
stress test on stress models on aircraft.
| | 02:01 | So I went over there and I met this
fellow named Colin Campbell. Colin was a
| | 02:05 | very brilliant mathematician and
was fascinated with the whole idea of
| | 02:12 | wireframes. I told him I have this
idea of traveling through a city of
| | 02:19 | wireframes and I said, do you think
you could generate a sequence?
| | 02:26 | And he said, I think so, yeah, I think I
could do that. And then I told him the city idea
| | 02:32 | and then he came to work for us.
| | 02:35 | So we planned out this journey through
the city, and then we sequenced it.
| | 02:41 | We hand-pasted colored gels to the back
of the things, where we wanted buildings
| | 02:47 | in color, and we printed it. It took weeks.
It just took weeks to do this and
| | 02:57 | weeks to shoot the 900 big negatives.
But it looked great. It just looked right.
| | 03:10 | This was one of the first jobs we did
with PDI, which became DreamWorks.
| | 03:15 | They were just wonderful. I mean, you pull
something off, you do something wonderful
| | 03:20 | at PDI and as it was growing, Carl
Rosendahl would say, oh, I have a new
| | 03:26 | animator for you. You'll be, "oh my God!"
And they always turned out to be terrific.
| | 03:38 | Carl Rosendahl came into my office one
day and it was at a time that we were
| | 03:43 | trying to build our own computer
graphics unit. This young, Nordic, handsome,
| | 03:53 | tall guy walks in and says,
I think you might like to see this.
| | 04:01 | It was gorgeous. It was like nothing.
It was a digital version of Doug Trumbull.
| | 04:09 | I mean, this guy was -- I mean, he
puts you on the floor. So we immediately
| | 04:14 | abandoned our efforts and we
started giving our work to Carl.
| | 04:21 | They gave us the tool that we could now
design 3D with safety, we knew what we
| | 04:29 | were going to get. They got better and
better and better, and bigger and bigger
| | 04:34 | and bigger and they did all of our
work for ten years, ten full years.
| | 04:41 | It was a fantastic relationship.
| | 04:46 | Carl was a visionary, absolute visionary.
I mean they came up with techniques
| | 04:52 | that cut the costs of exotic graphics,
hastened the delivery of them. We could
| | 05:02 | get them faster. Made things accessible.
It was terrific. That's when we were
| | 05:11 | able to start designing on the Mac and
give them material that had data that
| | 05:17 | they could use. I mean, it was--
we started with transferring stuff over.
| | 05:23 | I mean, we would do a wireframe and
they would plug it in and they had it,
| | 05:29 | and then they would adorn it. So that
was a terrific relationship and it was
| | 05:37 | a terrific company. I mean it was
a joy to work there, just a joy.
| | 05:42 | I think one of the things that I went
for with scale was-- where a lot of
| | 05:50 | people made mistakes, given the
facility to be able to extrude objects and
| | 05:57 | give them depth and heft, they always extruded
too far, and the further you extrude something,
| | 06:06 | the less weight it seems to have to me.
If you do something that has
| | 06:12 | a very thin edge, it can seem very, very
large, as large as your mind wants to make it.
| | 06:19 | (Music playing.)
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| Design matters| 00:08 | Harry Marks: Now this, this was a fight.
I was nominated for an Emmy for
| | 00:16 | Entertainment Tonight and the Academy
ruled that since it was the first
| | 00:23 | all-computer piece that had been on the air,
they ruled it since it, as I said,
| | 00:28 | it was done by a computer, not
by a person, it was not eligible.
| | 00:35 | Paramount, who it was their show,
went ballistic and used some kind of force.
| | 00:45 | And it arrived.
There is power in the studio.
| | 00:49 | If your design sense is solid and
you're comfortable with it and you have
| | 01:00 | the proper foundation, I think you apply
that to the tools. I don't think you use
| | 01:07 | the tools just because the tools
do it. I think you say, okay,
| | 01:14 | I'm a typographer, here's what I have
designed. Now what do I want to do with it?
| | 01:22 | Everything that we did was for a reason.
| | 01:27 | It's almost like a ballet, a live
ballet, that you are revealing something to
| | 01:35 | someone using that technique. But I
think we have lots of examples of people
| | 01:42 | who used just the technique and what
you get is like, you get slammed in the head
| | 01:50 | if you watch two minutes of commercials
or two minutes of promos sometimes.
| | 01:57 | I think what we did was use our
sound design foundation and if it meant
| | 02:07 | saying, well, we really don't need that
much reflection and this and the other.
| | 02:14 | There was a wheel of ABC mysteries.
Kojak and Columbo, they rotated, and we did
| | 02:22 | the titles for it. I think that's a
perfect example of having gone through all
| | 02:27 | the streaks and the reflections and the
tricks. It's just plain typography and
| | 02:36 | photography, using type as masks,
and it's totally typographic.
| | 02:42 | Every time we did a job and people
would say, okay, this is the house of
| | 02:47 | the flying logo, you are the king of
flying logo. It wasn't the flying logo.
| | 02:52 | It was a trip and it was a trip that had
been carefully thought out, pretty much like
| | 03:00 | a flight. It's something that would be
very pleasing. It wasn't just flipping
| | 03:05 | and flopping and throwing the logo.
| | 03:06 | They are just our rules. There are
rules that make things readable.
| | 03:11 | There are rules that make things attractive,
that make you say I want to see that or
| | 03:18 | I want to buy that. I'm afraid that
today people coming into the business don't
| | 03:27 | get the opportunity to witness the
evolution of the craft. They walk in and
| | 03:34 | they've got like a very, very
powerful computer as a laptop. I mean we've
| | 03:42 | always had a tool. We scratched on stone.
We could paint on a cave wall. We could
| | 03:47 | use a pencil. We can use a very
high-powered preprogrammed computer.
| | 03:55 | A few people will rise above.
I mean, a lot of people will do--
| | 04:03 | Look how many hideous websites there are out there.
I mean, beyond the valley of hideous.
| | 04:09 | I mean, they are so bad and they're
still doing them, and they're still doing,
| | 04:19 | not so much, but they're still doing
what I call ransom note websites.
| | 04:25 | Look, 100 different faces.
| | 04:30 | Then suddenly you'll see something
that is so gorgeous and so right.
| | 04:37 | They're using the same tools, and if you
know how to use them, if you have a vision,
| | 04:44 | you will rise above, and if you don't,
you will be down there with the ransom notes.
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| "My strange year in rock & roll"| 00:08 | Harry Marks: Joe Cocker was an A&M
artist and he had come over to do a tour
| | 00:13 | with his little Grease Band. Something
happened when he got here and he just
| | 00:21 | kind of broke down and he said,
"I can't do it," and he couldn't do it.
| | 00:27 | Somebody called Leon Russell, because
Leon had this strange following.
| | 00:33 | He had this strange family living around him
in his house and all around. He came over
| | 00:41 | evidently to the A&M Studios, which was
the old Chaplin Stage, and he came over
| | 00:48 | with his entire family of people,
with kids, and animals, and stoves--
| | 00:55 | I mean it was like a Renaissance Fair.
They started jamming with Joe.
| | 01:08 | Jerry Moss called us from A&M, the M of
A&M, and said you better get over here
| | 01:16 | because there is something going on in
the studio that you should be shooting.
| | 01:21 | You should shoot this. I want to see
what is going on. It was amazing.
| | 01:26 | I mean it was just amazing.
| | 01:28 | So when we sat down and looked at the
dailies with A&M of this mayhem,
| | 01:36 | it was just-- but the music was fantastic.
Jerry said, I think we got a movie here.
| | 01:44 | Let's make a movie.
| | 01:46 | When we started making 'Mad Dogs',
we really didn't have much of a plan other
| | 01:52 | than we're were going to follow his concert tour.
When we started putting the film together,
| | 01:57 | we had shot so much peripheral footage
that was kind of showing how tough a tour
| | 02:03 | it really was for a group this size.
I was getting worried that the film was
| | 02:10 | kind of bogging down a little bit. It was
getting talkie and philosophical and whatever.
| | 02:17 | One Sunday, I went into the edit room
by myself and just started taking scraps out;
| | 02:25 | scraps I knew that they weren't going
to use. I did kind of one of my ABC things.
| | 02:29 | I did a very kind of fast cut,
high energy thing to music, and this is it.
| | 02:37 | I did it because I thought it
would kind of lighten the film up a bit.
| | 02:42 | (Music playing.)
| | 02:49 | (Male singing: People talking and trying to...)
| | 02:51 | Now, we shot this in 16 because we
didn't intend to start shooting this as a feature,
| | 02:55 | so we continued in 16; that's
all the equipment we had. In order to--
| | 03:05 | now it was going to be a feature
and it was going to be issued in 70 millimeter,
| | 03:09 | I was really worried about blowing
it up. So what I did is a lot of
| | 03:15 | split screen. I mean a good percentage
of the movie was split screen. Typically like this,
| | 03:21 | but this was just a fun piece
of snippets from the tour.
| | 03:26 | I think it livened it up.
It was a great piece of music.
| | 03:30 | (Music playing.)
| | 03:33 | This little music video thing turned
into a feature film and certainly is
| | 03:40 | maybe the strangest off-road in my
entire life because I was still kind of--
| | 03:48 | I wouldn't say preppy but I was
a very regular kind of person and
| | 03:55 | suddenly I was thrown in with this
amazing circus, and it was a circus.
| | 04:05 | So we did this tour, Joe Cocker
'Mad Dogs & Englishmen' and we made this movie,
| | 04:10 | and it took a year out of our lives.
It was very emotional, but in looking back,
| | 04:20 | it was one of the great experiences
of my life. It was really terrific.
| | 04:25 | I met some wonderful people on that shoot,
and that was my strange year in rock and roll.
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| Pebble Beach| 00:08 | Harry Marks: Well, this is Pine Meadows
in Pebble Beach. It's a place that many
| | 00:12 | people find unnerving because its
so quiet, but it is paradise for me.
| | 00:21 | I bought this house about 35 years ago,
because I had a lunatic dream of early retirement,
| | 00:30 | which never came to pass,
but I held on to the house, never rented it.
| | 00:36 | It was always here as an incredible
detox place from the madness of broadcast,
| | 00:45 | which is very stressful.
It's a seven day, 24X7 thing and
| | 00:52 | you can't have a black hole
on the air, so you fill it.
| | 00:57 | To be able to come here and just chill out,
seriously chill out, probably was a lifesaver.
| | 01:08 | I mean it's just wonderful.
I can't say enough about how it's
| | 01:12 | reduced my stress level, how happy
I am to be here, and I feel blessed,
| | 01:20 | to be honest, that's how I feel.
| | 01:22 | What I really would like to do and
I've looked into it is I would love to teach.
| | 01:28 | I would like to teach older
people and I would like to teach kids.
| | 01:33 | I'm trying to get myself associated
with the Boys & Girls Club of America.
| | 01:39 | There are two big facilities here,
and I would love to teach movie making.
| | 01:49 | This is a pretty closed and quiet
community. I have some very good friends and
| | 01:56 | neighbors, kind of divided into two
sections. One section is very civic minded
| | 02:04 | and the other is totally photographically
minded. I mean, this is a real haven
| | 02:08 | for photographers, and I'm a bit of a
photography groupie so I know quite a few photographers.
| | 02:16 | On the other side, I get to participate
in the community a bit. I get to give back
| | 02:28 | for all this pleasure. We have
rotating art shows at the airport and
| | 02:34 | I design stuff for them. I just do a lot
of pro bono work. It keeps my Photoshop chops up,
| | 02:40 | they're pleased, and it gives
me something to do. It's great.
| | 02:46 | Otherwise I don't know what I would
be doing, knocking on doors saying,
| | 02:49 | would you like a letterhead?,
like I used to 50 years ago.
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| The value of collaboration| 00:08 | Harry Marks: It is very, very easy to
work in a vacuum. You have to just sit in
| | 00:13 | your room or your space and just shut
the wall off and do it. Sometimes that's
| | 00:24 | brought about by economic constraints.
You can't promise everything, but I was
| | 00:35 | fortunate enough to be able to
hire people that I really believed in.
| | 00:43 | Before we are able to visualize on
the Macintosh, we had to do storyboards,
| | 00:50 | and we were working in 3D.
We really didn't know what we were
| | 00:57 | going to get. So our guys had to
imagine this 3D and what we might be able to get,
| | 01:09 | and we'd have to sell this
and then hope for the best.
| | 01:17 | Dale Herigstad, I'm sure this is one
of Dale's boards, had this really --
| | 01:24 | he really understood what I was trying to
do when I would tell him "and the thing
| | 01:31 | comes in and the pictures go out."
He was able to draw, create frames that were
| | 01:38 | out of the box. What was really there that the
audience wouldn't see but they would imagine.
| | 01:46 | The drawings he did were just beautiful.
I mean, he really had it. I don't
| | 01:52 | remember how Dale Herigstad came
along. I just was amazed at how he could
| | 01:59 | translate something that I'd be
waving my hands and saying, "this --"
| | 02:07 | some choreography thing, and he'd just take
it away and it would come back better.
| | 02:15 | I mean, he could just take that
nut and just polish it into a gem.
| | 02:23 | There are a few people like that.
Robert Able also. In fact, someone told me this
| | 02:31 | that Lou Dorfsman went to Able
because Able was doing my stuff and he said,
| | 02:42 | I want you to do stuff like
you're doing for Harry. Bob said, okay, so
| | 02:52 | what have you got? He said no, I want
you to do the work. He said, well, no.
| | 02:58 | Harry comes in with a grid sheet and
says this is what I want to achieve and
| | 03:08 | then we figure out how to achieve it,
but he just does that. Someone gives us a plan,
| | 03:16 | a guide of what's in his mind.
You're coming in here with nothing;
| | 03:21 | you're saying, make me look like ABC.
That's basically what he was saying.
| | 03:27 | I think it's a terrible mistake not to
collaborate, because the work can only
| | 03:32 | get better. I think it's a terrible
mistake and unfortunately this does happen,
| | 03:40 | not to recognize your collaborators,
not to push them up on the stage
| | 03:45 | to get the award, because that's--
I mean, it doesn't cost you anything.
| | 03:51 | Nobody does this alone, you can't. You can,
but I think the end result is not going to
| | 04:02 | be as good as a solid collaboration,
and I think we had that in the office.
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| AppleMasters| 00:08 | Harry Marks: So this is where
I spend good part of my day experimenting,
| | 00:15 | working on stuff. Since I retired
I really haven't invested in any enormous new
| | 00:23 | equipment. I have a PC, which I use
to prove things, just to make sure
| | 00:31 | that they ran on both systems.
| | 00:35 | Then I've got an older G4 down there.
I recently bought this 24-inch iMac
| | 00:47 | because it was the last one with the
matte screen. I don't like the glossy screen.
| | 00:52 | It's a nice computer. It seems
to run everything pretty well.
| | 01:00 | When I left television, I left totally
burned out. I felt I just didn't want to
| | 01:06 | do that anymore. Apple came along and
started a group called the AppleMasters,
| | 01:16 | and they invited 20 people to come to
Apple, and they kind of opened the back
| | 01:23 | doors and let us see everything, and
showered us with equipment and treated us
| | 01:33 | very well and said, this is a year
program, we welcome you and invite you and
| | 01:38 | you will be replaced by the next group.
| | 01:43 | We lasted four years. The group got
to be quite large and quite-- I mean,
| | 01:50 | they were great people to hang out with,
but they didn't know anything about computers.
| | 01:54 | There were only four of us that went
on to open markets for them. We went all
| | 02:02 | over the world and held classes and
held classes with celebrities, held classes
| | 02:09 | with kids, held classes with kids and
celebrities, and I would say it was
| | 02:16 | the best four years of my life, it was so
exciting. Not just going to Singapore and
| | 02:25 | having this wonderful spectrum of
people that you're teaching and talking to,
| | 02:32 | but just hanging out with that
group, it was just wonderful.
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| Starting TED| 00:08 | Harry Marks: This was our first poster
for the first TED, TED 1, in February, 1984.
| | 00:15 | It kind of indicates the range of
people that we had here. It was really
| | 00:21 | wonderful to see these people,
besides the audience, see these people just
| | 00:30 | exchanging ideas, exchanging meeting
places, and whatever. I think a lot came out of it
| | 00:39 | that people didn't expect and certainly, as
I said, a lot of businesses were created here.
| | 00:44 | I was sitting here one day and I
thought, it would be really interesting to
| | 00:49 | bring these guys who had all worked on
the same project together, because
| | 00:55 | they'd never met, they never talked,
they didn't know each other. They did their bit,
| | 01:00 | they did their bit, I put it together.
| | 01:04 | I worked with musicians. I worked
with artists. I worked with designers.
| | 01:09 | I worked with scientists. I worked with
engineers. And it struck me at one point
| | 01:21 | that we were coming up with a product
that we were getting a lot of recognition for,
| | 01:26 | lot of rewards, and we were bringing
these very divergent technologies together.
| | 01:40 | I came up with this idea that I wanted
to do a conference here, but I didn't
| | 01:47 | know how to do a conference. So
Richard came here, they came and visited
| | 01:52 | at Christmas and I said let's go for a
walk, and we went out and took a walk.
| | 01:59 | I said, I have this idea for a conference
that's technology, entertainment, and
| | 02:06 | design and how they relate to each other,
hence TED. I said, would you help me
| | 02:13 | to do a conference, or would you show
me how to do it? Because I think that's
| | 02:18 | the thing I could do that would keep me
interested and busy and let me live in
| | 02:26 | Monterey, because that's what I want.
| | 02:29 | He said yeah, I'll help you. Just give me half.
We'll do it together, we'll be partners.
| | 02:35 | Well, I said sure, sounds fine.
And he brought in Frank Stanton.
| | 02:43 | Frank Stanton had been the President of CBS
when I was there, and for a long time.
| | 02:53 | Just a wonderful man, with huge
credentials. So he came in, so the three of us
| | 03:02 | did the first TED in 1984.
| | 03:06 | We had the first Mac. We had the
first CD. We put one on everybody's seat.
| | 03:13 | Nobody knew what they were. "What's this?"
Then Mickey Schulhof, who was the
| | 03:18 | President of Sony at the time, came
out with the first CD player and put it in
| | 03:24 | and it was like, what, what is that?
Where are the clicks? Where are the hisses?
| | 03:31 | Where are the pops? It was like,
who's playing? I remember it was a
| | 03:36 | Steely Dan album and it was just
beautifully recorded. That was a show stopper.
| | 03:45 | We just had this variety of people.
I have posters from TED 1 and 2, and
| | 03:55 | it just range -- the range of people is
very interesting, because I brought in a
| | 04:02 | range of entertainment people and
Richard brought in a range of information people,
| | 04:12 | and it totally worked, in principle.
It didn't work financially for us at all,
| | 04:19 | but it worked in principle.
| | 04:21 | The thing that convinced me it was
right was to see backstage, sitting on steps,
| | 04:35 | was Herbie Hancock and Nicholas Negroponte,
frantically exchanging phone numbers,
| | 04:43 | and I said, this works,
this is a good thing.
| | 04:48 | Like 'Mad Dogs & Englishmen' it was a wonderful,
painful, and rewarding experience. I mean,
| | 04:56 | the people I met through TED is just
incredible. Nice to look back on.
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| Interview with Lynda| 00:07 | Lynda Weinman: Hello, I'm Lynda Weinman
of Lynda.com, very honored to be here
| | 00:11 | today with my dear friend, Harry Marks.
Harry, thank you so much for joining us.
| | 00:15 | Harry Marks: I'm honored to be here. Thank you.
| | 00:17 | Lynda Weinman: Well, we're honored to
have you as well. You've had such an
| | 00:20 | illustrious career and we're so grateful
that you're sharing a lot of it with us.
| | 00:25 | I was curious, what you think about
design today, and if you think anything
| | 00:31 | has evolved or changed in terms of the
trends that you see on television today
| | 00:36 | or on the Internet today or just
wherever you see broadcast graphics?
| | 00:40 | Harry Marks: Well, we're in the age
of the very short cut. It seems to move
| | 00:46 | terribly quickly to me. Too fast to
read sometimes. It's just a different way
| | 00:55 | of approaching entertainment. Very loud,
and very cubby and swoopy and whatever.
| | 01:06 | Lynda Weinman: Information overload.
| | 01:08 | Harry Marks: Definitely, absolutely.
| | 01:10 | Lynda Weinman: What I'm curious about
is how do you see design? Where do you
| | 01:16 | think that broadcast design started
when you got in the business, and what
| | 01:20 | sorts of changes did you observe as you
got involved in, and what do you think?
| | 01:26 | I know you pioneered a lot of techniques, but can
you describe what it was that changed in those days?
| | 01:32 | Harry Marks: There were only three
of us doing it when I got into it.
| | 01:35 | There were three networks and three
people that had departments that did this.
| | 01:42 | I think that the biggest change was
giving the screen depth. Opening up
| | 01:51 | the screen so that you weren't really
looking at a 13, 15-inch tube, but you were
| | 01:59 | looking through a porthole, and
there was a much bigger world out there.
| | 02:08 | I think that was the big change and
I think it just touched off a whole new way
| | 02:15 | of delivering information in a much more
entertaining way, besides opening up that porthole.
| | 02:24 | I think maybe one of the problems today
is the equipment, broadcast equipment,
| | 02:35 | computer equipment, is so
sophisticated and the software is so sophisticated
| | 02:39 | that people really want to sweep by
core design values. They really feel that
| | 02:50 | they can walk right in, start using the
tools, and really not know why they're
| | 02:56 | using them and how. I think I said before
at one time that you really have to know
| | 03:07 | some rules before you break them.
| | 03:09 | Lynda Weinman: What do you think the
core rules are? Can you encapsulate them?
| | 03:13 | Harry Marks: Well, I mean I would go
back to my first job, which was as an
| | 03:21 | apprentice book designer, where I
learned about typography and I learned how to
| | 03:27 | do everything that we did. With 17 fonts.
That's all we had. You make whatever
| | 03:38 | your vision is work as best you
can with what you have available.
| | 03:44 | I think it also helps to have a very
good mentor. The man I worked for was a
| | 03:56 | very good designer. I mean he probably
could have been 16th century designer,
| | 04:03 | he was so organized. I think that I
brought that with me to television, because
| | 04:12 | I continued to be a book designer
right up to 1966. It was half my career.
| | 04:21 | And fortunately somebody spotted it, I'm not
sure how, and said, could you bring that--
| | 04:28 | could you put that on the air?
| | 04:31 | So I came in with a whole set of
teachings and rules and the things that
| | 04:38 | you don't do, things that you -- letters that have
to be kerned and line spaced and God knows what.
| | 04:47 | Then if you get into a place where you
say, well, I want to kern this a little
| | 04:50 | differently, at least you know you're
doing it. You're not doing it just to be
| | 04:54 | trendy because you saw someone else do it, and
I think we've got so much copycat stuff going on.
| | 04:59 | Lynda Weinman: Do you have any resources
today that someone can turn to, in that,
| | 05:04 | there probably aren't any mentors
left like your mentor, but have you
| | 05:07 | found any resources where designers
today could learn about good typography?
| | 05:12 | Harry Marks: Yeah, I mean, there are
still schools. There are still --
| | 05:17 | you could go to Switzerland and
really learn the hard way. But there are schools.
| | 05:25 | There's RISD and Parsons School of
Visual Arts. They all deal with typography.
| | 05:35 | Typography very recently seems to
have become a lot more fashionable and
| | 05:41 | there's a lot better typography,
especially in movies. Some very, very
| | 05:48 | interesting title work. So I think it's
almost kind of a renaissance of good type,
| | 05:57 | but I just wish they all
weren't using the same type.
| | 05:59 | Lynda Weinman: Where do you go for inspiration?
| | 06:02 | Harry Marks: For inspiration, I like to
kind of immerse myself in great design books.
| | 06:10 | I love to go to, there is a
Japanese bookstore in San Francisco, in
| | 06:17 | Japan Center, and they have
unbelievable books in there. You can't read them,
| | 06:24 | but the illustrations are fabulous.
| | 06:27 | I'm very intrigued with Japanese art,
Japanese design. I think it's funny and hip.
| | 06:41 | I find it pretty inspirational. In fact,
I used to go to Tokyo just to get a charge,
| | 06:46 | just walking around, because it's so different.
| | 06:52 | But generally, I like to bathe myself
in books and get in the mood. I think
| | 07:03 | probably in essence we all draw on
things that we've seen. In essence we're
| | 07:10 | using some inspiration that we've
learned somewhere, we don't know where, and
| | 07:15 | then when we apply it to what we're doing,
it gets to become an original piece.
| | 07:22 | It's not a copy anymore. It's just
really an inspiration to get started.
| | 07:26 | Lynda Weinman: Well, thank you, Harry,
so much for coming and sharing your
| | 07:29 | perspective and sharing this history
with us. We're very grateful to you.
| | 07:32 | Harry Marks: Well, it was very
enjoyable, and thank you very much.
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