By Carol Badaracco Padgett
Rich Hart started out as a live and studio drummer. Naturally, the best drummers excel at cracking the silence, setting the beat, and sustaining exceptional consistency. And without them, the rhythm would die.
Hart is a drummer like that.
The professional percussionist and multi-enterprise entrepreneur has a new creative venture called Global Media Studios, now open to creators in the Peach State and around the globe.
When asked about his vision for the creation of his carefully crafted studios–20,000+ square feet in metro Atlanta, packed with state-of-the-art audio, film and video, podcast, post production suites, and event space with live streaming capabilities –Hart looks straight across the interview table and says, “Most people don’t like change. But change is where I live!”
Pounding out a fresh new beat in the creator economy, Hart is inviting other creatives to reach out, book studio space, draw upon his staff of engineers and professional services, and add to today’s new storytelling cadence.
Georgia Entertainment: Set the stage with the story of how you got your start on the drums.
Hart: I was in elementary school, about 10 years old, and I joined the regular school band. In the beginning, I wasn’t the best player. But you evolve over a period of time. By the time I got into high school, I really started [excelling]with it. Everybody has something they do, you know?
My son was very funny because he had turned around, he’d played baseball and played all kinds of sports, and he’s good, okay? But [eventually]he found something he really keyed in on, which is his music. It was the same thing. I keyed in on my music as a kid.
It was my saving grace that right down the block where I grew up on Long Island, New York, within walking distance, was the local drum center. So I was living in heaven and became great friends with everybody there. I grew up in that particular day and age with the most popular bands in the ‘60s, the ‘70s, and the ‘80s. And it was a great time. It was a great time to be a musician.
But it all started from a very young age, and it was inspiring just to climb through and develop a personality, and I think music itself helped with that personality. Now, my brother’s a player, my son’s a player, and my nephews are players. So, music is in the [family]system, you know, it’s real cool that way. I love it.
Even today, Global Media Studios is built on the bonds of family and is fortified by exceptional outside engineers and artists. My daughter works here, my son works here, and my son-in-law works here. My wife works here too. I’ve been able to develop a construct and a resource that I can pass along.
Georgia Entertainment: You’re also an international speaker. Tell us about that and how it has become part of your evolution into Global Media Studios.
Hart: [Early on in my career] I worked for a couple of companies, setting up their operations. And that brought me down from New York to Atlanta. At that time, I was doing a lot of engineering design work for major airlines and other big companies, but corporate America was a way to a means. So I decided to open up my own companies. And I never looked back once.
We had just finished the ‘96 Olympics and I’d been working for these companies, and I’d always had a flair for speaking, talking, and teaching. But it wasn’t until I really got to Georgia, some 30 years ago, that I got into a Toastmasters group and keyed into some really good people. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I found myself in the National Speakers Association (NSA), speaking on a very large platform.
From there it was just one thing after another, after another, after another, and I [cultivated]and carried all the skills, knowledge, tools, and resources that I’d developed over many years. Along the way, I was working with and developing HR, business management, customer service, and sales-related [businesses]. And even though a lot has changed since then, I think it gave me an option and an opportunity to talk about so many different genres and so many different things, and so my speaking became motivational and inspirational. It became about business and it became about entrepreneurship.
I’ve got a mechanical mind, all right? Hence, this place today—Global Media Studios. I [once]walked a vacant lot, a vacant building. and I [saw it]as it is right now. With a mechanical mind, I see things built before they’re actually [there]. And for the most part, it’s logical and mechanical. It’s sales, servicing, and whatever it may be.
I guess I was always a sponge for knowledge, and it ended up being that sponge itself that gave me the opportunity to really engulf myself in speaking–and into the world of creativity and building dynamics with other people.
So, I’ve been speaking for close to 30 years now, since I got to Georgia. And I’ve been out there in real estate, finance, business development, media, and any kind of genre that I could possibly work with and develop.
Welcome to my sandbox. Bring your toys, leave the sand.
Georgia Entertainment: Being a creative and an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. How did the ups and downs culminate in where you are today—and into Global Media Studios as a resource for other creatives?
Hart: After the1996 Olympics we got into 9/11, and 9/11 crashed one of my companies completely. So, there’s been a lot of ups and downs, and then more ups and downs. Again, in 2009 it was hard.
Then, in 2019, I said, I’ve got to make a decision. Is what’s now Global Media Studios going to be a live facility, or am I just going to give up everything and say, “That’s it”? And I decided, alright, let’s take it to the next hill.
I’m a very spiritual person. If God tells me to pick up this hammer and hit that nail, I pick up the hammer and I hit the nail. That’s basically what it is. So I can just say that’s how this place was built, without a doubt. I decided I’m going to take this to where the world is going in terms of media.
Back to 2019, platforms like Zoom were just being redeveloped, and manufacturers didn’t know where to go. They were developing a number of different platforms so that people could still function. I decided to create a special group of elite individuals, and I said to them, “Look, I know this is going to be some bad times right now. So let’s just do a Zoom-type deal [at Global Media Studios’ partially built-out facilities]and let’s keep us all active and doing what we’re doing.”
We had a group of about 25 people [clients], and they would get to meet–like a mastermind meeting. It was out of that mastermind where I turned around and I said, okay, I know where to take this opportunity at Global Media Studios from those conversations, and from what I was hearing from other folks in the mastermind group. And I could focus on this in concrete ways with [Global Media Studios’] facilities. And so we took it to the next step.
So we started wiring this place for crazy. We were working with companies like Blackmagic Design and [others], and everybody was still figuring out cameras and how to make business meetings work [during the pandemic]. And nobody knew what was going on with the Zoom-type world and all those platforms out there. So we started basically working with them and getting the cameras to work. What I started doing is really working on the technology side, and looking at how we were going to be able to adapt this in a studio type of atmosphere.
Georgia Entertainment: Global Media Studios has been constantly growing into the resource you’re now offering the creative community. What has that process looked like, and what’s your calling card?
Hart: Thousands and thousands of feet of cable later, and we’ve broken up the rooms in our sprawling facility space to create all our studios here under one roof. When I came in, in 2018, I had a planned layout and that layout is pretty much exactly where it is, except I keep on growing. And I keep on cutting into walls and making doors–and we’ve come complete circle. You can get lost if you take the wrong door somewhere, but I’ll eventually get you out!
Along the way, we acquired the next two locations [adjacent to our original studio in this office park]. And most recently, we acquired the location we’re sitting in right now. All-in-all, it’s a little more than 20,000 square feet, but our biggest thing here at Global Media Studios is service—it’s how we fulfill a need and how we build a relationship with the people who need our services.
So, I always looked at Global Media Studios from a mechanical mind, and then looking forward to what it is today. And most of all, to what we can do differently from what the rest of the industry is currently offering right now. That makes our facility very rare and unique for individuals to use.
I’m looking on the horizon now, and wow, there are some pretty cool things coming up around the corner here. And as we further embed ourselves in what we’re doing, working with some of the bigger studios and working on some smaller-scale projects too, we have found quite a niche.
I think what we do here under one roof is completely extraordinary–and a lot of clients and potential clients are realizing that they can do so many kinds of media projects here. Everything can be done at this one location. And then, we can also travel out to wherever our clients may need us.
Images courtesy of Global Media Studios
