Latest / The Scene Projects / A.C. Meyer on Art, Mental Health, and Interactive Entertainment

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A.C. Meyer on Art, Mental Health, and Interactive Entertainment · The Scene Projects

• 0:22
  Welcome in to Real Biz.
• 0:24
  I am your host Bubba Starts, and with me today from interactive entertainment company, AC.
• 0:29
  AC, welcome to the show.
• 0:31
  Hey.
• 0:32
  Thanks, Bubba.
• 0:32
  Thanks for having me.
• 0:34
  My pleasure.
• 0:35
  We're gonna get into some really exciting stuff today.
• 0:38
  Love what you're doing in the interactive entertainment space.
• 0:42
  You got some really cool stuff you're working on, and I I can't wait to get into it.
• 0:46
  But before we do all of that, just wanna give you a few minutes here, get a little bit of
• 0:50
  your backstory, and then we'll pick it up from there.
• 0:53
  Okay.
• 0:54
  Thank you.
• 0:56
  Well, I, am a 100%, disabled veteran permanent.
• 1:03
  I deployed to both the Balkans in '99, so Hungary, Macedonia, Kosovo, Croatia, that whole
• 1:16
  area, and then also was part of the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• 1:25
  When I came came home, you know, I got back into my life and everything, but just kind of
• 1:31
  like every every other, you know, veteran who kinda was in the same situation as me, My
• 1:38
  service kinda crept up on me.
• 1:40
  And in 2009, I had a mental breakdown, and it started a long road of creative and, I mean, I
• 1:58
  used I used art therapy probably for the first thing, like, when I when I first was really
• 2:05
  struggling.
• 2:06
  I went downstairs.
• 2:07
  I've you know, I've been a consummate artist my whole life, but I I started painting, and I
• 2:12
  painted, like, 200 pictures.
• 2:14
  I was stuck down in my basement for, like, two or three years.
• 2:18
  It was crazy.
• 2:19
  I dealt with agoraphobia.
• 2:21
  You know, I just, I just really spun out.
• 2:26
  And, it wasn't until, you know, I I really I went through a journey, and then I found an
• 2:37
  organization called Give an Hour.
• 2:40
  And I met my therapist, Jane, and I worked with her for the next eight years.
• 2:51
  We just finished kinda she just retired, and I had done 200 sessions.
• 2:56
  My last one was 200 sessions.
• 2:58
  And through that process, it really, it helped me dial back in with myself.
• 3:04
  It helped me kind of realize that things weren't hopeless and that I could redirect
• 3:11
  things.
• 3:12
  EMDR is magic.
• 3:14
  I am a huge proponent for that for healing and, you know, as well as just believing in
• 3:24
  yourself.
• 3:24
  You know?
• 3:24
  You gotta buy in.
• 3:25
  You gotta you you can either, you know, check out or check-in.
• 3:32
  And, I mean, it's a lot easier said than done, but at the end of the day, I you know, we're
• 3:37
  all we're all fighters.
• 3:38
  You know?
• 3:38
  We don't really have a lot of quitting us.
• 3:40
  So if you can show me another direction, I'll go that way.
• 3:45
  And so, you know, that's kinda why I'm now talking with people and telling my story is,
• 3:50
  you know, I wish kinda I had heard some of these things when I was stuck, like, down in
• 3:54
  the basement or really struggling in some of my harder times.
• 3:59
  Well and that's why I was so thrilled to to speak with you today.
• 4:02
  Obviously, listeners of the show know my relationship with Operation Combating Veterans
• 4:07
  Suicide.
• 4:08
  Being a part of that foundation has been such an important part of the last year of my life.
• 4:15
  And your story, while unique to you, is told a lot throughout that veteran community and
• 4:23
  really anyone who's been through traumatic experiences.
• 4:27
  I I think the military just sees a lot more of that, right, per capita inside of that
• 4:33
  community.
• 4:34
  You're exposed to a lot of things that can cause you to have these visions and nightmares
• 4:42
  and things that you have to get out.
• 4:44
  And I can only assume that a lot of the imagery that you're creating in that two, three year
• 4:50
  now, is it a lot of, you know, things that were inside and and very haunting images to that, or
• 4:58
  is was your artwork, you know, you know, visions of something that you wanted to be?
• 5:03
  I I'm really interested in, you know, what was kind of expressing itself through your art, I
• 5:07
  guess.
• 5:08
  You know, it it's interesting because I had so much, emotions, and they were cycling, and I
• 5:21
  had no idea what was going on that I would go downstairs and I would put on music.
• 5:26
  Right?
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  And I had mixed CDs and stuff back at the time, you know, and we're still making CDs.
• 5:31
  And, like, I would process even though I didn't really realize that's what I was doing.
• 5:36
  For me, I needed to get it out.
• 5:37
  It was almost like vomiting or crying or something.
• 5:40
  Like, if I didn't do it, I would feel this energy and, like, I would just I would go mad.
• 5:45
  So I would I would sometimes paint, you know, intricately with, you know, taping off sections
• 5:55
  and stuff.
• 5:55
  I'm an abstract artist, you know, mostly, so it was more for me emotional based.
• 6:01
  But, you know, there were sometimes I mean, it was absolutely crazy.
• 6:05
  You know?
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  I think any artist can understand this where you kinda just go too far into the paint where
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  I would be painting multiple pictures over over the same thing, throwing the canvas, lighting
• 6:15
  it on fire, like, just it was for me, it was a process of doing it to pour out this excess of,
• 6:26
  like, electrical energy slash emotion that I just had that was it's tough to describe other
• 6:36
  than it it was if I didn't do it, I would feel it build up.
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  You know?
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  And it was it was very, uncomfortable.
• 6:46
  So my my stuff's actually, on deviantART.
• 6:52
  It's my, art name is Saw Studios, so you can check out my stuff there.
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  But, you know, I did do some some things that, like, work it's weird because when when you
• 7:09
  think about something and it bothers you, you don't think about the macro.
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  You think about the micro.
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  Right?
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  Like, for me, it's weird little things, like the way a road looked and how they had these
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  little white things against them so that, you know, with the desert, you wouldn't lose the
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  road, I guess.
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  Like markers.
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  And, yeah, it was just strange things that would then pop up in some of my my work.
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  But most of it was you know, you would look at it, and it was color based.
• 7:41
  You could see where rage was separate from despair.
• 7:48
  Yeah.
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  And I as an artist myself, alright, a songwriter, I definitely feel that that need to
• 7:57
  get things out and to have the expression there, and hence why I was so kind of
• 8:03
  interested in what that was.
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  Now was it finding kind of, you know, the this organization and giving starting to give back
• 8:15
  to people, do you feel like that was a turning point for you to to get help, but then also to
• 8:20
  realize that you could help others and having that as kind of a part of your own therapy as
• 8:26
  well?
• 8:28
  You know, that came along later, absolutely, to both of those.
• 8:32
  Those are good questions.
• 8:34
  Thank you.
• 8:36
  You know, I I found Give an Hour.
• 8:40
  They helped me out.
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  And then when I started on my my business journey, you know, I leaned into some of the
• 8:47
  business organizations, Bunker Labs.
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  I did that cohort for about a year, year and a half, and then I ended up co captaining the
• 8:58
  last one to give back.
• 9:00
  Right?
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  Like, I think vets help vets.
• 9:02
  So that really does kind of help the wheel roll.
• 9:06
  Right?
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  Like, as I started going on my journey, it was helpful for me to help pull other people up
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  because people were pulling me up.
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  You know?
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  And I think vets we can identify with that.
• 9:20
  Right?
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  Like, a mission might seem too big for one person, but if I'm working with multiple
• 9:24
  people, I can accomplish anything.
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  And, you know, the other thing is if you're in a cohort and you're sitting around a table with
• 9:34
  a bunch of other vets and every week, you're talking about what you're gonna do to move your
• 9:39
  business forward, and when you show up that next week, you can't be like, well, you know, I
• 9:43
  was tired, and I didn't really feel like doing it.
• 9:47
  No.
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  Like, there's a different standard you're held to, and I think that that was very helpful
• 9:52
  because it helps kind of bring that mindset back into alignment.
• 9:59
  It's very easy sometimes to slip into I'm a disabled veteran and just that's, like, the
• 10:05
  cycle thinking, and it it invades everything.
• 10:07
  Oh, I can't do that because of blah blah blah.
• 10:09
  Or I could do this, but it's gonna be challenging.
• 10:12
  You know, when you when you like, I'm gonna have to deal with this stuff forever.
• 10:16
  That sucks, but I gotta move on.
• 10:18
  Like, when I can change my optics to where I'm now looking at it from a different lens to now
• 10:27
  this is a business problem, not that it helps right?
• 10:33
  Like like, it helps it helps me objectively observe whatever it is that I'm doing instead
• 10:42
  of having it shaded by by other things.
• 10:47
  I don't know if that makes sense or not.
• 10:49
  It's right?
• 10:50
  I feel like I missed a scare or something, but, you know, it's It's the artist
• 10:56
  in UAC.
• 10:58
  It's the artist.
• 10:59
  It can't be helped.
• 11:01
  But one thing we talk a lot about with our veteran community especially, but I think it's
• 11:06
  it's true in a lot of other areas as well, is people who are mission focused and have been in
• 11:12
  a very regimented system.
• 11:14
  When you get out of that system, it can be very hard to adjust.
• 11:19
  And and we talk a lot about not having the the forward mission that you're striving to, but I
• 11:26
  think there's also an accountability factor that you no longer have.
• 11:29
  Right?
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  If you step out of line in the military, there's immediately someone there to check you.
• 11:33
  Right?
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  Whether it's a a commanding officer or or just your fellow soldiers to say, hey.
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  You're not gonna behave that way.
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  Once you're kind of out and into that civilian life, and for many of us that had just lived in
• 11:45
  civilian, besides having, you know, the threat of jail time or something like that, there's
• 11:49
  very little true accountability in this world and in this life for small, you know, smaller
• 11:56
  transgressions.
• 11:57
  Right?
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  If you're committing felonies, eventually, things are going to catch up with you.
• 12:01
  I I have personal experience with that.
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  But that the small steps out of line often don't get corrected, and you end up pushing
• 12:09
  further and further away.
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  And kind of what I was hearing with you when you're working with a group of other veterans
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  that by coming together, you all kind of have that accountability to one another again.
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  And I think that's something really important that we don't necessarily talk about in this
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  mental health space and in, you know, around surrounding veterans that and I need this.
• 12:33
  Right?
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  Like, that's why I have such a team as I do to hold me accountable to the things that I say
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  I'm going to do.
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  That, when you don't have that, you're more liable to maybe throw yourself a little bit of
• 12:45
  a pity party and to, you know, make the excuses that you could if you were on your own where
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  having a team around you, and I think for veterans to have a team of other veterans to
• 12:57
  you know, that know how to talk to one another and know kind of what buttons to push to get a
• 13:03
  reaction out of the other and an action, right, is very important.
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  Well, also, I think, you know, I can now be in a room with other veterans, and I could tell
• 13:17
  you if someone's having a tough day.
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  I could tell you someone who's really, like, good at being kind of in charge of people.
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  Like, you know, you kind of can pick up some of that inference, but, you know, I think that
• 13:30
  when we talk about veterans and disability and functionality in this with business
• 13:38
  specifically, we we talk about it like a light switch.
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  Like, you either are or you aren't.
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  And I think that that does a disservice because I think just like everybody, we have good days
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  and bad days.
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  You know?
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  And I think it's a shade of functionality.
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  And I think that when I kind of figured that out for myself and I gave myself a little grace
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  and wasn't beating myself up because I wasn't, you know, hitting it, like, 100%, I actually
• 14:04
  started doing better because I realized, okay.
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  I need to operate within myself, like, what works best for me.
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  I'm a night person.
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  So when I was trying to get up at eight and do stuff and, know, I'm banging my head against
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  the keyboard for a couple hours because I'm not my biorhythm didn't work that way.
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  But as soon as I started I shifted my work schedule and I started working into the evening
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  and night, man, I got way more productive.
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  So it was just kind of figuring out what works for you, increasing that functionality, working
• 14:36
  with other you know, vets helping vets, just people helping people.
• 14:39
  Kindness matters.
• 14:40
  You know?
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  I've asked for a lot of kindness, and I've been given a lot of kindness in my journey.
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  So anything that I can do to give back, I do happily.
• 14:49
  Right?
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  Like, this, I just came back from this, the Reynolds and Reynolds, entrepreneurial boot
• 14:56
  camp for veterans program down at Texas a and m, and, that program is amazing.
• 15:02
  It two times a year, they bring in, like, twenty, thirty vets, and it's like this face
• 15:07
  thing.
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  And it's like a MBA to your face with, like, a fire hose.
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  Like, it's just crazy.
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  But the the I mean, it really is world class.
• 15:15
  The the mentorship, the just everything.
• 15:18
  It was it's such a great program.
• 15:21
  And, you know, people are beating down their doors to be mentors to come and help other
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  veterans, you know, me included.
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  I wanna go in and talk to them, share my story, you know, tell them what I can to help build
• 15:34
  them up because I think, you know, that's something that in any capacity, if you're if
• 15:41
  you're of service, if you like serving others or serving a higher purpose, I think that you
• 15:48
  you recharge when you get to do those things, when you get a help or you get a see that
• 15:54
  you're impacting someone positively.
• 15:56
  Like like, I liked, when I looked up the operation combating veteran suicide, I like the
• 16:03
  real solutions.
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  Right?
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  I like that not a lot of buzzwords and lip service.
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  You know, you get that a lot in the veteran stuff just so people can say, oh, look.
• 16:14
  I love veterans.
• 16:16
  But I like that.
• 16:16
  It was real solutions.
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  You know?
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  Housing, mental health, employment, I think, was the third one.
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  And I thought that, you know, we need to support more organizations like that because
• 16:29
  those are gonna be really the on the ground things are what change veterans' lives.
• 16:37
  You know, big organizations can help change other organizations' lives, like other
• 16:43
  charities, things like that, but we need people in the trenches.
• 16:47
  Right?
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  We need people that are actually giving solutions now, not later, because I think that,
• 16:55
  you know, for a lot of us, like vets, we just need we needed, like, a ladder or something.
• 17:01
  If you give me a direction, I'll move in that direction.
• 17:05
  But I also know that when I was at some of my worst times, man, I felt hopeless.
• 17:10
  Like, I was in a hole that I was like, there's there's no possible way I can get out of this.
• 17:15
  I see no no light.
• 17:18
  And it's, you know, it's scary even now thinking back to that, and it breaks my heart
• 17:23
  that there's veterans right now that are thinking that.
• 17:28
  It was a big impetus for why the organization was named so, even though we we are well aware
• 17:34
  that it probably works against us with the way that the Internet and algorithms are set up
• 17:39
  now, that anytime you type our name in and you're getting a warning first about, you know,
• 17:45
  sensitive content.
• 17:46
  But we weren't going to beat around the bush And and to to, you know, to our founder
• 17:52
  Charlotte and Casey's credit, it was about making the main thing the main thing.
• 17:58
  Right?
• 17:59
  This is what the mission is.
• 18:01
  We're not going to beat around the bush with it and to not put out there what it is that we're
• 18:08
  trying to do.
• 18:08
  And we found very you know, over the last eighteen months and the last year of my working
• 18:14
  with the foundation is that we are doers.
• 18:17
  We are boots on the ground.
• 18:18
  We don't really know how to go out and schmooze to raise money and to do all of those things.
• 18:24
  It's not something that we do.
• 18:26
  But building experiences for veterans and doing more of that, we've done a lot of, you know,
• 18:31
  fundraising activities, but a lot of the people who are coming are veterans themselves who want
• 18:37
  to help their brothers and sisters.
• 18:39
  It's not necessarily the public coming out, and we do have people that are, you know,
• 18:43
  surrounded by that.
• 18:44
  But, a lot of where we want to go is doing more experiences specifically for veterans, and to
• 18:51
  to really bring them out of their shell, to get them around people and and really engaging with
• 18:57
  the community and making sure that people know the resources that we can offer.
• 19:02
  And and we're still so brand new that we're really just finding our own footing, but we're
• 19:07
  gonna be able to do so much more, you know, building a resume.
• 19:09
  How many guys are are in for, you know you know, eight eight years or more?
• 19:14
  And even if you just started out and you only did four years, you went in as a teenager with
• 19:20
  almost no life skills.
• 19:22
  Right?
• 19:22
  And now you're getting out as a, you know, 21, 22 year old man or woman who's expected to
• 19:27
  kinda have their life together, but you've never necessarily had to do everything for
• 19:32
  yourself.
• 19:33
  Right?
• 19:33
  Finding housing, finding a job, building a resume, some of these things, you're not
• 19:39
  getting that training in the military at all.
• 19:42
  So it's really meeting people where they're at and being able to give them the skills that are
• 19:48
  going to be the help that they need.
• 19:51
  It's not about necessarily always being the help.
• 19:54
  It's about building skills outside of your military experience now to help you adjust and
• 20:00
  become successful just as much in civilian life as you were in the military life.
• 20:05
  And I think that's something that maybe not totally unique to our organization when
• 20:11
  compared to others, but the fact that we will be the ones that are sitting down and doing the
• 20:16
  work and and going out and connecting with other people.
• 20:20
  And right now, you know, growing our volunteer base is such a huge part.
• 20:24
  There's so many people out there that wanna be a part of something and don't know where to
• 20:28
  start that beginning to recruit.
• 20:31
  Right?
• 20:31
  Recruit more people that wanna be a part of this in so many ways and and to really help us,
• 20:37
  you know, do more of what we see now that we do well.
• 20:40
  So appreciate the kind words from you, Ace.
• 20:43
  Hey.
• 20:43
  You found one more.
• 20:45
  We'll talk offline, but let me know how I can help, seriously.
• 20:49
  Well and I think what you're doing with your company now, and we can finally shine some
• 20:54
  light on that, is a big part of that and something that we want to do now.
• 20:59
  We we live in South Dakota, which is very well known for, you know, the outdoors and
• 21:05
  experiences.
• 21:07
  Sturgis Motorcycle Rally right around the corner here as we speak.
• 21:11
  And so experiences are a big part of just being a South Dakotan.
• 21:15
  Right?
• 21:15
  Whether it's hunting and fishing or it is, you know, being in the outdoors, bike riding,
• 21:21
  motorcycle riding, whatever that is, sightseeing through the Black Hills where I was
• 21:26
  just fortunate enough to visit in in my hometown.
• 21:29
  And but what you are doing takes that to a whole another level.
• 21:33
  So tell us more about, interactive entertainment company and and what you're doing
• 21:39
  to provide experiences for not just veterans, but for everyone.
• 21:43
  Thank you.
• 21:46
  Well, I like to say that I'm a world builder.
• 21:50
  I create immersive experiences both in the real world through half full day vacation
• 22:00
  experiences, multi day vacation experiences, whatever people want.
• 22:06
  But I've also, created a sci fi universe called the dark portal that, I just published the
• 22:17
  universe guide.
• 22:17
  It's available on Amazon.
• 22:19
  I've got a game guide for it that's coming out later this year that you'll be able to play
• 22:23
  both in role playing RPG, style as well as LARP, the live action role player.
• 22:30
  You can run around in the woods and, you know, be one of my three factions.
• 22:35
  And, you know, it's it's all made for, you know, there's a lot of science backing
• 22:41
  imaginative play and how it can help everything from depression to burnout.
• 22:47
  It can help gel teams.
• 22:48
  You know?
• 22:49
  It can help reinforce positive views within self or others.
• 22:54
  Like, it there's so many benefits to it that when I first started on this journey, you know,
• 23:00
  I needed to do something to break intrusive thoughts.
• 23:05
  I was having problems with intrusive thoughts when I was on my healing journey.
• 23:09
  And so I started just creating this universe so that I would have something to redirect my mind
• 23:19
  into when I was when I was having cycle thought thinking with, you know, intrusive thoughts.
• 23:26
  And that grew into where I I created this large attraction.
• 23:35
  It was this 91 foot spaceship simulator from bridge to engineering, five different cabins,
• 23:43
  it was it's a I mean, it's still in development.
• 23:46
  I I blasted it out into a business plan.
• 23:49
  Like, it it took on a life of its own, but through that, Emptus created my company,
• 23:56
  interactive entertainment company.
• 23:59
  I formed that in 2020.
• 24:03
  And then from there, I developed another theme park for the on the fantasy side for something
• 24:11
  I'm trying to get built in Colorado to get run around and, you know, be like D and D kinda,
• 24:17
  but everybody's in costume.
• 24:20
  It's crazy.
• 24:21
  All my stuff is just over the top.
• 24:22
  But, I mean, if you're gonna dream, dream big.
• 24:24
  Right?
• 24:25
  But I needed to when I went to the Texas program, they're like, hey.
• 24:29
  You got these great ideas.
• 24:30
  They're big ideas, but, you know, you gotta come on.
• 24:33
  How are we gonna really do this?
• 24:35
  And so I came back to the drawing board.
• 24:38
  They said you need something with a low capital investment.
• 24:41
  So I came back to the drawing board, and I created Spy Games.
• 24:44
  And Spy Games has blown up.
• 24:46
  It's been one of my most popular things, And it's played in hotels or anywhere.
• 24:51
  Right?
• 24:51
  I don't have to build a space.
• 24:53
  And it's basically you get to be a spy and do all the spy tropes and, you know, I don't wanna
• 24:58
  give too much away, but, you know, you get to break into hotel rooms, get into safes.
• 25:03
  Like, it's very hands on.
• 25:04
  Everything that I create, you get to use real gear.
• 25:08
  Nothing's plastic or cheap.
• 25:10
  Like, I want you to feel like you're really there because I'm selling the feeling.
• 25:15
  I want people when they walk away from my stuff to feel badass.
• 25:19
  I want them to feel like they accomplished something they wouldn't normally do, that
• 25:23
  they've got a secret, you know, identity or something.
• 25:26
  And, you know, that's why my tagline is live the adventure for my company is because I
• 25:31
  really do wanna give people what I was craving when I first started this, which was a chance
• 25:37
  just to escape for a little bit, to put your stuff down and go be be able to be a hero for a
• 25:43
  little bit.
• 25:43
  You can pick it back up.
• 25:45
  You know?
• 25:45
  It's inevitable.
• 25:46
  You you'll pick it back up, but to be able to put it down for a couple hours, everybody could
• 25:51
  use that.
• 25:52
  Everybody could just use that little break, I think.
• 25:57
  Yeah.
• 25:57
  I couldn't agree more, Anne.
• 25:59
  And as, you know, video games and entertainment have taken such a a a massive, you know, leaps
• 26:06
  forward in what they can do, the visuals that you get now, you can't it's very hard to
• 26:11
  distinguish, you know, the games that you're playing.
• 26:15
  You know?
• 26:15
  They don't look like video games anymore.
• 26:17
  They look like full cinematic, you know, productions.
• 26:20
  And now with, you know, AI taking over in the production space for movies and no doubt in the
• 26:28
  next few years, we're gonna see fully AI generated, you know, movies that are coming out
• 26:33
  and and it becoming more and more on that virtual digital side that I think it's making
• 26:39
  people crave those visceral real experiences even more.
• 26:43
  Absolutely.
• 26:43
  And I think a lot of parents, you know, in my generation now as I have kids that are all, you
• 26:48
  know, hitting double digits this year and and really engaging in that, we don't have a video
• 26:52
  game system in our house.
• 26:53
  Right?
• 26:54
  Like, our kids aren't spending their time playing these games.
• 26:57
  They read a ton of books similar to what I did when first moving to South Dakota.
• 27:02
  We didn't have I mean, we lived in a tent for three months.
• 27:05
  So all I had was my books and reading, you know, classics of, you know, Swiss Family
• 27:09
  Robinson and all of these things and then going out in the woods and building a tree fort and
• 27:14
  and pretending that you are these people, there's just not a lot of kids that are getting
• 27:18
  an opportunity to do that.
• 27:19
  And, unfortunately, there's a there's a whole generation now of kids that didn't do that, you
• 27:24
  know, that are out there.
• 27:25
  And a lot of these children now or were children, right, in the early odds and in the
• 27:31
  teens are now, you know, entering the service or exiting the service now as well.
• 27:37
  And they don't have they don't have a lot of those skills built up because of what you get.
• 27:45
  And I love that there's science that's backing all of this.
• 27:49
  That imaginative play is so important.
• 27:51
  It's good to go play pretend.
• 27:53
  It's good to go out and do those things.
• 27:55
  It
• 27:55
  is.
• 27:55
  And and those experiences you could can build in a very safe environment, but to get those
• 28:01
  feelings, to get those nerves of something like that that you'll never get from playing a video
• 28:07
  game.
• 28:08
  Yeah.
• 28:08
  Yeah.
• 28:10
  You wouldn't I mean, there's just there's you know, you play the video game, and I and I like
• 28:14
  video games, but, you know, it's very you know, you're you're you're feeding it through the
• 28:21
  eyes and ears.
• 28:22
  It's only two senses.
• 28:24
  You know?
• 28:24
  When I plan experiences, it's it's all the senses.
• 28:28
  You know?
• 28:29
  And sometimes it's something as simple as the way something smells.
• 28:33
  You know?
• 28:33
  If I had a if I had a speaker and I've got a crackling noise and I've got smoke smoke smell,
• 28:41
  I can instantly ramp up the tension of whatever's in that room even if that's not a
• 28:48
  part of it just because we're dialed in.
• 28:51
  Like, that's not a good sound to hear in a, you know, in certain environments.
• 28:56
  And I think that that's the beauty.
• 28:59
  That's one of the things that's really made me fall in love with interactive design, like,
• 29:05
  creating these things is the figuring out the subtleties.
• 29:08
  Right?
• 29:09
  Like, feeding into the reality engine enough that you think that you understand everything
• 29:14
  that's going on around you, but it's all created.
• 29:18
  And that's why I can do something that then will seem, did that happen?
• 29:22
  Or, oh, you know, like, you can you can really script it without people realizing you're
• 29:27
  scripting it because you understand, okay.
• 29:29
  Normally, people in this situation would do this.
• 29:33
  So you build it around that, and then when they do that, they think they have that that choice
• 29:37
  of freedom, but, nope, you're just following my crazy path.
• 29:42
  Enjoy.
• 29:45
  I gotcha.
• 29:46
  You know, that's the other thing, though, is I don't ever build anything that's like a me
• 29:50
  versus my guest.
• 29:51
  That's why they're my guest is everybody you know, these are created specifically for people
• 29:59
  to win.
• 30:00
  And then some of them, I have to include what I call an interactor, someone who can keep it on
• 30:05
  the rails.
• 30:06
  Right?
• 30:06
  So that way if people start going off somewhere, they can keep them back in line, you
• 30:11
  know, and we build that either with scenes or with someone that would go through them with
• 30:15
  the guests the whole time.
• 30:18
  But by doing that, then we, you know, we really can we have a success rate that we really
• 30:23
  haven't had anybody not come out feeling like they just, you know, had the best experience,
• 30:33
  you know, spy experience that they possibly could.
• 30:37
  Well, in that feeling of gratification and in a world that is constantly beating us down and it
• 30:43
  feels like the hits just keep on coming to have small wins.
• 30:48
  And even if it may be slightly manufactured and coached into that win, the feeling is the same.
• 30:54
  And I think we could all use a lot more of that in our lives, and I'm really glad that you're
• 30:59
  out there being the dreamer and the world builder, as you've called yourself, to create
• 31:05
  those experiences, not just for yourself, but for others.
• 31:08
  I think that's truly commendable on your part, and I'm really glad that we had an opportunity
• 31:14
  to talk about it here on the show today.
• 31:17
  We have the website trolling across the bottom here.
• 31:19
  That's interactiveentertainment.company.
• 31:22
  You guys can check out more.
• 31:24
  AC, anything that I didn't touch on here yet that you wanna get included before I let you
• 31:29
  go?
• 31:32
  No.
• 31:32
  I'm thank you for letting me be here and tell my story.
• 31:37
  I am very happy to support anything you guys do that's helping veterans and anything we can do
• 31:46
  to put out this wildfire.
• 31:48
  Indeed.
• 31:49
  Well, we're gonna talk a little bit more about that off camera.
• 31:52
  Thank you everybody for tuning in.
• 31:54
  AC, thank you for being here with me today, and thank you for being part of the scene.
• 31:59
  Thank you.