Power to Unite: Moment Factory's Melissa Weigel on NYC's SuperReal and Lifting People Up

By Julia Gamolina

Specializing in immersive multimedia design and entertainment Melissa has never fit well inside any one title but goes by Creative Director most often. Passionate about interdisciplinary collaboration her work focuses on the seamless blending of live and digital arts, with a diverse portfolio that spans from the underground club scene to the world’s biggest events.

Melissa’s role as leader and innovator at Moment Factory, the renowned multimedia studio, has evolved with the company since its beginnings in 2001. As a key-member of the award-winning team, she specializes in creating awe inspiring content for the stage and public spaces. In her interview, Melissa talks about coming to the world of experiential multi-media and creating memorable and site-specific experiences. She advises those just starting out to build a strong network and dream big.

JG: How did you grow up, and how did your interest in design first develop?

MW: Growing up with one parent in Montreal, Canada and the other in Cape Town, South Africa, my childhood years provided me with a rich cultural diversity. Because I needed to travel to visit my father once a year, I was privileged to see the world from a relatively young age. In our stop-overs in Europe my dad would take me and my brother to see museum exhibitions, stage musicals in West End, or ballet performances the Paris Opera house, all of which were like nothing else available to me in the 80s in Apartheid South Africa!

Both my parents imparted to me a deep love of music and the arts in their own way. My mother, a classical pianist, instilled in me an appreciation for discipline and hard work in one’s craft and generously carted me to and from endless ballet, music or theatre classes and rehearsals. She also shared with me her deep love and respect of nature which has continued to nourish me creatively to this day. My father, who is an immigration lawyer - then he working towards refugee rights for Tibetan and Tamil communities in Canada - moved in various cultural communities and so I was exposed to many social and political avenues of music and performing arts as well.

In my first year of high school in South Africa, Nelson Mandela was elected president. I witnessed the world around me open up and change dramatically into my early adult years. Growing up in South Africa, music and arts was always the one thing that felt “normal” to me in terms of what was allowed. It was a space to cross boundaries, meet people from different backgrounds and connect over shared passions. Whether you were in the audience or part of the show, music had the power to expand us out of our circumstances. The mid-late 90s in Cape Town was like an explosion of new-found freedom of expression in cultural innovation that also happened to synch up with the digital revolution that would be the basis of my future career.

This is all so amazing - you grew up with so much stimulus. When did you come back to North America?

When it came time to further my education, I felt that the courses on offer in South Africa were still too “confined”. I needed to break the mold, but didn’t exactly know how. It was then that I discovered a program offered at Concordia University in Montreal, called “interdisciplinary studies”. It was a brand new program that allowed students to cross departments within the Fine Arts Faculty in order to build an individualized, hybrid degree. My focus was Contemporary Dance and Electronic Arts.

While getting my degree, I also worked in nightlife culture as a performer, VJ and party planner. Through VJ-ing, I got to understand about manipulating the mood and energy of crowds through the colours and images on the screens. I got to travel to bigger festivals and learn more about the production aspects of large-scale events.

Amazing. Sounds like a dense time. How did you get your start after you graduated?

During my university years, I made sure to actively participate on side projects as much as I could. I was fortunate to meet wonderful, like-minded creative partners with whom I was able to experiment. We always made sure to make things happen ourselves instead of waiting for opportunities. Whether I was working backstage, filming an event, performing or working behind the bar, I tried to gain exposure to as many professional opportunities that I could.

Then after graduation, I founded a community arts venue called NEST, where a group of four women and one guy did everything from production planning, to technical setup, hosting, curating and cleaning the toilets! Doing this, I gained so much understanding of every part of what my job is now.

“During my university years, I made sure to actively participate on side projects as much as I could. I was fortunate to meet wonderful, like-minded creative partners with whom I was able to experiment. We always made sure to make things happen ourselves instead of waiting for opportunities.”

— Melissa Weigel

How did you get to Moment Factory?

It was through the experimental dance scene that I met Jason Rodi, co-founder of Moment Factory. He gave me some of my first video editing contracts with Moment Factory, which at the time was made up of the three co-founders and had more of an “art collective” vibe. We didn’t know how to describe it yet, but we all came together with a similar desire to break new ground in multimedia for the stage and live events. I would do odd jobs and contracts when they needed the extra help. By around 2006, I decided to work full time at Moment Factory. We didn’t have titles back then, but you could say that I started as a junior director.

Tell me about your work there throughout the years.

At Moment Factory, Cirque Du Soleil was one of our earliest, most significant and inspiring clients. We worked with their Special Events team regularly and I would do everything from concept, video content creation to technical programming of the immersive digital displays that we created for these prestigious events. I was in my element being in the centre of performing and digital arts creations. It was here that we really solidified our Moment Factory philosophy of “video as architecture”. You could say we were thinking about “immersive experiences” before that was the word for it. We were ahead of our time back then as we were determined that “video should not live in a square screen” and would look for any non-traditional surface to use as our canvas. Video mapping was not a thing yet and so we merged VJ tools and mindset with conference video systems to create the desired effects.

As Moment Factory gained traction in the concerts industry, I worked on many stage productions including Celine Dion’s permanent show in Las Vegas and Madonna’s 2012 World Tour, to name a few. As our craft and industry evolved, Moment Factory started to explore permanent installations such as the benchmark immersive digital architecture display at LAX airport’s Tom Bradley terminal, a project on which I was Creative Director. I continue to be a part of the senior creative leadership team at Moment Factory where I continue to explore ways to break new ground and cross genres. It’s unusual for someone of my generation to stay so long in one place but the company keeps evolving and I always get to try new things so I have never been bored!

Tell me about SuperReal - the aim of the installation, your role in it, what you hope its impact will be.

The show was born in part out of the opportunity of having access to the amazing heritage architecture of 25 Broadway. We wanted to find a way to digitally transform the space and transport people within this breathtaking venue. We were interested in exploring immersive entertainment formats that would resonate with a large audience and become a platform for our own “Moment Factory “ style of creative expression. Personally, as a mother with a young child, I wanted to create a relaxing space in the heart of the city where adults and kids alike would enjoy themselves equally. A place where time can slow down and visitors can float out of the Manhattan buzz into a cocoon of audio-visual pleasure!

The creation of SuperReal was a very collaborative process. My role was co-Creative Director with my long-time creative partner Sakchin Bessette, the Moment Factory co-founder & Executive Creative Director. We worked with a talented and dedicated team of visual artists, designers and musicians. Many of the artists at Moment Factory contributed in some way.

My primary role in the project was the big picture thinking for the format, structure and creative direction of the various multimedia components. I cast the team and designed the “creative roadmap” so that inside of this our artists had the freedom to explore and express themselves freely. Figuring out the format was the biggest risk as it was something never done before and is so dependent on how people react or feel in the space. For this reason we stayed in “creation mode” right until the very last moment, as we wanted to remain adaptable to how the show felt in the space and fine tune what was needed. It was a wonderful advantage to be able to create directly within the space, as the canvas is very technically complex and we soon learned that nothing is what it seems until you see it on site!

In general, where are you in your career today?

Turning forty during a pandemic and lock down definitely brings some moments of reflection! I am in a crossroads like many of us wait to see how our industry recovers. With new challenges has also come new opportunities to learn new skills such as AR, XR - and all the other realities!

However, with twenty years of experience comes some sort of calmer confidence and the ability to see the big picture a little clearer.

“...with twenty years of experience comes some sort of calmer confidence and the ability to see the big picture a little clearer.”

— Melissa Weigel

Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you manage through a disappointment or a perceived setback?

Challenges are part and parcel of the career I chose. Most of what I do on a daily basis is to figure out challenges for my project and team. Long hours and lack of sleep is definitely up there as a personal challenge though. Currently my biggest challenge is balancing career and motherhood…which is nothing new!

Dealing with failure, disappointment or setbacks is much more manageable when surrounded by a team that is just as dedicated and passionate as I am. We lift each other up when times are tough and support, inspire and teach each other on so many levels. We learn from each other’s success and failures.

Who are you admiring right now and why?

The performing arts communities around the world who have managed to keep creating despite the incredible setbacks they have been facing since the pandemic shut everything down. I am amazed by the resilience and perseverance to express their craft and the beauty that has come out of it.

What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission?

I continue to live by my belief that creativity has the power to unite people in meaningful ways. Working in entertainment, it’s hard to say if we are making a difference in the way a doctor would by saving lives - but I love to bring joy to audiences and to offer those moments that lift people up and out of whatever is going on in their lives, giving them a chance to be lost in something magical. Imagination is a powerful tool if you know how to use it. To visualize something is a step to making it come true.

Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?

Work hard and get involved - making contacts and building a strong network is important. It’s unlikely you will start where you want to be in your career, but you can always grow within every opportunity that presents itself. A good attitude is easy to spot by those more senior than you and usually goes a long way. Know your worth and don’t be afraid to dream big!

And for the young woman reading this, I’ll just say, yes sexism likely exists in most industries. The hard part is knowing how to recognize it in its more subtle forms. Learning to differentiate between sexist bias and true constructive feedback is not always easy. Surround yourself with both trusted male and female colleagues so you can build positive relationships and you will learn to know the difference. Find female mentors if you can, as it’s always good to gain a wider perspective.