The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Step into the bold and unfiltered world of show business with Alexia Melocchi—PGA producer, international distributor, author, and 30-year Hollywood insider.
This is your backstage pass to the mindset, tactics, and truth behind how Hollywood really works. Through raw and inspiring conversations with A-list creators, business leaders, and global thought shapers, you'll discover the real strategies that lead to lasting success—on and off the screen.
From insider tips to soulful storytelling, each episode is a masterclass in making your mark—not just in showbiz, but in every area of life.
The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Narrative Threads Binding Brands to Hearts
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Imagine the power of a story so captivating it elevates a brand into an experience. That's the realm where Micki Pagano and Tony Parente of Branding build their business. Bringing their Madison Avenue savvy to the art of branded video storytelling as they went into a transition from traditional advertising to creating narratives that forge an emotional bond between brands and audiences. Micki presents "The Road to Beyond," her book that offers a profound reflection on the 9/11 events, reminding us of the healing nature of storytelling in the wake of tragedy.
Our conversation shifts to the essence of emotional connection in advertising — where each scene is meticulously crafted to resonate and achieve strategic aims for clients. Micki and Tony open up about the challenges and rewards of working with real people and the authenticity they bring to the screen, in stark contrast to professional actors. They also underscore the irreplaceable value of human insight in an increasingly AI-dominated content creation landscape, stressing that technology may be a tool, but the heart of storytelling is forever human.
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Welcome to the heart of show business. I am your host, alexia Melocchi. I believe in great storytelling and that every successful artist has a deep desire to express something from the heart to create a ripple effect in our society. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. My guests and I want to give you insider access to how the film, television and music industry works. We will cover dreams come true, the road less traveled journey beginnings and a lot of insight and inspiration in between. I am a successful film and television entrepreneur who came to America as a teenager to pursue my show business dreams. Are you ready for some unfiltered real talk with entertainment visionaries from all over the world? Then let's roll. Sound and action.
Speaker 2Welcome, welcome, the Heart of Show Business listeners. I am constantly pivoting on the type of people that I want to bring on my show because, as we know, show business is not just about film and television. It's also about finding creative ways to use a moving image medium to convey a message, whether it is for a brand, whether it's for a short, whether it's for a company, it doesn't matter. And so with me I have oh, I love these two people, miki Pagano and Tony Parente from Branding Shorts, all the way from Hoboken, new York, who I will tell you how I met them. But first let me welcome them properly to the show.
Speaker 2They have a company called Branding Shorts. They come from the advertising and marketing space. You know, worked on Madison Avenue for all the major brands. They're also screenwriters, and I'll tell you how I met them. That's a little tease about that. And also, mickey is an author with an amazing book that I just read, called the Road to Beyond, that talks about 9-11, but in a very different and unique way. And we'll get to that. And, of course, I love everything they do. And so I'm very glad to be bringing on to have a great conversation about marketing, branding, mindset books, film, tv, the whole thing. So welcome to my show. Thank you so much, thank you for having us.
Speaker 3It's such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 4No, thank you so much for having us on the show.
Speaker 2It is so awesome to have you both, and I just love LinkedIn because we all, we all get to stay connected with, with, uh, like, professionals. And, by the way, I was on their podcast. They have an amazing podcast all about entrepreneurs, which you'll tell me, also about. My mom and I were guests on it. You may have heard it and if you haven't check it out and check out some of their wonderful guests, but interesting, and I met this power couple, because they are a power couple, um, I'll never forget it at the peninsula hotel.
Speaker 2They were at some script screenwriters conference and they pitched me some of their work which I thought was fabulous. Um, I remember at least the two main ones that I loved, which is the one about the sandman, which I loved, and then the other one about the horse racing, which we're not going to go too much into details because we don't want people to steal ideas. But there were such good writers and you know we briefly collaborated, I represented them and then somehow we parted ways. You know, life, things, whatever. There was no reason for us to not work together, just life got hold of all our things. They had to start a company and run a business and here we are. So the magic of internet connections and the web allows us to stay connected. So you guys first of all, husband and wife you come from advertising and marketing and you are creating this wonderful company called Branding Shorts. Do you want to tell my listeners what your company exactly does and what its vision and message is?
Speaker 3Sure. So Tony and I started Branding Sh shorts in 2008. I was formerly a Madison Avenue creative director and Tony was from American Express. He's a marketing strategist from American Express and a stand-up comic. Be able to harness video for brands, so help brands tell their story through the power of short branded videos. So we started in 2008 and we've grown from a local company to a national company where we shoot videos for local and national brands all across the country.
Speaker 4Yeah, I think it all goes to the two words that we have in common is you do so well yourself is like storytelling. So I was. I started in the corporate world. I was actually a corporate trainer for IBM in Chicago and it was so boring the stuff I was teaching. The people were coming in I would write jokes in there and do humor and somebody said you know you should check out this thing called Second City, down the street where a lot of comedians come from. So I trained to performed there and I would begin to tell stories on stage and that started my interest on that side where Mickey had the advertising.
Speaker 3Right, I used to do TV spots for Coca-Cola and Procter and Gamble and once I went to Venice because I drew a gondola in my storyboard and we did a whole campaign for Scope Mouthwash mini romantic comedies that were 45 seconds long. They won all these awards but we went to Venice and shot in Venice for three weeks to do mouthwash commercial.
Speaker 2Wow, that is so awesome. And you know I have to say you're right, it's all about storytelling. And here comes the magic about companies like as yourself. Not everyone can afford. You know a big ad agency to do their. You know five million dollar commercials that run during the super bowl for another three million dollars per 30 seconds. Uh, you know.
Speaker 2But if there is a way and everything is social media right now and everything is about content creation if there is a way to get a company like branding Shorts to, that comes both from the storytelling viewpoint, where they can find a story in the brand that you're going to be working with, or the business, because I know you worked a lot with the restaurants in Hoboken and we have to talk about that during the pandemic and how to keep the lights on. You know it is so important because it's affordable. It's obviously not going to cost you a million bucks. But then you also get people who know how to tell a story and how to maximize in a short, super short format what a brand or a business can be about. And going into your hometown of Hoboken or Hoboken, whatever. I'm Italian, I butcher things, but you guys are Italian-American, we're Italian.
Speaker 4We're Italian-American.
Speaker 2Keeping the flag on, yes, but I love that you specialize at the beginning, from what I remember, in restaurants and in chefs and in local communities. How was that something that you did? Obviously it was a smart business move, clearly, but did you also do it as a way of giving back to your community, because obviously we've been through a lot in america in the past six years? Yeah, I think it's a combination of things.
Speaker 4I think, like you said, we're italian, we like to eat some restaurants was a natural start for us, so but but I think it was looking at like how do we we had all the skills working in larger companies, with larger companies like Mickey with Coca-Cola and me with American Express how do we start our own company? Right, we're less, smaller than those big companies and what are some segments where we could help the businesses that need help?
Speaker 3And then how can we help as well on the cause related side, which you mentioned, we do a lot of cause related and it's interesting what we did is we brought our experience from those big brands, from corporate America and from Madison Avenue, bringing that experience to these restaurants and they were like, whoa, what you did? A commercial, a real commercial for me, but we were just doing it because we wanted to get out there and start our business, so we were getting giving them a break and getting the word out well, you know, it's so funny.
Speaker 4I think the first restaurant we ever did was this really popular cuban restaurant in new york city and we did a pro bono because we needed to build our I guess your build a real, build our portfolio just to get out there and start to build our own story about how do we talk about us Like, what can we do, show our skills.
Emotional Connection in Storytelling
Speaker 3Right. And then the thing about coming from advertising and this translates to storytelling in general, screenwriting and commercials. The key is scene objectives. If, because working in commercials, you're only allotted 45 seconds or 30 seconds usually, at that time every scene had to push the story forward in a condensed form. So that thinking, that mindset, we brought that to every video we created in the storytelling space. So everything worked hard. There was no fluff. The story had heart and meaning. Every scene of it.
Speaker 4Yeah, and I think to Mickey's point, the two words. We had some calls today with clients, you know as well.
Speaker 3Actually, one was helping out a you know, not a pro bono, a charity, a charity across the world that helps people across the world with all kinds of causes.
Speaker 4We had a call with them this morning. But, like this, what we always talk about in the two words when we build a story or build our videos is emotional connection. Like, how do we engage? How do we create that connection as opposed to just, wow, look at the pretty pictures, right. Look at the all of us some music is cool. And then what's the strategic objective that the client wants to accomplish? Where do you want to go with it? Right? How do we accomplish that? I think because anybody can make a video right Today, especially with technology. But how do you make one that connects, right? How do you make one that accomplishes what you need to accomplish, right? So that's where we think our big business experience as well helps us as we started to build our company yep, just like you, the heart.
Speaker 2We try to find the heart in the story yeah, yeah, and you're also fantastic writers and and you know, I remember even from the very first scripts that you sent my way you certainly know how to paint characters and in everything whether it's their, their feelings, the dialogue and everything. And it's fascinating because I was at the Producer Guild Awards this Sunday and obviously the big chat was about AI right, ai replacing people's jobs and all of that. And I thought it was fascinating because, first thing that they said is that there's one thing that AI cannot replace and that is the job of producers. Like, hello, you guys and us, because you know we can think outside of the box. Ai will not. Ai will go into the algorithms. And then if you say, well, you know, just do a story about a turtle, you know who misses her dad and they're going to go. Turtles do not have feelings, so how am I going to pitch this? But you can pitch it and I can pitch it.
Speaker 2And so, with AI taking over the forefront of our business, what they said, the common thread is A the producer's job, and you guys are producers, if you think about it. You are a company that produces content, so producer's job is never at stake. Number one. And number two is the words can change, the settings can change. You can all be much more cost effective to do that now, which is very exciting, but but what is going to be even more important is, just like you said, emotional connections and characters. And so when you are talking to a client and they're coming to you and saying I have this business, I want to do something to promote my business, do you write the script for them? Do you tell?
Speaker 3them how to extract exactly that, the emotional connection. Yes, exactly we do. We write the script We've written thousands of scripts over the course of time and we start out with a simple idea, template or formula or format. We start out with a couple of questions for our clients so we can extract the human connection, the human heart, we can get at the heart of the story, and so that helps us to develop little videos, short videos, that are tight, story-driven and compelling, and what we do is look for two. There's two key things who's your audience? What's a truism about your audience? Tell us something that they're missing. Where can we make that connection of human insight? What's the human insight we can connect to? And what do you? What do you want your audience to take away from the video after they watch it?
Speaker 4And every client is different. So some clients the emotional connection is easier. So one of our clients, for example, is the American Cancer Society where we work with pet rescue. So there is that natural, you know, connection that's easier. But we also have worked with American Express and other companies. You know about credit cards and other things. So it's really to Mickey's point how do you draw it out of that right, how do you understand that environment, what they're trying to accomplish?
Speaker 3and then put the questions together or the script together, that kind of how do you get to that piece of it that's going to engage people more than anything else. So yeah, so we were able to use that recipe to get to the heart of the story and get find the story, and get to that heart, that human element that AI can't do because it's not human. Get to the human part.
Speaker 4And I think the other thing that ties to what you're saying too is like the talent as you work in your field, you may have actors that are used to looking at scripts and reading scripts where a lot of times, like we're working with people, right, you know just people that are working at a company, so like, how do you get them on screen to be authentic, so and so that's the way we craft the script and sometimes write questions to get to the answers that we want to be part of the script as opposed to them having to memorize.
Speaker 3So we it's. It's interesting because we see a lot of people doing that. So they're when they're working with real people and the people are sweating it because they got to memorize it.
Speaker 3They're not actors, so we we approach it differently. We actually write a script. We write a script that's approved, a tight script that's timed. But then when we are on set and we are working with real people first of all, tony does a lot of the interviewing and he's a standup comic, so he gets them relaxed and, and you know, at ease. And then we ask questions to get to that same line in the script. But they're saying it in their own word, in their own words, with their, so they're speaking from the heart you know, so we're able to like shape it in the edit to make sure the story is still the same.
Speaker 4But if the words aren't exactly the same, but the story is still the same now sometimes it might be tight 15, 30 second social spots where they have to say exactly, we do bring in teleprompters. So we did a. We did a job earlier last summer with uh, I don't know if you're familiar with with or with the cake boss buddy, buddy blaster the case. So we worked with him. He was made in making a cake for bick for the for an anniversary, and there we did have a teleprompter and had him because we had to be so tight with exactly what he said. So we can, we do that as well.
Speaker 4But to mickey's point, and he's just natural, emotional, like, even if you give him a script, he's great, he's very emotional. Anyway, he's italian, the hands are moving, so but, but so we get, we do both. But a lot of it is to mickey's point writing a tight script and the kind of getting at it where the people on screen can say it in a very authentic way authenticity is what, where we make that connection oh, I love that.
Surviving 9-11 and Working Together
Speaker 2That's a totally equitable moment. Yes, it's all about authenticity, I believe, and becoming memorable, and the only way you're going to be memorable is to connect into the heart, to your own heart and to the heart of others. Now, speaking of speaking of heart connection, I read your book, mickey. It's a must read for anybody who wants to find some healing and hope and purpose to the tragedy of 9-11, which, yes, it's 20 plus years ago. What I not know about, um, is that your then boyfriend, now husband, was actually you. Were you in the towers, like you were actually in the towers or you were close to the towers, because that freaked me out. When I read about that, I had no idea yeah, it's, it's, yeah.
Speaker 4I was, um, I worked for merck Express at the time and the buildings right next to the World Trade Center. So when the World Trade Center came down and hit our building, so and we had 11 people in the World Trade Center that we lost that day, merck Express did so, yeah, and I so I'm lucky. I mean I ran home that day. I got home five miles. I live five miles away.
Speaker 3You are late to work. That day I was lucky I was late to work because I would have been pretty near the area, but like so it was a yeah, it was a day that you don't.
Speaker 4It's one of those people who ran with the stuff covered. Well, if you saw this visuals of the smoke coming down the street west side highway that was one of those people that was coming down, but but we had just started to date at the time. So it was a really interesting time, you know, for us, you know, sharing like a horrific story that we had both. Mickey was living in New York City as well, um, but, yeah, I was there. It was a moment that you you don't, obviously don't forget yeah, so let's go ahead.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, I mean, that's that's. That's one of the things that was shocking to me. But yeah, tell me about a little bit, about the, the purpose, because I, I love it, I'm the way that I would pitch. It is kind of like what dreams may come meets le petit prince, like the little prince, because those two characters, the firefighter, the hero and the, it was just you know. Yeah, so tell me about it. But just tell me why you decided to write this book. Obviously, just obviously as a homage to 9-11, I'm sure. But why did you write the book?
Speaker 3cloud that had never been there before and it was hovering above where the twin towers were and it just lasted. It felt like forever and I kept thinking is that cloud or is that really the souls that just are hovering above that spot? And I thought, what if that is? What? What if that cloud was all the souls who lost their, all the people who lost their lives that day? And they were just lingering and then I kind of thought, well gosh, all those people gone in one day, in one second. What if we took, if I, what if that? What if there was a story about one of those souls and their her journey? What would that journey look like?
Speaker 3And I have to say that story haunted me for months and months and months until I wrote it down. And I wrote it down by hand at first, this was right. After it happened, I wrote it down by hand. Over time it evolved, it evolved. But the story is really about um, more than 9 11. 911 was the setting for the story, because I experienced it firsthand, living in New York City. It's more about our souls, it's about our destiny, our purpose and it's about comfort for those who've lost people Like, okay, this could be a plausible way to look at heaven. I mean, if there is another world above or beyond us, this could be a plausible way to look at it.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and it certainly translates. Like I said, it was so vivid and it was raw and it was tender at the same time. You know, I owe you a review, which I'm going to write this weekend, because I will just think this through and I just love the book and, you know, I hope, you know thinking big, obviously. I hope that one day maybe it gets made into a movie or something, because there's something definitely very, um, very valid about that. But I think people have not quite recovered yet, believe it or not? After all this years, yeah, now you guys work as a husband and wife. Uh, what do you? How do you keep it together? Because obviously I work with my mom, so it's a very close relationship as well. So, and you have a kid and you have a dog, so how do you keep motherhood, husband, wifehood business all tied up in a pretty bow or maybe it's not a pretty bow?
Speaker 4I was just right. I don't know, I'm not. I was trying to figure out where you're going. Do we keep it together? We try. We've been married for 22 years it was it was pretty much one year right after 9-11, we got married right. Yeah, first anniversary so yeah so so it's great.
Speaker 4I mean, I think you know I was very lucky, right, it's like, you know, meeting mickey, right? So, um, so you find the right person, you know. And then we worked separately at first, but then we both we talked about before I have this common storyteller interest, passion, and we were ready to get going and then started to build a business, right, right, so I mean, yeah, so how do we keep it together?
Speaker 3I mean our son knows we're always talking about business, he gets involved and he's got his own little cooking show that we produced with him. So he's, you know, he's all about product. He wants to be a producer when he grows up.
Speaker 2Maybe he can come and eat in for us when he's ready.
Speaker 4Yeah, absolutely but I think it's like, I think it's all about communication, right so?
Speaker 1as we talk as we do.
Speaker 4We had you mentioned and thank you for mentioning our podcast a couple of entrepreneurs. We talked a lot of couples you know, and we talked to you know a mother-daughter team such as you guys right about how do you family, how do you keep it together as a family when you're your family, but then you work together right. So, and I think communication is probably one of the key things, because we're going to definitely disagree. You know it's hard not to disagree things, but it's how do you do it, like, how do you handle it right, how do you resolve it and how do you try to, but how do you not make it personal right and realize this is the career part, this is our life part?
Speaker 3um, and and just make it work. Yeah, and, and. When we started the podcast, it was almost therapy for us to talk to other people who work together, who are family, um and it, and we discovered there are a lot of people working together who are family, you know husband, wives, and then we were, like you know, husband, wife and brother-in-law, and then now we just interviewed a couple husband, wife and daughter. So there's like a lot of different ways. People are working together as family and they have to make it work.
Speaker 4Because you're family, you can't say I quit you because you're family well, and I think we talked to some of the questions we used to ask. We started to ask when we started the podcast about hey, how do you like to end it? Similar, it's like how's your work-life balance? How do you balance work and life? And the answer we'd always get back is it's not, it's work-life integration, right, you try, it's going to be there. You're working. It's like something comes up and you're not working. You're going to talk about it, right, so you can't totally always turn it off, but how do you best integrate it?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, and it's so interesting what you said about the word therapy and how you started your podcast. Interesting enough, I mean, I started my podcast as some way of therapy because we all know pandemic shut down, nothing was going on. I'm sure you guys had no work. I had no work and I needed to connect with people who were like me, who were creatives. And then when I started hearing the personal stories of even people who are way more successful than I am, and hearing the same struggles and hearing the same you know down moments and the same triumphs, just like when you're talking to your guests it really became therapeutic for me because I did not feel alone and I think, ultimately the biggest thing that draws families together, but I think also the creative medium, whatever that is, whether it's podcasting, whether it's making shorts for brands, whether it's film, television none of us really wants to feel alone and I think this is some way.
Speaker 2Not to feel alone is to connect with others on a human level. And what it was so great to discover as I did your podcast with you is that we also share similar mindsets about life, which you don't get to know when you're having a professional meeting, like we did back then. So if you were to think about I'm going to put you this like my end of the podcast episode, a double whammy test for the both of you, and I asked that of all my guests that you may remember three words on how you define yourselves and also if you have a life mantra, something, whatever it is, that you use whenever you're in a dark place, because we all get to a dark place. We cannot say that none of us get into a dark place, we all do so. When you go to a dark place business, personal, whatever, what is that thing that you use to get yourself out of it or get yourself back to center? I know it's a twofer, but you guys can think about it and tell me.
Speaker 4Well, you know it's interesting, I don't know if this directly answers, and you are an amazing podcast. We have listened to your podcast and everybody should listen to you because you are so terrific.
Speaker 4Yeah, we love your podcast, Thank, you for letting us on inviting us to be part of your podcast today. I think when I was at Amex, we used to bring a lot of speakers from all over the place to talk to people about how to work together, how to be a human being, how to make things happen in a corporate world. That wasn't always pretty. And I saw one speaker I won't say his name and he said something that always sticks with me. He said you know you need something to hope for, something to do and something to love. You know, and I think those three things, if you have those three things in your life, it's fulfilling. Now Mickey's looking at me like what are you talking about?
Speaker 3No, we talk about this all the time. You know we always talk about this. But, yes, that's true, that's true For me. I have to say, whether it's writing, whether it's working together, developing stories for brands, or the book, like the Road to Beyond, or the podcast, or anything in life. I come back to something my mother always said. My mother always said if I'm feeling low, like nothing's going on and nothing's happening, she always said what doesn't happen in a million years can happen overnight. So I keep that in my mind overnight.
Speaker 2So I keep that in my mind. I love that I always say the same thing in certain moments. I say all this takes is one. It can be one. It can be one person that changes your life. It can be one chance encounter. It could be one, yes, in work. All it takes is one, and it's so true. One thing you know and and you know you you know you became a parent. All it took is one miracle for you guys to become parents, and it just I really believe that. So it's a little bit of a muddled version of what your mom said, but I really believe that, and you guys have been terrific. It's been so awesome to have you on my show.
Speaker 2I'm going to put on, of course, my show notes anybody who wants to in the East Coast, but I'm sure that would work on the West Coast as well. If you ever have a brand or a business or something that needs to have specific storytelling, that wants to convey what they're about, so people can connect and come and buy from you, eat from you, whatever it is you know, donate to a charity uh, definitely check out branding shorts. Check out their podcast too. It's really inspiring because, especially if you like I said, your family, businesses or your couples or whatever that is. You're going to find some nuggets in there as well.
Speaker 2And definitely read Mickey's book and please rate, review it, just like you do my podcast. Rate, subscribe, review, rate, subscribe, review Mickey's book. Well, actually, you don't subscribe, you just buy the road to beyond. The road to beyond available on Amazon, and it's been lovely to have you and, uh, this is the heart of show business. Um, wait for the next episode, but in the meantime, listen to this over and over again, because I'm sure you're gonna find even more wisdom nuggets on the second time around. So ciao to the world. And this is, yeah, I have to say one thing, italians, yes, ciao.
Speaker 3I have to say one thing the pomodoro timer, love it. The pomodoro timer that was from your book, fantastic oh, I love it.
Speaker 2Who would have thought that a tomato can save your life?
Speaker 3I love it, so thank you for that.
Speaker 4Only Italians.
Speaker 2Only Italians. They understand about tomatoes in food and in time. This has been amazing. Thank you all for listening and please check out past episodes and future episodes of Heart of Show Business over and out.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the heart of show business. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can also subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast player. If you have any questions or comments or feedback for us, you can reach me directly at theheartofshowbusinesscom.