As we gear up for the next XLIST, we’re revisiting members of last year’s class—taking a closer look at how they think, work and shape the industry. (You can stay in the loop on nominations and announcements here).
XLISTER David Shulman refuses to pick a lane. A partner and CFO of Brilliant Work, a creative production studio working across LBEs, experiential entertainment, brand activations and corporate theater and an artist and fabricator whose work has landed in the Smithsonian, his ability to mix creativity and finance gives him a rare edge. He's as comfortable talking about the emotional intent of a project as he is about the budget to make it a reality. We talked to Shulman about what it actually takes to turn a bold idea into a bankable experience.
Eve Riskind: You’re a welder and a CFO. How do you reconcile the two?
David Shulman: Working in finance can be very creative when focused on deal structure, or when collaborating with creative and production teams to figure out how to deliver on a budget. But much of the work is routine: recurring monthly accounting closes, revenue recognition policies, insurance and compliance. My creative side can get bored.
That’s why, over the years, I’ve taken multiple “temporary retirements.” At one point, I took a couple of years off to make sculpture. I like getting into the real, tangible, dirty, labor-intensive process of making something out of metal. When I was ready, I joined an experiential company in San Francisco that needed someone to help a collective of talented artists and musicians become a world-class business.
Now I'm fully in the creative industry and that dual fluency is a real differentiator. I can talk meaningfully about both the financial and creative intent of a project. For clients, that makes for a much more authentic picture.
ER: What makes an experiential project financially successful?
DS: The most critical thing is making sure creative, production and finance all have a seat at the table from the very beginning. I can't stress this enough.
A creative team might imagine a fantastic experience that costs $15M to produce when the budget is only $5M, which means you burn cycles trying to fit a big idea into a smaller container instead of aligning on vision and budget at the outset. If production isn't clear on intent, they may design a rig that works beautifully in a fixed location but is a nightmare to tour. And when your venue maxes out at 2,500 people a week but you need 5,000 just to break even, you have a problem before you begin.
ER: How does that show up in Brilliant Work's approach?
DS: We believe the best experiences can have a life before and after the show. On the marketing side, we start by building demand digitally, so the experience journey begins when you buy the ticket. We create a waitlist and once tickets go on sale, we wait for that person-to-person uptick — saving on digital spend because your friends become the marketing. And if we design it well, it could become a ticketed experience that endures, generating even more revenue.
ER: What does success look like in practice?
DS: We are in the final two weeks of delivery on a project for a cruise line client, an installation experience aboard their newest class of ships that will be seen by every single guest upon embarkation and throughout their cruise. The challenge was to create something visually appealing, constantly changing and evocative of the journey — that can also run 24/7 with minimal management. This required a very careful, ongoing negotiation between creative intent, production requirements, and financial constraints.
ER: What’s overrated and underrated in experiential?
DS: Lighting and sound are important design tools, but just making the lights brighter, the screen bigger, the decibel louder… that gets overused. On the flip side, narrative engagement and interaction are underrated. A lot of projects come to market feeling very passive, with no story tying the experience together. Interaction matters; narrative matters even more.
ER: How do you stay creatively inspired?
DS: For me personally and for Brilliant Work as a business, getting out of our shell is really important. We take every opportunity to go see work produced by others. There’s an experience in London called Phantom Peak that we’re quite enamored with. It lends itself very well to guests at every level of engagement, what we in the industry call “Skimmers,” “Swimmers” and “Divers.” That’s something we think a lot about: How do we allow for that same breadth of interaction?
ER: Who inspires you?
DS: Nemo Gould creates sculpture from found objects. He conjures personality from inert materials. That’s magic. He inspires me to think about how we can impart that same magic through the work we’re doing.
