Brian Forti's Creative Journey from Television to Live Theater

Episode Transcript
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Voice Over (00:00):
This is iDesign Lab, a podcast where creativity and
curiosity meet style and design.
Curator of interiors,furnishings and lifestyles.
Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, aninterior designer and a style
enthusiast, along with herserial entrepreneur husband
Scott, idesign Lab is yourultimate design podcast where we
explore the rich and vibrantworld of design and its constant

(00:23):
evolution in style and trends.
Idesign Lab provides industryinsight, discussing the latest
trends, styles and everything inbetween to better help you
style your life, through advicefrom trendsetters, designers,
influencers, innovators,fabricators and manufacturers,
as well as personal stories thatinspire, motivate and excite.

(00:43):
And join us on this elevated,informative and lively journey
into the world of all thingsdesign.
Today, we're joined by anentertainment powerhouse, brian
Forty.
With over 35 years intelevision and streaming
production, brian is a producer,writer and director who has
worked with networks like MTV,disney, cbs and PBS.

(01:05):
Director, who has worked withnetworks like MTV, disney, cbs
and PBS.
He's won six Emmy Awards andcollaborated with icons like
Paul McCartney, shakira andPrince.
As the co-founder of 14 LaneEntertainment and the executive
producer at Fianna Live, hecontinues to shape the
entertainment world.
Let's dive into his incrediblejourney.

Tiffany Woolley (01:22):
Welcome to the iDesign Lab podcast.
Today, our guest is Brian Forty, who we've known for a lot of
years I've known him as long asI've known Scott and has a very
colorful history in theentertainment world but has a
very I feel like, a lot ofinfluence with design in every

(01:45):
aspect of what you do.
So I'm excited to kind of.

Scott Woolley (01:48):
So first thing, how long has it been Like 30
years we've known each other.
Got to be Been working together.

Brian Forti (01:52):
Got to be something like that, right.
I mean, how long have you guysbeen married?
24?

24, okay, so it's got to be, but it's a lot
longer than that.
Oh, you're right, it is.
It's a lot longer.
Yes, you're right.

Because I remember all the pre-stories before
Tiffany.

Well, of course , those stories, but I remember
when we were first dating too,like the whole Pepsi-Cola.
I want to dive back into allthat eventually, but so you guys
can continue.
How long it's really been.

No, it's got to be from the 90s.
I mean hundreds of productionsand shows and specials we'd done
together yeah.

I remember the days Corey James brought you down
and I just saw him on televisionsomewhere.

Thank God Doing something Good.

Glad We've all missed Corey James.

How many of you will find him?

I saw him somewhere .
I think he's in Mexico.

Is he really?
No, he did some.
I saw some production ofsomething with him.

Corey James, I remember you came down.
We were doing something for theBox.
Do you remember the Box?

Yeah, sure, the first network where you would.

It's pretty much the start of streaming almost
where you would pay Right backin the.
You would be able to pay to seea music video that you would
want to see, and that was kindof like the beginning of that
whole concept of paying forsomething.

Were you primarily focused in the
entertainment industry throughmusic, or was it television?
No, luckily.

But I'm happy we went down the music path, I mean
when I started.
We would do anything when westarted.
I mean, you know just to, can Igo back a little bit?
Well, let me go back.

Where I started with you was, and I call it, the
iconic little company 40 Lane.
And I say iconic because inSouth Florida I mean even more
than South Florida it was aniconic, well-known brand.

Dynamic doing.

Yes with you and Kevin.

Yeah, I think it was the timing.
You know, before Kevin Lane andI met, before we created 40
Lane Entertainment was a companycalled Cable Marketing Systems
and Cable Marketing Systems wasthe beginning of buying
advertising, being able to buycommercial spots on things like

(04:00):
MTV and CNN and USA, which sortof was which blew up, you know
in the 80s, right had a good20-year run, kind of right.
Yeah.
And then Kevin and I just said,hey, you know, we're doing so
well in this cable marketing,creating some pretty cool
commercials for like $200, youknow, basically, wow, no budgets

(04:20):
at all.
But we said, let's start aproduction company.
Basically, no budgets at all.
That we said let's start aproduction company.
So we created 40 LaneEntertainment in 1986.
And, of course, had to struggleto find work.

In Miami too In 1986.
It was just kind of coming backagain.
There was a resurgence in Miami.
I feel like back in that timetoo, exactly I probably met you
guys, maybe in 93.

Somewhere, maybe earlier 90s in that, and the
reason for me searching out andmeeting you was I needed some
additional assistance in a teamor person.
But I came to a team to helpdesign television programming.
Yeah, exactly, and I think thefirst thing was Today's Health,
a series that I had created, andyou guys came in and pretty

(05:10):
much designed the first fewepisodes, which basically became
the timeline for that series.

Sure, and the signature look, which is funny
because, to go from what we weredoing, kevin and I, we were
doing music videos.
Basically, that's really whattook off for us because MTV
launched in the 80s and when MTVlaunched, suddenly every artist
needed music videos.

Voice Over (05:36):
And.

Miami became the area to come and shoot them.
So, whether you're based inMiami or from New York or
whatever, they would come toMiami and shoot these music
videos.
And that is really how we grew,grew, grew, until one day the
Estefans Emilio called us andsaid come in and Gloria's been
in this accident and she's goingto make her big comeback and we

(06:00):
need somebody to document this.
We heard you guys the two ofyou were pretty good at what you
do.

Wow.

Which started that whole amazing career with the
Estefans, which we did, you know, for many, many, many years.
And then you know you werecoming down and we had gone to a
couple events with Gloria stufflike that.
Right, yep.
And then you said, yeah, comeup to Boca and start doing some
of this, which was totallydifferent than anything we had

(06:25):
done before, but we were so intodoing new things, you know, and
being a series was kind ofinteresting to do.

Yeah, I remember the first show that you guys
helped me design and it wasreally you guys putting a lot of
the design to it.
I don't know if you rememberthe first episode.
There were over 300 episodesthat we ended up doing in that
series.

It was on schizophrenia.

Oh jeez, I don't remember it was a full half hour
episode on schizophrenia and weshot this scene at the offices
of five star with smoke machines.
You guys brought in and fogmachines and you know how
schizophrenia and illusion andwow, how it affects people you
should play a clip of that.

I'd love to see a clip of that.

Yeah, it was nominated for an Emmy that it
was our first, I think,nomination.
We didn't win for that one, butwe had a lot more wins than
nominations.

After you know some great stuff Today's Health and
then we did a promo forsomething where we used your art
designer and he did this.

The Next Millennium, the Next Millennium
With Alex, sevilla With Alex,and just which was amazing,
amazing, it still is today.
Yeah, it still is today, thatdemo.

Yeah, that series was so cool, was so different,
and that demo, that promo, wedid.

Yeah.

Just amazing.
He was a great guy and he waspart of your team for many years
.

It was somewhat cutting edge.
I just recently watched it andit still is.

It's been fun about the podcast is because
Scott's background, as well asyours, has a very creative
element to it, obviously, withdesign, which is my world, it's
fun to bring them together.
What made you, from the verybeginning, decide that your path
was the entertainment business?

I would say I was in when I was in high school.
It didn't start withentertainment, it started more
like audio-visual.
I used to love photography andstuff like this.
When I was in high school.
You know how there was alwaysan AV team or something like
that.

Voice Over (08:27):
There was a guy that would go and set up the
projectors or set up the cameraswith the big video recorders
like they used to be in the 70s.

And I was the guy that kind of led the group that
did that.
I started a photography club,an AV club and I think that was
kind of what started that.
Your curiosity and I just lovedthe electronics and filming and
that kind of stuff.
And then when I graduated fromhigh school, I decided I was
going to go to the University ofFlorida, because the University
of Florida had an amazingjournalism and communications

(08:56):
department and broadcasting wasone of their big things and they
had the largest PBS station oncampus, wuft, which allowed
students who were getting up anddoing well in broadcasting to
work at a station.

And that's where you got on the job
training.

That's where I started doing a lot of
television.
I was actually directing atWUFT while I was a junior in
college.

Was there a pivotal point or moment or
person that kind of helpedspringboard you to take that
direction?
No, not at that point.

There were people later on that sort of pointed in
a direction of the path that Iwould go on after that and I ask
that because for many, manyyears it's been video, film,
music, television.

Now, which we'll get into, it's live theater,
which is like a I mean it'ssimilar but it's a whole
different gamut yeah, definitely.

Voice Over (09:58):
Jumping into live theater.

Yeah, no, you're right, we should talk about that
Because television.
Basically I didn't know if Iwas going to go into
entertainment or news, Becausewhen you're graduating- from
college you're going.

I just need a job.

So I'm trying to figure out if I could get a job
in a TV station somewhere in theUnited States and just do news,
because that's what I was doingat WUFT.

I was directing the news Right.

And couldn't find anything.
Couldn't find a job and thengot a job with Cable Marketing
Systems, which allowed at leastsome creativity.

Right.

You know, I was able to run a production team
and do cheap commercials forpeople who wanted to be on CNN
or MTV, and then Kevin and I mettogether, created 40 Lane and
took off, blew up from therebasically, Especially when we
met Gloria and Amelia.

I was just going to say so.
You've worked with reallyincredible artists.
Obviously, down here in SouthFlorida, the Estefans are huge.
What was the inspiration reallythere, beyond who they were in
those collaborations?

Knowing that our work, the design of our work,
would be seen on a global level.
And that's a whole differentthing, when, suddenly, that door
opens and the work that you'regoing to design and create as a
team and there's only two orthree of us at the time that it
was going to be elevated to aplatform that the world would

(11:22):
watch.
And then you'd have hugecompanies like Sony
Entertainment and MTV and VH1going.
Hmm, those guys look like youknow they're really good.
They're not a big company,they're not as expensive as a
lot of the other productioncompanies with you know
well-known directors.
So let's give them the work.

And then MTV starts hiring us, vh1 starts
hiring us, shakira- I know PaulMcCartney, paul McCartney I mean
, we can go on and on with thelist of people that we've worked
with Amazing.

Amazing stuff that we all did together.
And then some cool things likeI'm bleeping.

I always can't retreat.

Voice Over (12:06):
Matt Damon and Sarah .

I'm effing Matt Damon, Sarah Silverman.
Matt Damon and the joke kind ofvideo we put together for Jimmy
Kimmel exactly yeah, which camefrom your friend.

Doug DeLuca what a blast that was yeah, that was
funny and then it blew up aslike the most viral video.

Do you know how many videos Before viral videos
were?

We're talking like 200 million views of that Before
viral was viral.
And then they had to follow itup with yeah, the rebuttal, the
rebuttal, the rebuttal With BenAffleck.

Those were good times I actually remember going
down there too when you guyswere doing that shoot at the
Delano.

Exactly.

I mean and that's what's so fun about what
you have created together anddone through the years is there
is so much change.
It's not like your locationschange, your venues change, Like
you get to experience and seeso much creativity.

It's the beauty, I think, of the entertainment
business Right, which can begreat, or not, I mean you never
know, how, and it can suck youin.
It can.
You can be sucked intosomething you don't want to do
and then you'd like, or you cango down this path of being
allowed to design things withall these different artists and
all these different productioncompanies that you just you know
, but all of it is design.

It's all creating something new.

Exactly, it's all creating.
It goes from what are we goingto do?
Designing where you're going toshoot it, how you're going to
shoot it, what they're going towear, how you're going to film
it, the lighting, everything,it's all design.
Yeah, it's all design, andthat's the cool thing.

Is there one moment or one project that comes
to mind that was complex,difficult, you know, that you
think back about or you canremember about something that
was really challenging um, therewas a music video that we did
for Gloria and Amelia calledlive for loving you and uh-huh,

(13:58):
and I can't remember.

I think it was back in the early, maybe 90 or 91 or
something like that, but it wasthe first video that was all
blue screen.

What's blue screen?

Blue screen meaning Same as green screen, green
screen, same thing as green.
It was blue back then.

They found that too many people had blue eyes,
so they changed it to green.

That's funny.

Because the eyes became the biggest problem.

Yeah, but it's basically where you're shooting
something and all thebackgrounds are created, meaning
in this case, she was on atrain, in a car with her dog and
sitting on the moon at the end.
So it was.
You know, we did it atLimelight Studios, which was a
place where we had our offices,a big studio complex down in

(14:46):
Miami and it was easily, youknow, going to cost $600,000,
$700,000 to do it, and I made adeal with the Limelight people
to let us do it for super cheapand they'd get a lot of exposure
and experience, right.
And it was tough because, youknow, we had to design all these

(15:08):
scenes and not know what theylooked like.
We had no idea what they weregoing to look like.

Right.
Technology was so different andit was way different back
technology.

Right and then we get in the edit room and you
know, and piece by piece, we'reputting this together and it was
stressful, it was long hours totrying to figure out and then
in the end it became one of thebest videos we ever did.
It was actually Sony used it onthere when they started selling
laptop computers.
They actually used it as apromo that when you opened it

(15:38):
there was that you get residualsfrom that we were always work
for hire.

Is there a project you have been most proud
of?
I mean, I think a lot of theprojects have been.

I would say that's one of them.
The stuff we did with Shakirawe spent a week with her in the
Bahamas and produced adocumentary with her A lot of
the documentaries for Gloria.
Did you know we won Ace Awardsback in the Bahamas and produced
a documentary with her A lot ofthe documentaries for Gloria.
Did you know we won Ace Awardsback in the days when Ace was
the cable award that you wouldwin.

Doesn't exist anymore.
Doesn't exist anymore.
It's sad.

Yeah, it is.
And then we were lucky enoughto somehow hook up with
Brazilian Globo TV, which is aBrazilian, the largest Brazilian
network.

Was that the 40 Lane Days?

That was still 40 Lane.
That was 40 Lane Days.
We hooked up with them.

And what about was that when you did the Pepsi
Cola?

Pepsi was either before that or after that.

I don't remember.
That was after the Pepsi show.
That's when I met you.

That would probably be the number one Doing the
Brazilian telenovelas.
We would get to travel to Texasand I spent three months in San
Francisco, which is fun justgoing there and shooting.
We shot this thing with peoplejumping out of the helicopters
and flying with those wingsuitsdown to their wedding, which was
on a mountain overlooking LosAngeles.

(17:01):
Those were cool things.
Those were not officially ourproductions Like Pepsi, the
Pepsi chart, which probably,like you said, was the biggest
thing we ever did.

That's when I met you.

Yeah, pepsi chart came from London.
Basically, the British weredoing something called Pepsi
chart.
It was a huge show.

That's around the time of what's the network
Barry Diller did Whammy yes.

Yeah, it was actually right around the.
Whammy studio.
Yeah, Whammy studios in Miami.

Beach, yeah, on Lincoln, super cool.

Yeah, on Lincoln Road.

Yeah, and that had a nice run.

That had a very nice run.
Yeah, and I think the plan wasalways the same.
He had designed the plan tocreate a station because he had
a low power tv license youremember low power tv license
and nobody thought they werevaluable, those licenses kind of
like streaming.
You said like it is today, andhe had that license and he says
I'm going to create somethinglike they have in canada called

(17:55):
city tv, which is about thepublic coming and going and you
can walk by and see the studio.
So you put it together onlincoln road and but he had it
in a couple of cities but had ityet.
Well, I only know about thatone.
I mean, you know, we sold acouple shows to them and that
was tough, it was not easybecause he had no money.
He didn't put any money andthen in the end, I believe it
was his plan.
I meant to ask him this becauseI ran into him a couple years

(18:18):
ago but I didn't get a chance toask.
I think his plan was always tobuild something and then sell it
.
He sold it to Univision for abillion dollars, jeez, but it
was a low-power TV station, wow.

Well, he did a deal with the Heat and was
broadcasting the Heat games.
Yeah, he was the first one.

No, not the Heat.
No, it was the Heat of Baseball.
I think it was the Marlins.
He was the first one.
Oh, he did the Heat, yeah, buthe knew how to build the value
of something and then dump it.

Yeah, well, that's.

Barry Diller.
Yeah, that's Barry Diller,brilliant, brilliant guy.

Yeah, totally so.
As someone who's worked fromeverything from large-scale
music, as we've just discussed,to intimate theater performances
, how is the approach todesigning a story or telling
that story vary Are?

you talking about live entertainment now.

Yeah, Well, just in general, what?
How does that audienceengagement get translated in
each of these different kind ofgenres?

That's something I had to learn actually, because,
being in television for as longas we were in television 30, 35
years, pretty much Right I gotburnt out in television it's,
yeah, it's a lot totally becauseyou're, you're planning you're
designing, you're shootingshooting, shooting, shooting,
editing, editing, editing,editing, changes, changes
changes and then it airs andit's gone.

(19:35):
You know, and I'm not burningout, I got burnt out, so I took,
I took.
Basically I said I'm out ofhere.
I went to sedona ari yeah,that's pretty mellow Sedona,
arizona, which is a veryspiritual place there's a lot of
energy there, a lot of shamanand spiritual people.
Because I wanted to Reconnect,kind of.

There was somebody there.

James, which had worked for.

Oh, that's, right, Remember James, yes, yes.

Okay, james was there working for a bio
cybernauts Institute which wasinto alpha waves and creating,
teaching people how to createcreativity through their alpha
ways to design better things.
Went there, did a documentarythere, ended up staying there
for a year sitting on themountains in Sedona under the

(20:23):
stars, you know, doing all kindsof stuff, and everything
changed in Sedona, under thestars, doing all kinds of stuff,
and everything changed in mylife, completely changed.
All the things that I believedin before changed.
I realized that we have theability to create whatever it is
we want in our life.

It's so true.

You know, I think the universe has designed this
place that we're in, thisconsciousness we're in, to allow
you to create whatever you want.
It's a matrix.
This is what I truly believeand this is what I was taught
there.
And I was sitting on a mountainon a Tuesday afternoon one day

(21:01):
in Sedona.
It was a beautiful day,beautiful skies and I started to
visualize myself sitting in atheater and I had no idea I'd
never been to, you know and Istarted to see actors and people
moving around and dancingaround me and I focused on that
and focused on that.
And two weeks later, I get arandom phone call.

Eye of the blue .

From a production assistant who had worked on a
reality show years before us andsaid there's a company called
Faina that's opening a new hoteland they're going to have a
theater.
They need somebody to run itand to program it and to produce
things.
Are you interested?
I said yeah, because I had thatvision.

Right.

Suddenly.

You had clarity .

I had clarity on what that?
Was all about.

And so I came back to.

Miami.
I got an interview, I was hiredby Alan Fain and Len Blavatnik,
who is huge in the business,and and I opened the theater
that same year.
It's been 10 years.

Has it been 10 years?

Yeah, so I had no live entertainment, was not in
my live theater, was not in anyof my program, but the vision
came to me, I grabbed it, I feltit in my heart and I designed
my life to go down that path andit's just been amazing.
And you haven't looked back.
I haven't looked back.
It's been amazing and toexperience live thing, meaning

(22:25):
the energy every night isdifferent.

Well, I can tell you just going back a second
before you went to Sedona andjust saying getting burnt out.
I kind of know why you gotburnt out.
A couple reasons Well one ofthe reasons was that you were
doing stuff with me on all theraces going all over the country
every weekend to a, everyweekend to a race.

Yeah, but see I found that, yeah, 10 different
videos.
That was one of the mostexciting things I had ever done.
I don't believe it, or?

not really, because to me it was like
watching paint dry.

I couldn't go to those races anymore well, you
had done it, but I had recentlygotten divorced, because you
know my unfortunately had gottendivorced, one of the biggest
regrets and biggest mistakes ofmy life.
But that was a distraction,going on the road with Patron
and doing all those differentraces and it was a great escape.
But it was also a blast becauseyou know, you had created a

(23:17):
great club.

I always thought you thought like, maybe I did
that.
It was like oh my God, he'ssending me to my….

I loved it.
It was amazing.
I'm glad to hear that and therate and racing became part of
my life too.
I just you know, I thought itwas amazing.

I mean it was a fun time it was a fun blip.
But going back to the Faina, Imean you literally created a
vision from somewhat nothing Imean, and and the whole
experience experience when youdo come to the Faina Theater is
so design worthy on every sense.

Yeah, I mean, I had no idea.
I didn't know what Faina was.
I had no idea what that was.
And then when I came and I metand I saw the plans of what was
being done, faina Alan Faina isa brilliant creative artist and
he opened a hotel in BuenosAires in an area that was

(24:12):
totally desolate and it blew upinto one of the most amazing
areas and the value of all thatland and everything around it
blew up Because of this vision.
Because of the hotel and the artevent place that he created.
And then he had the opportunityto build on Miami Beach, and

(24:34):
when I saw what they did,because they had set up when I
went to see it we were in atrailer on Miami Beach in this
mid-beach area and I saw thisdesign and go my God yeah it was
next level.

When I think of Faina, I think of luxury gold
leaf velvet Over the top Fivestar luxury over the top, but
artistic, very artistic.

Nothing cheesy in any way, obviously.

I mean for anyone who hasn't been to the Faina.

I mean just a night of, just even if you're going
out for a drink.

You need to go there just to experience it and
see it.

Yeah, I mean the experience from the moment you
walk in the door with the art onthe walls and the way the
personnel.
It's nothing like a normalhotel.

No.

And then the venues are well designed, the
music and the culture, andthey're warm and they're cozy
and they're embracing.

So was the theater and the hotel built when
you got involved.

Yes, basically, the you know, the Faina Hotel is
the Saxony Hotel.
So the Saxony Hotel was thefirst hotel actually built in
Miami Beach in 1947.
Before the Fontainebleau,before the Eden Rock, before any
of those hotels, the Saxony wasbuilt.
It was the you know, and itbecame the icon of Collins

(25:46):
Avenue, basically, and becauseof the success of that, the
other hotel, font Bleu, wasbuilt, eden Rock was built, all
those other hotels were built,but there was no theater.

Magic City.

Back in those days, back in those days, everything
they designed these hotels tohave everything on the top.

Oh yeah, for the view.

So that you for the view.
They didn't realize that thetop can be the most valuable
penthouses.
You know, back in those days itbecame the place to go.
So when Saxony was emptied andthey decided, and Alan Faina had
the opportunity to create awhole new town, actually a whole
district, five blocks in thatarea.
He designed a very artisticspace and he said let's put a

(26:25):
theater.
Let's create a theater on thebottom level.

So you're hired and the theater's already built
and finished?

No, I'm hired and the theater is just starting
under construction yeah.
And now all the equipment hadbeen purchased already.
They had put down a lot ofmoney, so I had to go through
that and supervise sort of allthat stuff and the construction
I was part of that.
It took a whole year before itwas completed and but yeah, I

(26:53):
mean once it, once it opened, Irealized what an amazing place.
This is an intimate space thatyou don't find, you know we've
all been to Broadway.

Voice Over (27:03):
It takes you back, we've all been to shows in
Broadway.

We've all been to shows in Las Vegas, and those
are huge venues.

Yeah, you feel like you're walking back in time
.

Where you're not close there's.
No, the experience is totallydifferent than the experience
you have at Fina Theater, whichis immersive.
There's dancers that come up toyou, behind you.
They're coming from all sidesof you, all sides of you.
So I saw such an opportunitythere and I got so excited about
it.

So from there we started designing shows that
were so.
Faheen is a small venue 160people.

160 people Seated like cabaret style.

Right, so very small, extremely intimate.
How do you go about designingand creating a show that's in
such a small space?

well, we knew we, we have a, we have a good size
theater, I mean a good sizestage right um, which, uh, you
know, just like, basically 24 by24, uh, with hydraulic lifts.
So we had the opportunity to go, you know, change the look of
the stage up and down, or haveartists come down, walk off,
come into the room, come back,go back up.

So is there choreographers in your
collaboration?

Choreographers of course I'm a producer.

Right.

I understand as a producer, as we have always to
put the best team together Tohave the best show you bring in
the best people in eachdepartment, whether it's a
choreographer, a costumedesigner, art director, lighting
designer.
That's how you create amazingthings.
Amazing designs come from thetalents of everybody else coming
into the mix.
The curated group yeah, so,yeah, so that's what we do.

(28:39):
So a lot of the people when Ibrought all these different
people into the mix and they sawwhat we had to work with.
The creative juices, probablythe creative juices just came
right out.

Yeah, it's a creative space, and then you
understand who your audience is.

It's the most important thing.
Who's your audience?
Back in the day it was who'syour client.
Now it's who's the audience.

Who's the audience?

yeah, who's coming in?
People are coming to MiamiBeach to to have fun, to escape.

But how did you pick or how did you select the
type of shows that you're doingthat for the last 10 years we
didn't know, until we were in it.
We didn't know until we were init.

So the first year we just decided we hired a
director from Paris who had donea lot of cabaret before.
So she came in and did astandard cabaret show that you
would see in Paris called C'estRouge, basically, and we learned
what worked and what didn'twork.
We could see what people really.

So how long would you keep, like when you're
saying you learned what didn'twork and worked?
How long would you guys keep itgoing?
A year, a year, okay.

Yeah, but we would tweak along the way.
Okay, we could see along theway if things were working or
not and then make changes, andthat's the beauty of live
entertainment.
You can't do that on atelevision show.

Right Really.

Every night.
You can change a little bitfrom the night before Exactly.

And perfect it and then you can see how it works.
It's not like you edit, edit,edit, throw it on the air and
you've got to wait a coupleweeks and see how it works.

See how it sticks Right, right, so you get
to.

That's the beauty of live entertainment.

Okay.

So as the years grew on, I mean we've done now
10 years of shows, so 12 shows,maybe over these 10 years and
how has the cast evolved andthat initial group of you know
talented people that you puttogether?
Has that the amount of peoplenow that are banging on the door
coming to?
See me calling me constantly tobe a part of the show.

(30:24):
In the beginning it wasn't likethat.
It's like anything.
You have to build something.

You mean to work on the shows.

To work on the shows and to be a part of the
shows.
A lot of the talent now that weget the dancers, the singers.
They didn't know if we weregoing to make it, so they didn't
want to take a chance.
They'd rather take a chance ona cruise ship, go out for six
months or take a gig and what?

in new york or in vegas or something like that.

They didn't know, uh, until as as the years went
on and they could see now everycast and every team that has an
approach is like a family rightI mean they get paid very well.
You know, we, we treat ourtalent very, very well.
Uh, we treat our talent very,very well.
We treat our crew members very,very well and that creates an

(31:09):
environment of everybody reallydoing the best that they can and
it shows in the production.

It really does.

It shows in the production.

Yeah, and that's what I love, I got the
opportunity a few years ago todo a deal with you and bring in
a comedy show that I shot forNetflix.
I had a great time in thatfacility doing that.
Like you said, the equipmentthat was purchased before you
started it was phenomenalequipment that was purchased,
yeah.

It was a fabulous comedy show, siri.
It was a couple of shows we haddone.
I think right, yeah, we did afew shows yeah it was great and
it was from that experience thatI realized that.
And then the Prime Video.
After that, prime Video did aseries called Marvelous Mrs
Maisel.

Yep, oh, I love that.

Yeah, we're familiar with that and they came
and saw the theater and said,oh my God, this is great,
Because Mrs Maisel was coming toMiami.
She theater and said oh my god,this is great because she, she,
mrs maze, was coming to miami.
She's yeah, so she was going tocome and do do some scenes.
So we made a deal and, and youknow, they made the theater look
like it was the 60s, becausethat was the time period which
was very cool, and I realizedfrom from what we did with your

(32:18):
production and mrs may, we coulddo comedy here.
It's a great venue for comedy,upscale comedy, not like the
venues you go improv or allthose other places you go, which
you know luxury so from therewe

launched comedy.
The shows that we shot did verywell on Netflix and Netflix one
of them still is highly stillpromoting and pushing it.

Yeah because of the art direction and the theater.
It looks amazing.
You know Noting and pushing it.
Yeah, because of the artdirection in the theater.
It looks amazing.

You know a lot of places you go, especially
comedy shows, comedy venues.

they're nothing, they're like small stages with
no backdrops or something likethat.

That was going to be one of my next questions
was really when you do think ofFianna we mentioned, it's very
luxurious, it's extremely a richexperience.
How is that luxury intertwinedwith the production?

Every production has to maintain the level.
Alan Fine is very involved inevery production we do, which
means he is, he's hands-on.
Hands-on yeah.

That's good Nice to hear.

And because his brand, because it's his brand
and he values his brand and hisbrand is all luxury, class,
artistic, and so the productionshave to reflect that.
We can't be anything cheesy, orthe costumes that we have have
to be amazing looking.
The backdrops, the visuals thatyou see around the theater have

(33:46):
to be at a level that you wouldexpect.
And people, now that they'vebeen coming to Faina, they
expect a level because now theyunderstand what it's all about
and we could never drop the ballon that.
We'll be called out on thatimmediately, both from Alan and
from the public, the guests.

Right.
So you have two new productionshappening right now there.
Is it difficult to have twodifferent shows going
simultaneously, as far assetting up and pulling down it
is if you try and do them at?

the same time, meaning launch them at the same
time.
Because, launching a show isall those rehearsals and all the
technical designs and all thosethings that we have to do.
You can't do it at the sametime because it's way too much
work, so we did these separately.
Fortunately we had we opened.
We're doing a show calledcarmen.
Carmen is an opera from thefrom the 1800s.

(34:40):
It's a love triangle, an opera,an opera.
It's based on.
It's not a an opera, it's notburlesque, no, no but the story
of Carmen was originally anopera an opera and it's been
made into several, many movies.
I've heard of it yeah, and wedecided we were going to do a
reimagined version of it forMiami Beach cabaret burlesque

(35:03):
style.

Yeah, inject a little bit so we did.

Basically, you know it has a lot of the Spanish,
from Spain music Okay, the feel,the costumes are all part.
Look like you'd be in Spain, inMadrid, except it all has very
sexy edge to it and it's acombination of popular music

(35:26):
that has been remixed in sort ofSpanish ways.
So very passionate, very sexy,a very artistic production.
We had launched that lastOctober and then in this past
few months, at the beginning ofthe year, which was tough
because it's our busy seasoneverybody comes to Miami, miami
Beach, in January, february,march.

(35:46):
So we decided to launch anothershow and it's called Retro, and
Retro is stars Rocky Lanes,which is the singer that was in
the Allura show, which I believeyou guys came to she was
fabulous and one of our bestshows, one of our biggest and
best shows ever and Retro.
We decided, because she's sogood musically, that we were

(36:07):
going to do this musical journey, build a show around her
Musical journey from the days ofMotown through the 60s, the 70s
and 80s, so through disco,through funk, through pop and
rock, and we launched it about amonth ago and it's doing
fantastic.

And is there dancers in the same room?
Dancers, all of it.

Dancers all around you.
You know catwalk that comes outinto the middle of the audience
.
So you're looking right up intothe dancers and they're
interacting with you Rocky'sinteracting with you and because
it's the music that anybodywho's come through the 70s and
80s you know I was born in the60s I remember the music but you

(36:48):
know, disco was my big days,right, of course.

I mean we're talking great disco, and that
goes along with the vibe too ofthe faena and everybody's
dancing because we're talkingabout Donna Summer.
We're talking about Cher.

We're talking about Diana Ross and the Supremes.
It's just an amazing mix ofmusic that Rocky performs and
everybody is singing because itbrings back all those feelings.

Voice Over (37:10):
Right joyful, you know, music is timeless.

Yeah.

And it takes you back to a time when you hear
those songs of where you wereback in those days.

What's the process that you go through to
design a new show?
Is it one person who comes upwith it?

No, it's great.
Yeah, we take the top creativepeople who are very good at
brainstorming and creativity.
How about this, how about that?
And we sit around the room, wetoss around ideas.

How long does that process take?
Weeks, really.

Weeks, sometimes months, and then we design.
Then we have to sit down anddesign the look, which takes a
lot.
What's it going to look like?
How are we going to design theclothing?

So how far in advance are you working on the
next one Months?

usually so we will open a new show in October.
Retro will actually go to theend of the year and then most
likely go to our new theater inNew York.

Voice Over (38:05):
that's opening up in the spring of 2026.

We'll open a new show on August or September of
this year.

So you're probably working on that now, so
we're starting to figure out.

Right.
We're getting ideas now tofigure out what we're going to
do.

Are there any elements that kind of stay
within each production?

Specialists that do aerials.
I was just going to say Thingsthat people do in the air, you
know because we're one of thefew theaters and one of the
venues around that can do aerial.
You know where people areswinging.

And I noticed when we were there, they're
actually doing it like thepeople who are doing the aerial.
It's all like real people doingit, it's not even mechanical.

No, no, no no, yeah, from me going up.

Yeah, no, it's pullers, it's pullers.
Yeah, it's motors that aredoing that, correct, yes, we
don't do that, we don't do thatno, it's such a which adds sort
of a more of a flow, believe itor not.
It's not as mechanical looking,when you have somebody who's
lowering and raising, andusually that puller is in the,

(39:09):
he's dressed in costume, he'spart of the production as well,
yeah, I noticed that in the lastshow we went to.
That's one of the things wedesign is to make sure that even
those people who are cominginto the room where we're doing
a fire effect and we need peopleto be there just in case
something happens they're all incostumes, they're all designed
to be part of the cast Becausethey're three feet from you.

You're going to see them.
Yes, exactly, are there anychanges to?
They're three feet from you,right, you're going to see them.

You can't Exactly , so that's you know it was all
part of it.
Are there any changes to likethe venue itself for each of
these different shows?
Was it more of just theperformance?

Equipment.
More we buy, more equipment.
More cool, because every yearsomething new comes out more
lasers, more smoke machines,more bubble machines, you know
stuff like that, and the screenstoo.
So usually it's a lot ofelectronic.
The sound consoles have that.
We just replaced all our soundconsoles because sound design is
such a big thing in liveentertainment, right?

(40:04):
So when you have a board thatcan create effects within the
room, right, because if you'retrying, you know if you have
lightning or you have whateverlike thunder or some sort of
sound, you want to be able tospread that around in some
really cool way.
So we bought a board recentlyto help elevate our design of

(40:27):
the sound experience.
Same thing with lightingLighting, you know, electronics,
constantly changing what youcan do and can't do it's
electronics, constantly changingwhat you can do and can't do.

So yeah, electronics are a big part,
because it takes the design ofwhat you're doing to a whole
other level.
So most of these shows have adecent-sized cast.
You have a decent-sized crew,but one of the things that I
recognized when I did the showthere for that week for the
comedy shows is behind stage,backstage, you don't have much
space.
No.

It's like the theater is small so there's not
a lot of hanging out.
Yes, it's a tight.

So you know, like the show that we went to and
that was one of the things I wassitting there thinking about
while I was watching the showwas like, yeah, it's a struggle.

Where are they?
Where's the dressing room?
Is there?

They're right behind.

But because?
But it's tight.
It's like two little dressingrooms and Because it's the
Saxony.

Voice Over (41:21):
Hotel.
Right, it's an old.

What's an old?
The first hotel in Miami Beach.
Those are historical hotels.

You can't Thank goodness, you can't touch them,
knock them down.

law that says you cannot do that.
You have to use the structureand go inside and recreate or
redesign inside.
It doesn't make more space.
There's not much spacebackstage.

Voice Over (41:42):
What does the backstage look like in the midst
of a show?

You'll have to come backstage next time it's very
small, except the green room,and the dressing rooms actually
are very nice because it's rightout the back of the stage and
we're able to make them lookreally nice and comfortable in
there Storage space, nothing.
Nothing.
No storage space Very tight,barely anything.

So where does all the set design stuff reside?
It just stays.

In hallways, in the loading dock and we have to
bring them in and out and stufflike that.
It's not easy.

I mean it's design and just how you handle
all that Exactly.

And are you there every night?
I mean, are you thereconducting this effort?

I'm there if we launch a show and it's still, we
need to get it to where it'stotally in sync, whether it's
the cast or the backstage crew.
I'm always there for that.
Once it's in sync, I don't haveto be there all the time
because I have to move on andthink ahead.
You know, my job is aboutwhat's next as well as make sure

(42:42):
everything's what's happeningnow is going well.
Are we?
You know, the review is good?
Is everything strong?
Are we on budget?
Are we making money, you know?
But it's also what's coming up.
I have to design what's comingin six months, right, what's in
eight months?
So that's a big part of my.
So I can't be there all day andall night.

Right, you got to pick or choose, I mean for
anyone who's listening to thispodcast.

if they're in South Florida, it's a night that
they should go experience, andif they are listening somewhere
else and they plan on coming to.

Voice Over (43:11):
South.

Florida.
It's something they should puton their agenda to go do yeah.

Because it's like, no matter when you, it's
definitely a special experience.

Yes, it is, and I appreciate you saying that.

No, it's.

It's.
You know we get a lot of,obviously, the locals.
Now, after 10 years, the localsthat live in Miami are now
coming for all their specialoccasions.
The tourists have all heardabout it.
So anybody who's come to thehotel, or at least on Miami
Beach, all the concierges up anddown, are always recommending

(43:43):
that they come and see the show.

Voice Over (43:44):
But now basically, the amount of people we get from
Boca and West Palm.

Now that are driving down because, again, the
experience is completelydifferent and it's worth the
drive.

It is.

A lot of people will come down and spend the
night.
They'll just come down andspend the night.

It's a good excuse to get down there, Just
to go down to Miami Beach, andyou know staycation kind of
thing Exactly.

You're in town, but yeah, but people.
Now it's amazing that peopleare planning their trips.
They're planning their trips tocome to Miami Beach, stay at
Faina or somewhere close, go tothe hotel I mean go to the
theater or go to the Sobe BeatWine and Food Festival go to the
.
International Boat Festival,all those other things.
So they're planning these megathings.

(44:28):
Always Faina Theaters comingincluded now, which is great
because it's taken 10 years toget to that point.

The first time I saw it, the first thing I
thought about was Moulin Rougein Paris.

Yeah, which I've never seen.
Have you seen it?
Oh yeah.

We've been to shows there.

But it is in that same genre.
And it's not only in the samegenre, but it's that same
experience of when you know adestination.
It kind of goes hand in hand.

Like in Paris, Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse, yeah, crazy.

Horse which you know, oh Crazy, the original
Crazy Horse and Moulin Rouge arelike.

Next door yeah, next door to each other, exactly
.
And Crazy Horse, which I am abig fan of, because in the past
they've made a lot of changes tothe way they do the shows now
and they have a very small venue.
You know the new venue in Paris.
It's not big, it's nice, butthey use the stage and they have
conveyor belts on the stagewhich means they can have talent

(45:26):
sort of going by in threedifferent levels and up and down
and back and forth the originaland they use the visuals on the
screen as amazing and I'm a bigfan of them and what they've
done.
And same thing All the CrazyHorse people come to find it and
check out our show.

Well, there's the Crazy Horse in downtown, like
in Paris.

Right.

Then there's the one that's near the Moulin Rouge
, which is a little out of Paris.

It's in.

Voice Over (45:47):
Paris, but a little bit out yeah.

They both have that moving stage, which is cool
, but going to the original oneand actually going to Moulin
Rouge is.

I bet yeah, and I hear Moulin Rouge in New York is
really good.
The show's in New York now.
It's supposed to be reallyreally good.
I haven't seen it, but yeah,those are great shows.
They are great shows.

They really are .

The choreography, the costumes.

I know the whole design of the show, the
whole design of the show, thewhole design of it, and in New
York you can go for five, tenyears, those kinds of shows.

We won't do that.
So your goal is literally everyyear you're going to be pretty.
We want things to completelychange all the time.
Well, you need to, we need to,you need to.

Voice Over (46:26):
We're not New York.

Miami Beach.
We're not New York.
New York can maybe have becauseso many people big, big
population, a lot of you, butMiami Beach and the faena
mentality, the whole culture offaena, is to experience
something new every time youcome.

Well, and it makes people want to come check
out the new one, because you hadsuch a great night when you
were there for the last one,right?

Yeah, and bring your friends.

Correct.

That's the best part of it.
People just come and bringtheir friends all the time, so
they're seeing the show two,three, four times.

So what do you like?
Better Television production orlive theater.

That's like asking you which kid do you like which?
Child do you like better?
There isn't.
I loved the journey I had inthe days of television
production, from working my wayup as a production assistant all
the way to a producer and adirector, the experiences that I
had with your teams and myteams and all the clients we had

(47:26):
.
It's amazing.
You learn so many things and youexperience such great things
that you'll never forget.
But now that I'm into livetheater, I love it.
At this time in my life I callit the third chapter of my life
in a sense.
It's something that every day Ican do something different and

(47:48):
new and I can feel the reactionof the guests right then and
there and not have to waitmonths for the show to air or
whatever.
And so there's a beauty in boththings and I really respect and
am happy about where I am nowand where I was.

And what a special niche really.
I mean, not everybody gets tocurate something of that
magnitude.
Yeah, well, again I learnedthat we can design our lives in
any way.

I learned this in the mountaintop in Sedona,
arizona, because the energy cameto me.
I realized you can createanything you want, anything you
want.
You have to feel it in yourheart, you have to believe it
and feel it.
If you can do that, anything,anything is possible.
It's true I believe that's theway the universe designed our
consciousness in our life I knowit's amazing that you got to

(48:40):
that point right me too.

So if you're not like, that in the early days, if
you could tell young producersor directors, people who want to
you know, create a career likea career that you are still in.
What piece?

of advice would you throw out to someone Believe in
yourself.
Have the confidence that if youfocus and you work hard, a lot
of people that are in thebusiness now or are coming into
the business now think they cancome out and, and and get huge
salaries right out of the wayand I don't understand how I
don't know that comes fromsocial media influence or

(49:20):
whatever that comes from.
But it's not how we came andand we worked hard, we worked
our.
You know, we worked really hard,every day long days and and it
was those and those people inthe positions above us
recognized that and saw thetalent, saw the hard work and
that's what elevated you slowlyup in the business.

(49:41):
And your talent will alwayscome out if you believe
internally in your heart thatthat's what you're supposed to
do and you can feel it will comeout and as the opportunities,
the doors open, that just keepscoming and coming.

It does, just keep coming, don't give up,
never stop.

Don't stop and work hard and don't think that you
deserve something as you start.
You have to work, you have towork for it, you have to believe
in it, you have to work hardfor it.

I think that's a great message.

So we like to wrap up this podcast by asking
our guests a couple of simplelittle questions about design.
Okay, so the first thing I'mgoing to ask you I really
shouldn't ask you this question,because I know what the answer
is going to be, but what wouldbe your favorite hotel for
design?

Would be the Fianna .

Hotel would be the Fianna Hotel.

Voice Over (50:36):
And actually the Fianna.

Hotel in Tulum, which is going to be an amazing
design.
You guys will have to come andvisit and see it.

I can't even imagine.
Just the design.

Remember, because the Fianna Miley Beach is an
existing structure, but theother ones are all going to be
built.
The New York is also anexisting structure that's being
redesigned, but from there onout are all new.
So that's going to open up.
So find a hotel.
Designs are just amazing.

They really are , and it does have an incredible
design, yeah, in every aspect.
And what's the background ofthe woolly mammoth?

It's an art piece .

Which is a huge statue, yeah, on the property,
on the property near the pool,which is a great Instagram.

It's a famous artist, it is.

It's a famous Dante .
I forget his name now.

Voice Over (51:24):
But it was bought by the owner.

I should know the name.
I don't know the name, but it'sone of the icons on the
property and even if you'rewalking down the boardwalk on
Miami Beach, you're not actuallyon the property.
You can see it when you lookinside and people stop.
Groups of people stop.
It's a gold.
It's 18-garret gold.
The entire mammoth is gold.

So do they have a design element like going
like that in Tulum and in?
New York yes yes, there youhave.

Yeah, yeah, I can't tell you what to tell you.
I don't like it.

I want to see Okay, what about favorite
restaurant?
Design-wise, miami's got a lotof good ones.

I like restaurants on the water.

I know.

We don't have one.
We don't have a restaurant.
We have nice restaurantsoutside, two nice Los Fuegos and
Pow Great food.
But outside to Los Fuegos andPow Great food.
But I love being on the water.
So there's actually a new placecalled the Palm Club.
It's on 79th Street.
It used to be called Shuckers.
It's been redesigned as a clubby a big New York developer.

(52:27):
Music producer designed thisnew place called the Palm.

I love the name of it.
It's beautiful.

And it's the music at night.
It's music, so I love sittingoutside on the water.
To me, that to be on the bay oron the ocean Live music.

We are like entering in the most gorgeous
weather season for us here inFlorida.
Yeah, see, and during thewinter.

it's the best time to sit outside During the summer
.
Forget it.
You know it's too hot, butthat's awesome.

So I'm going to ask you a question.
It really doesn't have to dowith design, but you can look at
it as design Is there?

an event, a favorite event that you would
love to attend or you'veattended.
I used to love going to theraces, To me being in those
races, you know, being in themiddle of the race, being down
in the pit zone Right when theaction was.

That's that energy too that energy.

It was such an amazing experience.
And then going back to thehospitality areas, which were
all these elaborate places.

They're all experiences Amazing food.

Those are great experiences.
Big food and those are greatexperiences.
Big races like that aretremendous.
Big golf tournaments I lovegoing to the golf tournaments.

Really, have you become a golfer?

I try to play golf.
I don't have much time to do it, but I love when I'll go to a
tournament.
But it's always the best timeis when you're invited into a
suite.

Right, especially the golf, that where
the parties are.
That's the whole thing.

Or a big game, or you know the Orange Bowl or some
you know big event or somethinglike that.
I remember when we were in theIndianapolis 500.

Yeah, that was a fun.

Voice Over (54:06):
Indianapolis 500.

In the pits during the race In the pits
during the race walking on thebrick.

In the rain too.
Walking on the race, in thepits during the race, walking on
the brick In the rain too,walking on the bricks, yeah,
which was the famous you knowtell me that wasn't.
Those are great times.

No, that's one of my highlights in racing.
I've had a lot yeah, it was theIndianapolis 500.
Absolutely standing and beingin part of the team, the pit
team right there, yeah, whilethe race is happening.
And I'll tell you is that whenI experienced that, I actually
stood there looking around going.
What the hell am I standing inthis pit for?

(54:44):
And as a kid growing up everyIndianapolis I watched with my
dad.
And here I am.

I was standing there.
It's one of those things youjust never forget.

Or being at a drag race when the car takes off
and you're literally three feetfrom the car and your chest is
caved in and your ears areblowing up.

That's just another experience, that wow.
Physically it's hard to handlethat because you remember how
loud.
Oh yeah, 10,000 horsepower, ohmy gosh.
But great times, Great times.

Great times.
We had a lot of fun.
Well, we appreciate you comingin spending some time with us.
It's always a pleasure.

You've had such an incredible career.

Thank you.
Thank you, and we plan oncoming back down to the Fianna
Fáil very soon.
Please do anytime.
We'll be there to see anothershow Absolutely, you'll be my
guest.

We have to see Carmen.

Please come see.
Or the other one, and thank youfor bringing me today.
I enjoyed this.

Voice Over (55:41):
Me too, thank you, thank you iDesign Labs Podcast
is an SW Group production inassociation with the Five Star
and TW Interiors.
To learn

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