Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Dressel and Jason Senk.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I come from a family of engineers and have relentlessly pursued a career combining my love of engineering and art. Beginning in the early 1990’s I created visuals and massive video installations for raves and large scale concerts/live events. I also had an amazing day job as a motion control programmer/cameraman at now defunct Post Effects here in Chicago, then jumped to a company called Signcast as a Supervising Producer. I’ve done everything from sweeping floors to programming robots in my career and I love almost every minute of it. I’ve always loved the process of creating more than the finished product.
I started M1 Interactive without any partners, out of my garage in 2005. This was a huge personal challenge and I was lucky enough to build the business and move into a great studio space in Fulton Market, where we still are today. Using my extensive background in film and live event/concert production, I’ve built an incredible team of producers, designers and developers. Our focus is creating large scale, immersive interactive environments and amazing user experiences. We’ve created interactive installations for Coca Cola at the Olympics, Warner Bros Studio tour, Hunger Games Exhibition and so much more.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There are always challenges in starting and running a business. The biggest hurdle was starting with my own savings and working out of my garage. With limited resources and funds, I’ve always found innovative approaches to creating custom displays and hardware solutions. We build everything in-house using our background of electronics and rapid prototyping. The majority of our time is spent in R&D for the needs of special projects and there usually isn’t much of a budget for that. It forces us to be extra-creative in our endeavors.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with M1 Interactive, Inc – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
As a company, we specialize in immersive interactive experiences. Our focus is on the tactile interaction of our installations. We use various 3D tracking cameras, handheld devices and other motion trackers to get real time input of people interacting with the content. Our preference is to give users something to hold or physically move in space rather than a simple touch-screen based interaction. We’re now focusing quite a bit on augmented reality and virtual reality simulations and fun experiences for brands.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
We are moving away from special events and focusing on permanent installations for theme parks more and more. Currently, we’re involved with 3 different theme park installations, a permanent installs for Helmut Jahn’s new building in Chicago and a huge, permanent installation in Times Square. We are constantly evolving and growing.
Contact Info:
- Address: M1 Interactive, Inc
1556 West Carroll Ave
Suite 203, Chicago, IL 60607 - Website: m1interactive.net
- Phone: 3122918068
- Email: brian@m1interactive.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/m1interactive/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/m1interactive
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/m1interactive
- Other: https://vimeo.com/m1interactive
Image Credit:
All images owned by M1
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