Episode 38: Michael Monello

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What do the words ‘Blair Witch’ do to you?

Induce fear, stress, excitement?

For Michael Monello, one of the creators of The Blair Witch Project, they energized a career of creating remarkable experiences that break through the boundaries between the big screen and the internet.

The Blair Witch Project was a huge paradigm shift in fan engagement and his company Campfire now leverages this insight with Game Of Thrones, WestWorld, Ted Lasso, Lego, The Handmaid’s Tale and more in bringing fans and film experiences together.

Monello believes that even if you are not making an interactive movie, you still have to think that way. “Its not a thing until someone experiences it. It’s like architecture, you can build a really beautiful building, but is it really finished if it sits unoccupied and unused?

INFO ON MICHAEL MONELLO

Michael’s Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemonello/

Websites: campfirenyc.com/

Email: mike@mikemonello.com

Twitter: mikemonello

BIO:

Mike Monello is a true pioneer when it comes to immersive storytelling and innovative marketing.

In the late 1990s, Monello and his partners at Haxan Films created The Blair Witch Project, a story told across the burgeoning internet, a sci-fi channel pseudo-documentary, books, comics, games, and a feature film, which became a pop-culture touchstone and inspired legions of found-footage movies in its wake. It forever changed how fans engage with story and how marketers approach the internet.

Inspired by the possibilities for engaging connected fan cultures and communities online, Monello co-founded Campfire in 2005.

There, he leads an agency that has developed and created groundbreaking participatory stories and experiences for HBO, Amazon, Netflix, Cinemax, Discovery, National Geographic, Harley- Davidson, Infiniti, and more.

Campfire won Small Agency Campaign of the Year via AdAge in 2013 and Small Agency of the Year via Online Marketing Media and Advertising Awards in 2012, and has been awarded top honors at the Emmys, Cannes Lions Festival, Clios, One Show, and more.

Monello serves on the Peabody Board of Jurors, and regularly speaks at high-profile events.

SHOW INTRODUCTION:

I am not a huge fan of the horror genre of movies.

As a kid I regularly covered my eyes when the Wicked Witch of the West showed up on screen in the Wizard of Oz.

I saw Amityville Horror as a 13 year old and late into my adult years, looking out of a darkened home window was slightly un-nerving thinking that there was certainly something evil looking back.

I saw Friday the 13th and growing up in Montreal during the reign of the Montreal Canadians and so I watched a good bit of hockey but never thought of goalie’s masks quite the same way.

I sat through episodes Night Gallery, the Wolfman and Frankenstein with childhood friends trying to not look at the screen all the while putting on an air of calm remaining cool.

As a 10-year-old, I scrambled under the flaps of circus show tent at a local fair when a man miraculously turned into a raging gorilla right in front of my eyes.

Oh… and thank you Mr. Spielberg for making me afraid of my closet, and that a portal to the netherworld could be in there, and believing that every house could possibly be built on and Indian burial ground

Oh and, of course, making sure I’d never look at open water the same way.

This may have all had to do with growing up with older brothers that thought it hilarious the wear a gorilla mask and jump out at my younger brother and me with the lights off in the basement. Except in that case, I brandished a big wooden shoe polishing brush and delivered a great whack to that nasty gorilla’s head.

Or it may be that I have a particularly active imagination and believe in the power of story’s ability to go deep into our neurobiology and create ‘as if’ experiences inside us. Story is so profoundly woven into our very beings that, without it, there would be a vacuum of basic understanding of our world and what to it means to part of it all.

So, with all of this in mind, it’s likely no surprise that I haven’t watched the Exorcist and have kept away from The Blair Witch Project.

But Blair Witch is something entirely different.

It didn’t just scare the crap out of millions of people, it shifted the film industry on its axis creating a new paradigm for storytelling where film and the burgeoning internet merged, blurring boundaries between these two vehicles for connecting fans to the profound power of a story.

It broke what was acceptable in terms of camera work replacing locked off cameras for a handheld approach where being all bumpy was perfectly OK. It was largely credited with creating the “found footage” technique that has become so common in years since its release.

The opening scenes left you questioning what was real, was this really found footage by a group of student film makers who ventured into the woods to capture a story of a reported witch but never came back?

When The Blair Witch Project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999, it its promotional marketing campaign actually listed the actors as either “missing” or “deceased”.

It grossed over $250 making it one of the most successful independent films of all time.

Michael Monello, and his partners at Haxan Films, were the creators of this paradigm shifting approach to film making, forever changing how fans engage with story and how marketers approach the internet.

Inspired by the possibilities for engaging connected fan cultures and communities online, Monello co-founded Campfire in 2005, and ever since, has built an impressive and exciting career in immersive storytelling and innovative marketing.

At Campfire, he leads an agency that has developed and created more groundbreaking participatory stories and experiences for HBO, Amazon, Netflix, Cinemax, Discovery, National Geographic, Harley- Davidson, Infiniti, and more.

Campfire won Small Agency Campaign of the Year by AdAge in 2013 and Small Agency of the Year by Online Marketing Media and Advertising Awards in 2012, and has been awarded top honors at the Emmys, Cannes Lions Festival, Clios, and more.

This is a talk that goes into Projects Beyond Blair Witch and dives into the power of story, engaging the internet in creating famdom, the meta-verse, NFT’s and more.

Michael Monello has a really interesting take on immersive experiences and believes that ‘its not really a thing until someone is experiencing it. He likens creating immersive experiences to architecture saying that you can build a really beautiful building, but is it really finished if it sits unoccupied and unused.’

That question is fundamentally at the core of this podcast where we focus on “DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.”

Michael Monello’s work crosses these disciplines with the same facility and passion that had him crossing boundaries since creating The Blair Witch Project over 20 years ago.

INFO ON DAVID KEPRON

• Website: https://www.davidkepron.com
• Email: david.kepron@NXTLVLexperiencedesign.com
• Personal Instagram: @DavidKepron
• NXTLVL Instagram: @NXTLVL_experience_design
• Twitter: @DavidKepron
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-kepron-9a1582b/

BIO:

David Kepron is a multifaceted creative professional with a deep curiosity to understand ‘why’, ‘what’s now’ and ‘what’s next’. He brings together his background as an architect, artist, educator, author, podcast host and builder to the making of meaningful and empathically-focused, community-centric customer connections at brand experience places around the globe.

David is a former VP – Global Design Strategies at Marriott International. While at Marriott, his focus was on the creation of compelling customer experiences within Marriott’s “Premium Distinctive” segment which included: Westin, Renaissance, Le Meridien, Autograph Collection, Tribute Portfolio, Design Hotels and Gaylord hotels.

In 2020 Kepron founded NXTLVL Experience Design, a strategy and design consultancy, where he combines his multidisciplinary approach to the creation of relevant brand engagements with his passion for social and cultural anthropology, neuroscience and emerging digital technologies.

As a frequently requested international speaker at corporate events and international conferences focusing on CX, digital transformation, retail, hospitality, emerging technology, David shares his expertise on subjects ranging from consumer behaviors and trends, brain science and buying behavior, store design and visual merchandising, hotel design and strategy as well as creativity and innovation. In his talks, David shares visionary ideas on how brand strategy, brain science and emerging technologies are changing guest expectations about relationships they want to have with brands and how companies can remain relevant in a digitally enabled marketplace.

David currently brings his creativity and insight on brand experiences to an international audience as a member of VMSD magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board, as a Board Member of the Interactive Customer Experience Association (ICXA) and Sign Research Foundation’s (SRF) Program Committee.

He has held teaching positions at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.), the Department of Architecture & Interior Design of Drexel University in Philadelphia, the Laboratory Institute of Merchandising (L.I.M.) in New York, the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Montreal and he served as the Director of the Visual Merchandising Department at LaSalle International Fashion School (L.I.F.S.) in Singapore.

In 2014 Kepron published his first book titled: “Retail (r)Evolution: Why Creating Right-Brain Stores Will Shape the Future of Shopping in a Digitally Driven World” and he is currently working on his second book to be published soon. David also writes a popular blog called “Brain Food” which is published monthly on vmsd.com.

In September of 2020, he launched the “NXTLVL Experience Design” podcast which brings listeners dialogues about “DATA: Design, Architecture, Technology and the Arts.” His guests include thought leaders who are driven by a passion to create the ‘New Possible’ and promote new paradigms of experiences into the mainstream.