Lawrence native wins Emmy for excellence in TV production
When Mark Maxey recently accepted an Emmy Award, he marked a milestone in his media production career, the seeds of which were planted in Lawrence decades earlier.
As a boy growing up across the street from the Centron film studio on Ninth Street, it wasn’t long before Maxey went from riding his bike around its parking lot to being in front of its cameras. Like many in Lawrence during Centron’s era of film production, Maxey played small roles or was an extra. But it was the work behind the scenes that interested him, and it was growing up in Lawrence where he got the first glimpse behind the curtain.
“It was a neat early exposure, when we were just in grade school, to the magic of filmmaking and storytelling and how that all came together,” Maxey said of being able to see how footage was edited.
Fast-forward several decades to the present day, where on June 27 Maxey received an Emmy Award for excellence in television production. Maxey said he was surprised and grateful for the honor.
“The Emmy is a nice acknowledgement that we’re doing something right,” he said.
Maxey, whose father, Lawrence Maxey, is a professor emeritus at Kansas University School of Music, said that growing up in Lawrence — surrounded by music, arts and theater — shaped who he is today. Maxey’s list of influences is long, and, in addition to Centron, includes the Lawrence Community Theatre, the Seem To Be Players, the Lawrence Arts Center, and music and theater performances at KU.
“I think all of that probably contributed to a love of the visual arts and of storytelling and filmmaking,” he said.
Maxey got involved with the Lawrence Community Theatre as a teenager and continued production work at LCT for a few years after he graduated from Lawrence High School in 1987, working mostly in lighting design, he said.
“I was always the behind the scenes guy,” Maxey said.
Maxey moved to Washington, D.C., in 1990 to join a television production company. Maxey, now executive vice president of Yorktel Media Services division, is co-founder and producer of the Washington West Film Festival and producer of the White House Student Film Festival. Maxey also produces the annual Veterans Day television specials, “The Wounded Warrior Experience” and “American Veterans Center Honors,” the latter of which won Maxey and his co-producer the Emmy.
“We do a lot of work on a lot of different programs, but to have this one in particular be recognized is especially nice just because these are people whose stories deserve to be told,” he said.
Though it has been 25 years since Maxey moved from Lawrence, he said it will always be home and the place that inspired him to pursue a career in visual communications.
“I owe a lot to my experience in Lawrence,” he said.