Finders Keepers
If Jason Priestley makes a ridiculous PSA about gun safety for children, and no one is around to mock it 15 years later, then history is doomed to repeat itself. Since debuting the Found Footage Festival at Rififi in 2004, Wisconsin natives and former Onion and Late Show employees Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher have been peddling their burgeoning collection of awesomely bad found videos from city to city. The Found Footage Festival is a film screening/live comedy hybrid; its pretty much Americas Funniest Home Videos for the ironic setminus Bob Sagets animal-voice falsetto and the $10,000 prizewinner. You see, everyones a winner with the FFF, especially the losers immortalized on screen.
The duo recently finished a documentary called Dirty Country that was inspired by a cassette tape they found at a truck stop in Wisconsin. The film follows Larry Pierce, Americas dirtiest country music singer, as well as other living legends of the raunchy music industry. To celebrate the four-year anniversary of the fest, Nick and Joe are premiering an all-new show with never-before-seen clips (and never-before-heard running commentary) this weekend at Anthology Film Archives. Were really excited about this new show, says Joe, because there will be a bona fide celebrity featured in one of our self-produced videos.
How did the Found Footage Festival all begin? And when did you realize you had a big idea? Nick Prueher: Joe and I met in sixth grade and quickly realized that we had the same sense of humor. In high school, I came across a training video for custodians in the McDonalds where I worked, and it turned out to be one of most ridiculous things I had ever seen. I stole it and showed it to Joe immediately. When we were bored on a Friday night, wed invite people over to my parents living room and watch the video while giving our running commentary. That's essentially what we're doing now, except in movie theaters and rock clubs across the country. For whatever reason, the concept has struck a chord with people.
Is FFF your full-time gig now?
Joe Pickett: Unfortunately, FFF isnt our full-time job. Were still trying to figure out a way to make money from this.
So do you guys really travel the country looking for videos? Or do you find videos in your mailbox? Joe: When we started doing this, it was stuff that we had picked up at garage sales and thrift stores in the Midwest. I worked at a video duplication house right out of college, so whenever a good (or bad) video showed up, Id make a copy for myself.
If you watch our first volume of videos, almost all of them come from the Midwest. But the more we travel with the show, the more opportunities we have to find videos. Weve done two shows in Alaska now, and weve found that the thrift stores up there are gold mines. We had to check extra luggage when we returned home. On our last trip there, we found everything from Blockbuster training videos to home movies. In the last year or so though, the amount of submissions have really increased, and this new show features a lot of them.
Why should someone go to the Found Footage Festival when they can go to YouTube and find a bunch of crappy videos there?
Nick: We love YouTube, but it seems like with that, you get a funny video in your inbox, watch it and forget about it 30 seconds later. Since we find our videos the old-fashioned wayby personally scouring thrift stores and garage saleswe have a personal connection to them and can lavish them with the attention they never deserved. Think of us as the tour guides through our ever-growing collection of found videos. Plus, watching these videos on the big screen with 200 other like-minded people is an entirely different experience than watching them by yourself on a 2-inch window on your computer monitor.
Is FFF related to Found magazine? That could be confusing. Have words with Davy Rothbart been exchanged?
Nick: No, the Found Footage Festival and Found magazine are not affiliated, but were big fans of the magazine. Weve been finding videos and showcasing them in one form or another for over 15 years, so were glad that things like Found magazine have helped foster an audience for all things found.
April 25-26, Anthology Film Archives, 2nd Ave. (at 2nd St.), 212-505-5181; 7 & 9, $10.