Image Management was a television and radio production company founded by former WTOP radio executive, Jim Robinson. The company occupied a small second floor, walk-up office in N.W. Washington D.C., only several blocks from my old alma-mater, American University. The neighborhood was so familiar to me, I knew every restaurant lining nearby Wisconsin avenue and would often return to a.u. to check up on friends and former professors. Jim hired me to edit the documentary, Chemistry of Fire and during the editorial, i got to know him pretty well. i liked him the minute i met him, he was smart and gregarious with an ambition that had no bounds. Upon completion of the Doc, Jim made me an offer to join the company. Image Management was new at that time and jim was still trying to figure things out. I worked at Image Management for approximaTELY ONE year and was only the second full time employee after jim’s beautiful and smart “gal Friday” clay. we also had a very ambitious intern by the name of david kaplan, just two years younger than me, he and i ended up becoming production brothers traveling to exotic locations all over the world.

AT IM, I produced and directed a dozen real estate projects aND A weekly SUNDAY MORNING PRAYER program entitled, Successful Living with Pastors Martha and Alvin Jones. I ALSO MADE A NUMBER OF thirty second commercials and A TEN SECOND SPOT WITH VARIATIONS for radio station, WCLY. Back then, no one aired ten second commercials because poeple had longer attentions spans. I guess you could say we were ahead of our time. WCLY’s ten second spot HOLDS another DISTINCTION, albeit one that only a geek like me would even care to consider. it was THE FIRST SPOT in D.C. to use THE QUANTEL MIRAGE DIGITAL VIDEO EFFECTS GENERATOR. You can sum-up the awesome, gee-wiz impact of the mirage in three plain words, “page turn effect”. So Dave Kaplan and I traveled to New York City, home of Broadway Video Post, the only facility on the east coast that owned a Mirage. we drove for four and a half hours on I-95N arriving in the late afternoon. broadway video was OWNED BY SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE PRODUCER, LORNE MICHAELS and was the absolute state of the art in Post and Special Effects facility at the time. Dave and I were guaranteed a good time no matter what. I’m not sure we really needed to make that long journey, especially for a ten second spot that comes and goes in a blink of an eye. in hindsight, we probably were more curious about broadway video and the mirage and wcly gave us an excuse to hit the road.

The Spot I produced and directed for The Wellington Hotel is another one that really stands out in my mind from that time period . It stands out because it almost cost me my job, you can read more about that one below.

I’LL BE FOREVER THANKFUL TO THE freelance CREW that accompanied dave and i to philadelphia FOR THE video, Amtrak/TLS. unfortunately, i don’t have a copy of that film but i haven’t given up hope that I’ll find it someday. THAT project featurED A MASSIVE LOCOMOTIVE retrofitted to PICK UP OLD, WOODEN RAILROAD ties AND REPLACE them WITH BRAND NEW TRACK, all IN LINE as the tls keeps moving. MY TEAM WAS INTREPID, TAKING SHOTS FROM HIGH AND LOW POSITIONS, and WITH A Fisher DOLLY running in reverse, parallel to the 50 Ton TLS locomotive.

A few final notes on Image management. jim secured an opportunity to produce a package of On-Air graphics for a new cable start-up, the Discovery Channel. We designed that package for maximum flexibility so they could be used to promote one program or a complete schedule of programs. discovery had very little money, since they were just starting up and this was their first attempt at on-air branding. they ended up doing pretty well i’d say.

Joe Fries, a Vice-President with The Learning Channel (renamed TLC a few years later), joined IMage management about six months after i started. joe and i made a trip out west, after he got settled, to ostensibly attend one of the first NCTA (National Cable Television Association)conventions in Las Vegas. he introduced me to some of his old cronies at the learning channel with the goal of drumming up some new business for jim. but vegas and joe fries were a bad combination. he ended up losing every penny he “and i” both had. it was a harbinger of things to come. Dave kaplan went from intern to employee number three. his goal, prior to interning and then becoming a full time employee, was to return to A.U. he had taken some time off to gain some practical skills working in video production. I gave dave a few pointers and then he started making videos on his own. the die was cast, goodbye A.U., hello hollywood. Dave was smitten by the video bug, much to the chagrin of his parents.

The hours were long and the pay sucked. but my goal of becoming a producer/director had begun. I met my good buddy dave kaplan, who at fate would have it, was a natural, one of the best cameraman i ever worked with and a superb editor as well. we spent many a night behind the sony U-Matics, working on rough cuts and edl’s. Jim Robinson went on to become the president of ABC Radio Networks and is now a Talent agent for many well known radio personalities. In the final analysis, I worked crazy hours at Image management but it was the most fun i ever had making video. I became a filmmaker at Image Management and developed skills that would serve me well in the future. i’m forever gratful to jim robinson for giving me the opportunity to play a role in his company.