The Red Bank: Rum Runner – Immersive Digital Storytelling

Award Winning local Red Bank filmmaker and Monmouth Alum will present a talk and creative workshop at Monmouth University’s ArtNOW visiting artists series. Anthony Jude Setaro and cousin Douglas Booton will discuss their creative process in-depth as they dive deeper into the local history of their family emigrating from Italy. The Setaro family left Sassano, Italy, their home for the last 400 years, in 1888, searching for a better life in America. With maps and trade routes drawn out by their father, Don Vito Setaro, his sons split the family apart to create shipping routes to establish their wine business on the shores of New Jersey, establishing an Italian community and then bootlegging in the Red Bank area.

After releasing a podcast, The Red Bank: Rum Runner, Part 1: Temperance, which they recorded with Ming Chen (A Shared Universe), Setaro and Booton are now using cutting-edge 3D software, Unreal Engine (also used in The Mandalorian and The Matrix Awakens), to visually recreate Red Bank and Monmouth County in the early 1900s. Anthony and Doug are using Unreal Engine to bring long-forgotten ancestors back to life with an incredible level of lifelike detail. The filmmakers combine live footage, filmed by cinematographer and producing partner Joe Minnella (Joe Minnella Studios), with virtual footage to transport viewers to a time of significant change in our area.

October 4th 
Tuesday 6pm – 7:30pm , 30min Q&A
Location: The Great Hall Auditorium

October 5th 
Wednesday 2:45pm – 4:30pm
Location: IDM (Interactive Digital Media) Research Lab, Plangere Room 135
RSVP Required

For more info or to RSVP, contact Amanda Stojanov at astojano@monmouth.edu