Found Footage Fest: "Hold the phone, is that from Eddie’s Bar Mitzvah?”By Caitlin Donohue
Er ....
Rejoice, ye public access hosts, ye corporate training stooges, ye home movie starlets, for thy hour is nigh. No longer will your tapes be the viewing delight of a happenstance few. Film collagists Nick Pruehler and Joe Pickett have vaulted you into a slightly more middling level of obscurity. The fruit of their labor, The Found Footage Festival, makes its way to the Red Vic Movie House for a two night run starting Friday, October 2, bringing with it the panorama of American G-list treasures that Pruehler and Pickett have been discovering ever since a fateful trip to the back room of a McDonald’s in 1991. Discovering, scavenging, stealing -- don’t get bogged down in semantics, people, it’s all part of the creative process. We recently interviewed Pruehler to discuss the profound joy produced by combining the FFF with Bay Area cush, as well as his deep-seated man love for Mr. T.
Found Footage Festival trailer
San Francisco Bay Guardian: How renegade are we talking here in terms of your video collecting techniques-- do you ever dumpster dive for the tapes, or is that something you have "people" to do for you these days?
Nick Prueher: We're not afraid to get our hands dirty and root around through garbage cans and dusty bargain bins at thrift stores in search of VHS gems. We'll take risks to get videos. A few weeks ago, we were in a FedEx office picking up a package and happened to see a set of three VHS training videos behind the counter. When the clerk went back to grab the package, Joe snuck behind the counter and grabbed the tapes. Unfortunately, they were all pretty boring.
Celluloid scavengers Joe Pickett and Nick Pruehler
SFBG: Has anyone from the home movies ever gotten sassy on you because you put them in a showcase?
NP: Without fail, whenever we've met people in the videos we've found, they've been universally flattered by the fact they've become unintentional cult heroes of sorts. This footage that they've long since forgotten about is now bringing joy to hundreds of people across the country. The one close call we had was with Jack Rebney, a guy we dubbed "The World's Angriest R.V. Salesman." We cut together some outtakes of this guy going nuts during a promotional video for Winnebago R.V.s and it became a big hit from our first show. Then Jack found out about it and, believe it or not, was pretty pissed off. But we somehow convinced him to appear with us at a show at the Red Vic last year. He came out to a standing ovation and regaled the audience with hilarious stories from that disastrous shoot, then signed autographs for a half hour afterward. At the end of the night, we actually hugged the man.
The Viking Guy needs a date
SFBG: Precious! Past FFF stars have been some pretty exemplar representatives of humanity. If you could date one person from the footage that's made it into your compilations, who would it be? Your choice: loving relationship or dirty hookup.
NP: I'd definitely consider a dirty hookup with the host of "Bellydance for Beginners: Buns." She can do things with her "buns" that shouldn't be humanly possible. As far as a long term relationship goes, I'm not gay, but I think I'd be really compatible with Mr. T.
SFBG: Your last movie "Dirty Country" was about an American hero and retired auto worker, Larry Pierce, who has built a name for himself in the music biz recording filthy-minded country tunes. I quote:
"She licked my scrotum
She licked my scrotum
Now I don't care about those letters
Or who wrote 'em"
You guys have to run into characters all the time through the videos you watch, what compelled you to make a movie about Larry?
NP: We were on a road trip in Wisconsin about 15 years ago and were looking to entertain ourselves on the road. We stopped at a truck stop and happened up a cassette tape called "Songs For Studs" for $5.99. How do you say no to that? So we bought it, popped it in and couldn't believe our ears. It was well-written, original country music, but with the filthiest lyrics you could possibly imagine. On every subsequent road trip, we'd search for the new tape by this guy, Larry Pierce, and it turns out he had dozens of albums. Our prevailing question was always, who is this guy? So five years ago, we tracked him down, and his story turned out to be far more interesting than we ever dreamed of. We're excited that the DVD for "Dirty Country" is finally coming out in November.
Cats off to you, Rue McClanahan
SFBG: You two both have day jobs at some pretty big deal comedy spots. What are The Onion staff and Stephen Colbert's takes on FFF?
NP: It's funny how small the comedy world is. There was a grocery store training video in last year's show that was given to us by David Cross, but it turns out he got it from Rich Dahm, one of the producers at The Colbert Report and a former Onion writer. And I found out through Rich that the tape originally came from Todd Hansen, a longtime Onion writer, who stole the tape from the grocery store he worked at it in Illinois many years ago. This awful, awful training video somehow made its way through all these big players in the comedy business and into our grubby little hands. At the show in New York last year, we staged a reunion where David Cross returned the video to Todd Hansen live on stage. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
SFBG: Are you guys stoked for your San Francisco show? What's your audience like out here?
NP: We always love coming to San Francisco and The Red Vic. In fact, we chose to shoot our last DVD there because the crowds are always so great. I don't know why exactly, but people in San Francisco just seem to appreciate terrible videos on a deeper level. Maybe it's because of all the great marijuana.
Found Footage Festival, Volume 4
Fri/2 and Sat/3, 7:15 & 9:15 p.m., $10
Red Vic Movie House
1727 Haight, SF
(415) 668-3994
www.redvicmoviehouse.com
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