The Creative Muse:

One line of continuity, and a highlight of the 30-year history of the Bauhaus Media Group, has been working with Lionel Sosa since the very beginning. Lionel is often referred to as San Antonio’s advertising guru, once having owned the largest Spanish-language advertising agency in the United States.

Lionel handled some projects personally, fulfilling his creative and artistic nature. Those included political campaigns and Incarnate Word College, after Lionel had befriended its president, Louis Agnese. Lionel gave him the “friends and family” deal to help promote and build the college, which is now called the University of the Incarnate Word and is now the largest Catholic university in Texas.

Back in the 80s, when Lionel’s agency was at its peak, he was working with several large film and video production companies. But there came a point when some got so big that they were sometimes difficult to schedule. And they got expensive. It was then that a mutual friend, Arthur Emerson, introduced Lionel to Eric. A founder of Telemundo in San Antonio, Arthur had his own advertising agency then and is now president of KLRU, public television.

Eric was new in town and had just launched his Bauhaus Media Group in 1988. He established an office in a former bank building at the corner of Commerce and St. Mary’s in downtown San Antonio. Eric’s office was in the same block where Kathy Sosa, Lionel’s wife, had her office.

“We were looking for someone to shoot and edit a commercial on a tight budget,” Lionel said. He found Bauhaus to be easy to work with, both on budget and creative direction. Lionel is known as a perfectionist.

At that time, high quality projects were shot on film. That film had to be sent to Dallas to be developed and transferred to video for editing. Then, often, linear editing had to be done at a third-party facility, in Austin or another city, with final edits being completed at Bauhaus studios. Even a simple 30-second commercial could be a major project.

These days, Bauhaus does it all in-house, using all the latest digital cameras and video editing software, including Avid, DaVinci and Premiere. The end result is that even higher quality is available today at far more affordable costs.

Lionel said that first project he did with Bauhaus was for Incarnate Word College, then they moved on to work on George W. Bush’s gubernatorial race. Over the years, they continued to work on projects for other politicians, including San Antonio’s current mayor, Ron Nirenberg. They also produced commercials for a variety of clients, including credit unions, oil and gas industry, and others.

“He’s always there when we need him,” Lionel said of Eric and Bauhaus. “You can always count on him. Eric does good, solid work with the latest equipment.”

“It’s been a good relationship,” Lionel said.

Watch for Lionel’s latest project, a two-part documentary for public television: “Living in My Skin: Black Men in San Antonio Tell Their Stories “, which is currently in edit at Bauhaus studios.