Creative Disruption - storytelling, experience design & AI

The Columbia DSL returns to Film at Lincoln Center for our first IRL meetup of 2023! Join us for an evening of storytelling, experience design, and AI augmented creativity.

The evening starts with a fireside chat with Campfire, a leading creative shop that's crafted immersive storytelling experiences for HBO, Amazon, and Hulu as well as major brands and fortune 50 companies. Mike Monello (founder/creative director) and Steve Coulson (creative director) sit down with Shar Simpson (Columbia DSL) for a candid conversation about their creative practice.

In the second part of the evening we'll be experimenting with a number of AI based tools.

About
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 2006. 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 Marketing Media and Advertising Awards in 2012, and has been awarded top honors at the Cannes Lions Festival, Clios, One Show, MIXX and the Emmys. Monello regularly speaks at high-profile events such as Advertising Week, SXSW, Digital Hollywood, and more.

Steve Coulson worked his way through college as a restaurant magician in London.

That’s a tough gig — moving from table to table, struggling to get the attention of strangers as you go. But he learned that the best way to win over audiences is by inviting them to participate in stories, rather than simply performing tricks for applause.

It’s a valuable lesson Coulson brought with him to big ad agencies as a Creative Director for 12 years, before finding his groove at Campfire in 2009.

It was only there that he could finally practice what he preached: earning eyeballs — and more importantly, hearts and minds — with compelling ideas, rather than buying them with media dollars.

Since then his work has been featured by major media outlets, studied at top universities and won many industry awards. More significantly, it’s generated thriving fan followings for my client partners, propelling premium shows and products to success.

Shar Simpson (they/them) is a non-binary artist, interactive writer, and educator. They specialize in the crafting and mapping of compelling immersive stories and interactive experiences for all ages.

Shar is a Sundance Storytelling Lab fellow, a resident of the POV Spark Lab, and a member of the Columbia University Digital Storytelling Lab. Their work has been presented at Tribeca Film Festival’s Virtual Arcade, the Slamdance Film Festival, Mozilla Fest, and others. Shar currently teaches Digital Storytelling and World-Building at Columbia University’s School of Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab.

They focus on work that connects participants to pervasive forms of technology, re-introduces them to productivity tools in a storytelling context, and experiments with choice and collaboration. Shar is drawn to horror, comedy, and fun-houses as hot-zones for self-expression and discovery.