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ADAMSTAR PICTURES
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Biography
Mark Adams was born on May 11, 1966 in Kansas City, Missouri. His Father, Donald Adams, was an art teacher and his mother, Loras Adams, was an architect. Just over a year later, Mark and his family moved to Culver, Indiana where his father was hired at the prestigious Culver Military Academy.
For more information on the Culver Military Academies click here But within five years they moved back to Kansas City where Don Adams became head of the Art Department at the Pembroke Country Day School, and where Mark began attending 2nd grade. From early on Mark’s parents noticed his interest in the visual arts. “Up in Culver (Indiana), it was strange because you didn’t talk much, but you’d go see a movie and you would draw frames of the movie, like cartoons. Rather than talk about the movie you would draw all of these pictures. (You did it through high school but) you started that as a little-bitty kid.” – Loras Adams “You would draw almost frame by frame (shot by shot) the whole story of the movie. (Laughs) What amazed me was that you remembered (the films seen in the theaters). It was like you saw it in flash picture form. And that’s a pretty visual kind of a person that can deal with that, I couldn’t do that.” – Donald Adams
In 1977, at the age of 11, Mark saw a film that would become a major influence to a new generation of filmmakers, as he explains in his book TRULY INDEPENDENT FILMMAKING, “It all started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…Yes, I’m one in a long line of filmmakers who can point to STAR WARS as the first film that inspired me to be a director, or at least turned me in that direction. It was June of 1977, and my parents took me to see some new film with spaceships and aliens. I was already a science fiction fan, with STAR TREK as my favorite. I could boast that at that time I had every STAR TREK model kit they made, including the very first U.S.S. Enterprise model that was released with the blinking lights in the saucer section. (Does anybody remember that one?)”
Mark continues, “But all of that was to change. I was 11 years old and I had no idea what to expect. I couldn’t even tell you what movie I saw before STAR WARS. When I sat in the Glenwood Theater in Overland Park, Kansas, and the lights grew dim, I was about to experience movies in a completely different way. My mouth dropped at the opening shot of that monstrous Imperial Ship flying endlessly overhead. I sat frozen in place as Luke and Han fought their way in and out of the Death Star. I was exhausted after the final battle that led to the victory over the Empire. When I left the theater my life was changed forever. Movies were suddenly magic, capable of transporting me to some new world and lead me on a new adventure. I went back and saw STAR WARS at least 25 times within the year. I would beg my parents to take me every weekend. When they couldn’t stand watching it for the 10th time I would go with friends. I even went to see it as a field trip with my school - it had an enormous cultural impact. Remember this was before VCRs and owning movies on tape, and if you wanted to see the film you had to go back to the theater while it was still there. It may not show up on network television for several years, and cable was not as prevalent. Kids were learning to play the theme on the piano. The symphony orchestra in Kansas City performed the theme as part of their special performances for children. We sat in a friend’s living room and watched a Super 8 silent film showing about 4 minutes of scenes from the movie, and we loved every minute of it. STAR WARS was a national phenomenon, but more importantly it was a personal journey of discovery. Just as influential for me was the program shown on television about the making of STAR WARS. My school in Kansas City, called The Pembroke Country Day School, had a U-matic Video Cassette Recorder that they would use to tape kids shows like SESAME STREET and THE POWER COMPANY to show us in class. One tape, that they would show us if a teacher was sick and they couldn’t get a substitute in time, was THE MAKING OF STAR WARS. I would wish, pray and hope that a teacher had the flu or some injury (nothing too serious, of course - just a one day illness). About 3 times that year we saw the unique behind-the-scenes look at the film, and I was fascinated by how they made STAR WARS. At the time I didn’t understand how they went from the models in front of the blue screen to the finished product using something called ‘mattes’, but it was cool to see those things blow up in slow motion. I saw what were sets built in a studio and what was shot on location. I watched the crew behind the camera, and wondered why there were so many people. And that camera! I had never seen a camera called ‘Panavision’ that shot individual pictures on a strip of film. The landspeeder was on a long arm, there was a man inside R2-D2, and they rehearsed scenes before shooting them. It was a first peek at what it takes to make a film, and started my fascination with discovering how a filmmaker creates the magic on the screen. There were actually two films that I saw that year which greatly influenced me, the first was STAR WARS, which was big, exciting and a lot of fun. The second was just as big and awe inspiring but more dramatic, mysterious and thought provoking. Later that year I went to see CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, another film about spaceships and aliens. But this was very different from the action/adventure of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. This was a personal drama of a man named Roy Neary, played by Richard Dreyfuss, who has a very frightening yet compelling encounter with UFOs. It was scary at times, but it wasn’t a horror film. It was exciting, but it wasn’t a shoot-em-up action film. It was intense and dramatic, but it wasn’t boring. It had humor, it had incredible special effects, and it was movie magic. And for the first time I started noticing the influence of the director and the use of the camera to tell the story and convey the emotions of the characters. Steven Spielberg was the first director who I started to admire and to ask ‘what does the director really do?’ “
But the defining moment where Mark’s road to filmmaking began was the result of his failure to impress the girls. While in the 10th grade at Pem-Day, Mark Adams decided to try out for soccer in order to have a Varsity Letterman’s Jacket. (At the time it seemed like a smart thing to do.) Although he was cut from the team in the first round, the soccer coach and athletic director asked Mark to learn how to operate the brand new VHS home video camera to record the soccer and football games. This was 1982, and home VHS video equipment was something that the general public had not seen before. While standing on top of the press box running the camera, Mark thought of ways he could use the camera to tell stories visually. His father, Don Adams, checked out the camera equipment that Christmas vacation, and Mark spent the holiday making his first films and videos, and has not stopped making them ever since. (See FILMOGRAPHY for more details on the films Mark made at Pem-Day.)
By the time Mark Adams graduated from the Pembroke Hill School (the merger of the Pembroke Country Day and Sunset Hill Schools) in 1985, he knew that film and video making was his career choice. He attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, graduating in 1989 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Film Studies. During that time Mark won his first awards at film festivals, and began to feel he was on the right path. (See FILMOGRAPHY for more details on the films Mark made at KU.) But Mark realized he needed more experience in the world of filmmaking, and made the decision to travel to Los Angeles to see what ‘Hollywood’ was really like. Right before he left for California, Mark had the opportunity to work on the NBC Miniseries CROSS OF FIRE that was being shot in Lawrence and northeast Kansas. In Los Angeles he found work on two low-budget movies produced by Vista Street Entertainment: PRINCESS WARRIOR and GETTING LUCKY. He returned to Kansas City to work on the Merchant/Ivory production of MR. & MRS. BRIDGE. (Click HERE to read more about his experiences working on these Hollywood productions.)
Mark decided to attend Graduate School at The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia from 1990 to 1992. In 1994 he earned his Master's Degree in Video. While a student at SCAD he met his wife, Tracy, who was a video and photography double major. After completing his narrative film JUDGMENT DAY for his Thesis project in 1992, he and Tracy were married and Mark started his new job as Audio/Video Specialist at Barton County Community College (BCCC) in Great Bend, Kansas. In 1996 their daughter, Morgan, was born. After 11 years at Barton, Mark started working as a Production Manager/Electronic Field Production Specialist at South Carolina Educational Television (SCETV) in Columbia, South Carolina in 2004, and continues producing his independent films and videos, winning awards at various film festivals and gaining a reputation as a prolific filmmaker of quality productions.
For more information on Barton County Community College visit http://www.bartonccc.edu
Click here for more information on South Carolina Educational Television at www.myetv.org
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