The Red and Black

Issue date: 10/9/08 Section: Out & About

Media Credit: Courtesy Nick Prueher Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett combed thrift shops, garage sales and dumpsters to find funny and weird home videos for their festival. [Click to enlarge]

If Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett had not been strapped for cash when planning their documentary "Dirty Country," hundreds of weird, wacky and occasionally disturbing moments may have never found their way out of the dust and onto the big screen.

The Found Footage Festival, which will visit Athens Ciné this Friday as part of its 2008 North American tour, compiles more than an hour's worth of footage from discarded videos that were collected over the years by "curators" Prueher and Pickett.

"We have been finding and collecting VHS tapes since high school and showing them to our friends. But it wasn't until we needed money for our documentary that we decided to take what we do out of our living room and into a movie theater," said Prueher, a former researcher at the "Late Show with David Letterman" and co-host of the screenings.


"To be honest, we were quite surprised when we ended up selling out our first show. But I guess there is something magical that happens when people are given permission to laugh at things you're not supposed to be watching."

According to Pickett, the obsession with collecting tapes began when Prueher was working at a McDonald's and came across a training video entitled "Inside and Outside Custodial Duties." It was known amongst employees as the "stupidest video that was ever produced."

"It was just sad that this video was the best that McDonald's, a zillion dollar corporation, could do. I mean really, I am sure they could have done a lot better," Pickett said.

"So, Nick took the tape and showed it to me and we became kind of obsessed with it."

That obsession lead them to begin searching garage sales, thrift stores and dumpsters for more tapes, some of which will be shown and commented on by Pickett and Prueher during the showing at Ciné.

"[We] add our own smart-ass comments and tell the audience funny things we have noticed from seeing the videos so many times," Pickett, who also works at "The Onion," said.

Although both Pickett and Prueher make fun of the videos during the showings, they consider the festival a way to commemorate the "golden age" of VHS, when making videos became so cheap that "anyone could produce their own" whether or not they had the talent.

"I think VHS is a neglected format," Prueher said. "So, we've stepped in to preserve these odd moments that were deemed worthy of committing to videotape."

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