By Emma Bouthillette
Staff Writer
In his small office on Ledgeview Drive in Westbrook, John Marshall is surrounded by pictures of his children on the wall, doodles on papers and various awards, six of which are from the Boston and New England Emmy Awards on. He received three of these May 10 at the 31st annual award show.
Marshall, 42, a Gorham resident, lives with his wife, Traca, and children, Logan, 15, and Jackson, 13. He said between he and his wife, who is an artist, his children have developed their own sense of creativity. A Nalgene water bottle his children collaged with pictures and inspirational phrases sits on his desk as proof.
He has been working four years for WPXT-TV (The CW) and WPME-TV (MyTV) and is the creative services director for the company. Marshall said he is constantly coming up with new ideas for the stations programming.
“I’ve always had a folder at home with ideas. Whether it is book projects, screenplays, songs or an animated television show. This job allows me to play with those ideas,” he said.
The recent Emmys awarded to Marshall were for best set design, best musical composition and best promotional campaign for the children’s television game show, “Kick Start.”
“Kick Start Maine” is a state program to encourage kids to attend college. The program came to the television station for promotion ideas, and Marshall said he came up with a game show reminiscent of “Double Dare” and similar to “Fear Factor.” The game show, broken down into five episodes, gave eighth graders tasks and challenges to complete. The winner of each episode competes against each other in a final round, determining the winner.
“When I pitched this show, I said ‘Have you ever seen those crazy Japanese game shows?’ We needed something crazy enough and big enough to interest kids,” Marshall said.
After his idea was approved, Marshall produced the show. He designed the set and helped build it, ran promotions and auditions, wrote the scripts and then acted as a host on the show.
He said hundreds of kids turned out for the show’s auditions. Only 10 boys and 10 girls, in the eighth grade from schools statewide, were chosen for the show that aired May 2007, with one winning the $10,000 college scholarship from Bangor Savings Bank.
 He said for now, “Kick Start” is on hiatus, but may return.
Kick Start is one of many shows Marshall has a hand in. He is a host on “Our Maine Magazine,” “Our Maine Homes” and “Our Maine Destinations.” He also produced the “Green Team” and “Maine Model.”
The “Green Team” aired last fall and was loosely based on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
“We didn’t tear their house down, but we completely redid their energy system, which is a huge thing in Maine,” Marshall said.
“Maine Model” was a contest branching off from “America’s Next Top Model.”
“Rather than running promotions for a contest, we produced a five episode show to select the local girl to jump the lines and meet the producers of ‘America’s next Top Model,’” Marshall said.
Creative services director hasn’t always been Marshall’s official title. During his senior year in college he realized didn’t enjoy the business courses he was taking, so Marshall registered for senior level creative writing courses. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in business, Marshall moved to Los Angeles, Calif. He wrote screenplays, and some were purchased from production companies, but never made it to fruition. He then worked as a carpenter and was a director for a local advertising agency. In between all that, Marshall, and his wife and children lived in Portugal for a year.
“My wife’s father passed away, and then my best friend was murdered. We decided life was very uncertain, and Traca had always wanted to live in Europe. At the time, my children were in kindergarten and second grade. We backpacked for awhile and then ended up in this small fishing town with no more than 250 residents,” Marshall said.
He said when they moved back to Maine, they had become accustomed to larger lots of open land so they settled in Gorham. Marshall started working for WPXT and WPME after General Manager Doug Fink, who remembered him as a host on Fox 51 Kid’s Club, approached him.
“I get to come up with ideas, and then if we can figure out a way to make money from it, we do it. I get a chance to do something and have an audience actually see it. It all happens in a short turn around time,” Marshall said.
Recently during a filming of a public service announcement for a nonprofit organization, Marshall said he worked with a 10-year-old boy who pointed out to him how cool it was that people can get paid to do something that was really, really fun.
“When I was younger, I really loved to do a lot of creative things. I would draw, play music, act, sing and I loved to direct. I thought if I could find a job doing all five things, I’d be happy, and I did,” Marshall said.
Marshall said it is a great job for an artistic and creative person to have. He said he gets all the work an artist wants to do without the risk.
“The stakes are relatively low. I have full support from the management and freedom to do what I want to do,” Marshall said.
Besides constantly developing ideas, current work for Marshall includes taking some of the “Our Maine” shows across country. An upcoming show for “Local Discovery” is scheduled to produce an episode in the Chattanooga, Tenn. area.
The Emmy Awards for the Boston and New England region is not a small market to in which to compete. He said it is difficult to go head to head with some of the big television companies and advertising agencies in the Boston area. Marshall has now won six of the 10 nominations he has received.
“At the level of ideas, we can compete against anybody, but at the level of execution, the Boston companies have more money to produce shows than we do,” Marshall said.
For more information on Kick Start, visit www.kickstartmaine.com and click on the “Game Show” link.
For more information on WPXT or WPME visit www.ourmaine.com.