Introducing Medici XD
Introducing Medici Experience Development a production studio dedicated to finding new ways to build entertainment experiences that deliver guests into a more believable sensory world than ever before. The company is intersecting the latest technologies to provide physical, visual, interactive and live elements as one holistic development.
Chuck Fawcett is well known in the themed entertainment industry as the CEO of animatronics leader Animax Designs and current International Board President of the TEA, and Daren Ulmer brings equal credentials as the founder and Chief Creative Officer of Mousetrappe studio, the multimedia production house. Both companies share a common ground of serving some of the most demanding and respected clients in the industry, turning their visions into attractions and shows. And as individuals they also share the same fastidious attention to creative execution that has built their enviable reputations, so it wasn’t surprising that these entrepreneurs found a meeting of minds in each other.
“The work I’ve been doing for the TEA has been transformational, for me and the organization. By improving the relationship of the organization with its members, by getting to work on upgrading many of the internal systems and setting up a new legal entity in China, I remembered the excitement of building something. It reconnected me to my purpose which is to connect and to create. It is now time for me to build something new and bigger, which is why I’ve founded Medici XD with Daren” said Fawcett.
Daren Ulmer has created similar success with Mousetrappe which he founded over 16 years ago after a decade with Disney in live entertainment development. Mousetrappe gave Daren a platform to bring technologies and creativity to our industry which enabled more emotive expression of story, as he did by creating Disney’s and Universal’s first ever castle projection mapping shows back in 2010, a technology which until that point had only been used as a viral marketing gimmick. “Mousetrappe has produced award-winning experiences using a variety of audio-visual tools, including projection mapping, because we see them as vehicle to connect guests with the narrative and a deeper way to evoke emotional connection” said Ulmer.
But Ulmer’s vision is to take this guest connection to the next level, which puts the guest inside a convergence of platforms to create transcendental experiences for them. To achieve this physical must seamlessly join with visual and technical interactions, all elements must tie into one wholistic production, which stretches beyond the visual boundaries offered by Mousetrappe, hence co-founding Medici XD with Chuck.
Fawcett and Ulmer finding themselves at similar life stages, and each with entrepreneurial successes backing them, discovered not only were their strengths complementary; but so, were their answers to the questions they both found themselves asking ‘What’s next?’ and ‘What could our attractions industry do better?’
“As industry insiders don’t, we all visit new rides and dissect the parts? We consider how successful is this as an experience, we look at what works well and just as importantly what doesn’t?” Said Fawcett of their conversations. “So, we started considering, together, what is the difference between the most and least successful? And concluded it centers in the believability of the experience, which depends on how the components come together”
Both having decades of experience producing and manufacturing attractions, they are aware of the challenges their clients face integrating the contributions of different suppliers. “Essentially the owner/operator has to be the general contractor managing the integration of the elements of the experience there are trying to create, its not an easy task” comments Ulmer. The larger the vision, the more components and the bigger the budget which further raises the stakes; making for the sadly familiar construction experience where suppliers point at each other to excuse delays and misalignment.
Most suppliers come from one core area of expertise, some have expanded from this, but the additions generally are secondary elements, and so truly integrated development across both visual, physical and immersive factors is very rare. Changing this is what Fawcett and Ulmer have embarked upon by founding Medici Experience Development together, inspired by a vision for the creation of experiences which is more wholistic, collaborative and centered on the guest from every sense.
Medici XD reaches into the formation of experiences in ways others haven’t envisaged, this convergence of elements to make more meaningful moments.
The Medici name points us to a founding philosophy because part of their vision is the understanding that the greatest ideas are sparked by bring together different specialisms, different viewpoints and investing in the latest insights and technologies. Just as the Florentine Medici family in the thirteenth century kick-started the renaissance, this duo believes that approach of bringing the best multidisciplinary talent together will push the boundaries for experience development. The company they are founding cannot be defined by one descriptor, this is a new fusion of disciplines which will be bigger than what either founder has done before. But they are clear to point out, they are not establishing a creative house, this leans in on their production experience helping realize other’s visions more fully than before.