J|GSAW

| interactive experiences on story mode.

“America’s

Scrappy

Storyteller”

-A.R. POST

For over 20 years, Brendan has produced his own storytelling experiences through his company, J|GSAW ENSEMBLE. Since his early years in non-traditional theatre spaces, Brendan has believed tomorrow’s audiences will encounter stories, not consume them. J|GSAW is a narrative-first approach to experiential content, integrating cutting-edge technology and undiscovered talent.

J|GSAW has proudly supported and secured worldwide distribution for short and feature films, digital series, interactive applications, live stage works and branded content and experiences.

Brendan’s own story is a series of 'fiascos,' a term he borrowed from Italian glass blowing when a wine bottle with any flaws is salvaged into a flask. This celebration of imperfection and resourcefulness captures Brendan’s lifelong culture of ingenuity and experimentation to tell new stories without access to traditional resources and funding. As a scrappy storyteller, Brendan has proudly championed micro-budget projects and initiatives in almost every medium, format and continent.

Previous Partners

When Non-Player Character became a Finalist for The VR Awards, the first and obvious question was whether the team could perform in the Netherlands. Every year, the award show opens with an artistic exploration of technology to celebrate the ending of Immersive Tech Week and we could think of no better place to bring the on-stage premiere of our latest project, DEGENERATE, combining artificial intelligence with live music and improvisation. Imagine if Sondheim wrote Sunday In The Park With George to examine the role of a creator using generative artificial intelligence, allowing audiences to use their mobile devices to type prompts to generate and spawn images around the live performer, using DALL•E and Remove AI.

DEGENERATE

Imagine if an animated musical came to life and interacted with multiple tiers of audiences, both in-person and virtually in what Fame Magazine calls “a dream-pop immersive experience between VR and live theater... a flawless blend of Broadway, games, pop, and comedy bliss.” Brendan Bradley’s NON-PLAYER CHARACTER is a live, virtual reality musical about a non-player character (NPC) in a video game who witnesses the death of the Hero character and turns to the audience to navigate their grief. Part live concert, part escape room, part immersive theater, each performance is entirely responsive to the player style and decisions of the audience. Like a traditional stage show, seated “Spectators” watch as four audience “Players” join a Performer on-stage, wearing virtual reality headsets while the virtual world and characters are projected on the big screen.

NON-PLAYER CHARACTER

Macbeth...with morons. Shakespeare's classic play reimagined in the video game startup world of Silicon Beach. When the "in game" creatures begin predicting the future of the game company and an angel investor drops $2.5M on them, the ambitious engineer, Beth, sees a path to take control and escape the toxic "tech bro" culture. The characters and storylines in A Tale Told By An Idiot affectionately troll the culture and community surrounding virtual reality gaming and cryptocurrency. As early adopters in these industries, Brendan has first-hand immersion in the trends and personalities building the future creative economy. In 2018, we used an Xbox Kinect to track skeletal and facial data from our actors on set during principal photography to bring to life the in-game scenes of the film.

A TALE TOLD BY AN IDIOT

OnBoardXR seasonal showcase in web-based virtual reality which produced over thirty live arts performances between October 2020 and August 2022 with over fifty participating artists and technologists exploring the live performing arts across modalities, including 2D and 360 video streaming, puppetry, 3D avatars, spatial audio, and the first play write by GPT. Audiences attended multiple live, 3D virtual performances within the web-browser of their personal device, accessible by virtual reality head-mounted displays, desktop and laptop computers, tablets and mobile devices. A custom messaging system allowed deployment of theatrical “cues” for real-time changes to light, sound, characters and scenic elements. Kathryn Yu of No Proscenium writes, “It’s Brendan Bradley and team’s punk rock ethos crossed with the freedom of experimentation in a new medium that keeps the mini-festival fresh and exciting... a tiny fringe festival, but available in my headset.”

ONBOARDXR

CEO & Creative Director

Brendan Andolsek Bradley is a multi-award winning creative producer of narrative entertainment for clients including over 100 Film and Television projects, Turkish Airlines, Legendary, Staples, AECOM, Kimberly Clark, and Land Rover. He established The Brendan Bradley Innovation Lab at his alma mater, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2017 and he was a Finalist for The Producer Guild of America’s Innovation Award in 2020. Starting his career as an artist, Bradley always seeks to give back to the next generation of storytellers through volunteer work with foundations, including Young Storytellers and his own OnBoardXR.  

Book Brendan to speak to your community

Brendan has participated in panels, keynotes, lectures and workshops across the globe. Brendan’s life’s purpose is to inspire and empower the next generation of storytelling. Going back to his own roots, Brendan produced his first “fiasco” when his high school didn’t have an auditorium and the nearest community theatre was over an hour away. Without generous support, guidance and access from his family, mentors, and community, he would never have found a career in the arts. Whether giving workshops to inspire and empower creative teams, mentoring youth through programs like Young Storytellers or establishing his own Lab at New York University since 2017,

  • FEB 2024 • Workshop • Texas A&M University “Devised Theatre in New Technology”

    JAN 2024 • Guest Speaker • Actors Equity Regional Branch (UK) “Performers on the Picket Line & Social Media”

  • NOV 2023 • Headliner • VR Awards, de Doelen, Netherlands

    OCT 2023 • Panelist • Webinar: A.I. in Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA

    APR 2023 • Guest Lecturer • James Madison University, Virginia

    MAR 2023 • Panelist • United States Institute of Theatre Technology, St. Louis “Live Theater in VR”

    FEB 2023 • Panelist • The Academy of International Extended Reality “Art and the Metaverse”

    FEB 2023 • Guest Lecturer • Goldsmiths University, London “Acting for Video Games”

  • DEC 2022 • Presenter • SIGGRAPH Asia, South Korea “Creating Intimacy in Virtual Reality Theatre”

    NOV 2022 • Speaker • Open Online Theatre, UK “Safety in the Metaverse”

    JUN 2022 • Panelist • SF Design Week “Live Theater in the Metaverse”

    JUN 2022 • Speaker • Augmented Reality Expo “OnBoarding New Audiences”

  • AUG 2021 • Panelist • SIGGRAPH “Acting in Virtual Reality”

    MAY 2021 • Panelist • WebXR Dev Summit

    MAY 2021 • Panelist • The Producer Guild of America "Meet the Innovation Awards Finalists”

    APR 2021 • Speaker • Microsoft Mixed Reality Series “A Peek Behind the Virtual Curtain”

    FEB 2021 • Presenter • The Polys WebXR Awards “Live Halftime Show in the Metaverse”

  • DEC 2020 • Panelist • No Proscenium “XR Theatre Panel”

    OCT 2020 • Presenter • Baltic House Festival

    OCT 2020 • Presenter • Museum of Science, Boston “The Future Stages”

    SEP 2020 • Guest Lecturer • Ithaca College

    SEP 2020 • Guest Lecturer • Southern Mississippi University

    AUG 2020 • Guest Lecturer • Purchase College

    JUN 2020 • Panelist • Theatre Communications Group

Retrospective

For our 20th Anniversary, we commissioned artist Bryan Keith to reimagine 20 of Brendan Bradley’s fiascos telling the story behind the team and the project using inspiration from the original key art.