Shortly after forming the company, Ball became the national director of
advertising for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign, affording him the
opportunity to shoot commercials, town meetings, and documentaries.
While working on the campaign, Ball met Kitty Moon, who handled film
production for the Republican Party. When the project ended, Ball invited
Moon to become a partner in Scene Three. One of the pair's first clients
was Tennessee's Department of Tourism, for which they produced the
phenomenally successful "Elrod and Elvira" television spots.
"We created these very funny rural folks named Elrod and Elvira.
They were in their 50s or 60s, living in the country. We had several things
happen to them: a spaceship landed in their yard; a shark came after
them. It became really, really well known throughout the state and kind
of put us on the map; we became known by it. We didn't have any mar-
keting; the work was our marketing. We just answered the phone."
In the early 1980s, Ball got interested in video and became the first
company in the area to expand into video postproduction. "You could
come in and edit, and leave with your finished product. That was incredi-
bly exciting to me. We would bring video people together with film
people and try to use the best of both technologies." A block of buildings
was purchased to house the
company's growing concern,
including a former movie
theater that was renovated
into a television studio.
Finding it inconvenient to
rent equipment out of Atlanta
or other cities, the company
began acquiring cameras,
dollies, cranes, trucks, lights,
and other gear, out of necessity.
The company continued to
grow their commercial client
base, while expanding into music video production. Ball directed projects
for Garth Brooks, Billy Ray Cyrus, Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Goo Goo Dolls,
George Jones, Toby Keith, Trisha Yearwood, and many others, totaling
more than 200 to date. Ball also produced and directed A Day in the Life of
Country Music for CBS, the series CeCe's Place, Celebrity Homes &
Hideaways, Class of 2000, and Gospel Today.
Over the next several years, Scene Three Media Works expanded to
become a digital media center, combining video and audio editing tech-
nologies. The company formed an alliance with television producer
Mitchell Galin's On the Lam, Inc., to produce television programming.
"You gain what
you risk."--Marc Ball
"You've got to
be flexible in this business. You don't
necessarily pick a single path and that's
the one you go down."--Marc Ball
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