Creative Record
Immersive hospitality. Storyworld design. AI-forward business development.
Justin Bunnell explores immersive hospitality, experience design, and AI-forward business development through more than 20 years of filmmaking, entrepreneurship, storytelling, and building real-world experiences.
Years across film, brand, hospitality & experience design
Video projects delivered
Returning clients
Creative & hospitality ventures founded
Year-old Vermont beverage story revived
Entertainment cocktail & soda lounge opened and operated
Interactive web apps and game prototypes
Podcasts, branded campaigns, live events & immersive experiences
Building more human experiences in an AI-forward world. Everything I write and build sits inside one of these three overlapping areas, and they only get more interesting where they touch.
Designing environments and service systems around how people feel, participate, and remember, not just around what they order. Story, atmosphere, ritual, recognition, and surprise treated with the same care as the drink in front of the guest.
Practical AI applied inside businesses I actually operate. Prototyping, decision support, staff training, operational systems, content and creative development. Automate the invisible. Humanize the visible.
Using filmmaking, characters, mythology, environmental storytelling, live entertainment, and interactive technology to turn ordinary businesses into worlds people can participate in.
A working model I use for thinking about how a hospitality experience actually lands on a guest, from the first frame they read to the last feeling they carry out the door.
What world am I entering?
Before a guest reads the menu or hears the music, they read the room. The story is the frame everything else hangs on: the era, the point of view, the reason this place exists.
What do I see, hear, smell, touch, taste?
Light temperature. Music curated for the moment, not the shift. Textures under a hand. The smell of ginger from the bar. Sensory detail is where atmosphere becomes real.
What can I participate in, not just observe?
A ritual to perform, a card to hold, a menu that behaves like an artifact, a game to play, a stranger to meet. Participation is what separates being a spectator from being inside the story.
Does this experience acknowledge me as an individual?
Names remembered. Regulars noticed. Small acts of specific attention. The moment a guest realizes they aren't a transaction is the moment the experience begins to belong to them.
How do I feel when I leave compared with when I arrived?
The only measurement that actually matters. Not satisfaction. Change. A guest carrying a slightly different mood, story, or self-image out the door is the point of the whole system.
Working framework, in active use at Venetian Soda Lounge and other projects. Not a finished theory. A tool I sharpen every week.
The whole career comes back to one question: how do you create an experience someone carries with them after it's over?
It started with film editing and visual effects. Two decades of learning how images, sound, pacing, and story shape what an audience feels. That grew into commercial filmmaking, creative direction, brand storytelling, and eventually founding RetroMotion Creative.
Then the screen wasn't enough. Reviving Venetian Beverages and building the Venetian Soda Lounge moved the same principles into physical space. Hospitality, lighting, music, live entertainment, environmental storytelling, and the very specific work of designing how people feel in a room they're actually standing in.
Original projects like Rufus Hightower, Gingy 9000, and SodaBarVT pushed the idea further, combining fictional worlds with real businesses so guests could participate in the story instead of just watch it.
AI is the newest tool in the kit. Not as a replacement for the human parts, but as a way to prototype faster, sharpen operations, and give the team more capacity to deliver the parts that only humans can. Automate the invisible. Humanize the visible.
One thread across all of it: making experiences that change how someone feels.
Essays on immersive hospitality, AI-forward business, storyworld design, and the film craft underneath it all.
Running a lounge, multiple businesses, a family, and my sanity all at the same time. So I went to therapy… and let’s just say his advice did not make the to-do list. Does any other small biz owner feel like this, or am I the only one scheduling my emotional breakdowns between food orders and payroll? New video up. Enjoy my suffering. 🥃💚 Some artwork provided by the SPACE gallery. Thank you to John Killacky for being my therapist.
Earlier this year, Julia Randall took home 1st place in our Emerging Songwriters Competition, earning the grand prize: a full day of recording at the renowned Tank Recording Studios. Since then, she’s been hard at work crafting her upcoming album, set to release in Spring 2025. 🎥 This video captures Julia’s live performance of her song, “On the Internet,” filmed just yesterday at the Venetian Soda Lounge and beautifully shot by RetroMotion Creative. It’s a taste of what’s to come from her highly anticipated album! 💿 Be sure to follow Julia Randall to stay updated on her journey and get ready for her album launch. A huge thank-you to Tank Recording Studios for supporting emerging artists and helping bring their music to life. 🎵 Calling all songwriters! Our second annual Emerging Songwriters Competition starts this January, hosted by the amazing David Karl Roberts. If you’re an aspiring artist or a fan of live music, this is your chance to be part of something special. 📌 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more live performances and updates from the Venetian Soda Lounge. Let’s celebrate the artists who inspire us!
A little holiday magic comes to the Venetian Soda Plant in A Gingery Christmas, an original short film from Venetian Soda Lounge and Venetian Beverages. Starring Justin Bunnell and Sam Kurnit, this playful Christmas tale follows a grumpy soda maker, a loyal robot named Gingy, and a ghostly visitor with unfinished family business, a union card, and apparently very strong opinions about ginger ale. Inspired by classic holiday storytelling, local history, old soda plant lore, and the strange emotional needs of mechanical employees, A Gingery Christmas celebrates friendship, redemption, Venetian Ginger Ale, and the idea that even a rusty robot deserves a Christmas drink. Produced for Venetian Soda Lounge and Venetian Beverages.
Come in and try our new Maple Whiskey Sour featuring Double Tapped Maple Bourbon Whiskey. And remember every lemon has a soul. If you enjoyed our skit please like, comment or share.
For 20 years, Phoenix Feeds & Nutrition has stood beside the farmers of the Northeast, helping them care for their animals, manage rising costs, improve performance, and build a stronger future for the next generation. This film tells the story of farming as more than a business. It is a legacy built through family, sacrifice, resilience, innovation, and deep responsibility to the land and animals. Through the voices of farmers and agricultural leaders, the video explores the challenges facing today’s farms, from milk prices and inflation to sustainability, succession planning, diversification, and the pressure to keep improving while protecting a way of life.
In 1914, a circus train crashes on a cold Vermont night. The animals escape. A ringmaster is found dead. The town blames a rival, but the truth is far darker. The Last Roar: The Story of Théodore Lemieux is an AI-produced gothic mystery film about control, fear, guilt, and the wildness humanity keeps trying to cage. Set in St. Albans, Vermont, the film follows the aftermath of a sabotaged circus train and the death of Théodore Lemieux, a ringmaster haunted by the natural world he tried to master. As the town turns fearful and violent, the story asks a deeper question: was this simply murder, or was it nature itself roaring back? Produced by RetroMotion Creative.
Began professional work in film editing and visual effects, contributing to feature films and other screen projects. Learned to control what an audience sees and feels — pacing, illusion, image, and sound.
Expanded into advertising, branded storytelling, and regional media production across commercial, nonprofit, and institutional clients — the beginning of connecting storytelling to real business objectives.
Launched a cinematic production company focused on story-driven video.
Brought back a heritage Vermont beverage brand connected to family history.
Built and opened a vintage-inspired cocktail and soda lounge in Burlington, Vermont in August 2022.
Created and developed the Rufus Hightower universe, an original adventure IP inspired by 1930s pulp serials, golden-age cinema, tiki culture, occult mystery, and immersive hospitality. Built a transmedia world spanning live events, cocktail menus, video content, interactive experiences, and game concepts, with recurring characters, lore, branded artifacts, and serialized storylines. Designed the IP to function as both entertainment and experiential marketing, connecting audience engagement, hospitality, storytelling, and brand-building into one cohesive creative platform.
Designed and built a web-based interactive mystery and case-file experience.
Co-created a podcast about AI for everyday people.
Built practical AI-powered workflows for video production, content strategy, and business operations.
For collaboration, immersive hospitality projects, AI-forward business development, creative leadership, speaking, or something interesting you're building, the channel is open.
