Nick Prueher, co-founder of the Found Footage Festival, was working at a McDonald’s in 1991 when he found a training video about McDonald’s inside and outside custodial duties in the break room. He thought the video was so serious it was funny, and Prueher had to show his friends.
Prueher showed co-founder Joe Pickett the tape and the two began looking for other videos with the same level of humor.’
‘ ‘There had to be more videos out there that were just as ridiculous,’ Prueher said.’
The Found Footage Festival will come to Houston for the first time at 10 p.m. May 9 at the West Oaks Alamo Drafthouse, 7600 Highway 6.
Prueher and Pickett had been entertaining friends with the footage from their living rooms and dorm rooms until someone asked them to have a screening at a bar in Manhattan, N.Y..’
Prueher said he thought only he and his friends were going to be interested in the videos, but the venue sold out and they started having to turn people away.
‘These videos strike a chord with people,’ Prueher said. ‘We started getting offers to bring the show to other places.”
Prueher and Pickett have been to dozens of cities in the U.S. and several around the world.’
‘We have been to Paris, Amsterdam and Montreal,’ Prueher said. ‘This will be our first visit to Houston.”
Prueher said he thinks Houston is his kind of city and that audiences will enjoy the show.’
The two also hunt for videos to add to their show at Goodwill stores and church sales in the cities they visit.
‘I can’t wait to see what the thrift stores have in Houston,’ Prueher said. ‘That is what we do in every city we visit.”
Not everything they find, however will have a place in the show. Prueher and Pickett are picky about what they let in.’
‘The videos have to be a VHS that is unintentionally funny. We don’t except things from the Internet or videos that we can’t verify,’ Prueher said.
The Found Footage Festival began in New York in 2004 and has gone on to sell out hundreds of shows across the U.S. and Canada, including the HBO Comedy Festival at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal.’
The show lasts about an hour, with Prueher and Pickett providing the commentary. Videos shown include home movies, training videos and other tapes that have an element of hilarity.’
‘These are people with a lot of ambition, but very little talent,’ Pueher said. ‘It is funny when you give these guys video production equipment.”
