CHRLX

Charlie Levi and Alex Weil founded Charlex (with the name being a portmanteau of their first names) in 1979 "with $1,600 and a phone" to support their rock band and to work on commercials. When the band folded, Levi and Weil began working at Charlex full-time. In 1981, Charlex began producing an innovative weekly TV-ad campaign for the National Enquirer, and in 1984, they created The Cars' "You Might Think" music video, for which they were awarded the "Video of the Year" –the very first winner– at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. Both projects helped Charlex get more work throughout the 1980s, including network IDs for the Fred/Alan agency, commercials, and opening titles for various programs. In 1986 Charlex produced the groundbreaking Cherry Coke ad that featured multiple composited layers of digital video which was a technical tour de force at the time.

In 1998, Charlex started using CHRLX as an alternative name for the company (removing the vowels from their name); the Charlex name was slowly phased out until 2014, although it is still CHRLX's legal name. In 2006, Charlex's short film One Rat Short received a Best of Show award at the SIGGRAPH 2006 Computer Animation Festival. CHRLX's co-founder Alex Weil died in 2019, but CHRLX continues to operate under the leadership of Chris Byrnes.

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