Author: Gracie Cole
While I entered the SIFF Cinema Uptown theater with limited information about Found Footage Festival and the men behind it, it was clear that that was not the case for the majority of the audience. Whether they had been to previous shows or watched Found Footage Festival’s YouTube show “VHS Party Live,” where they have guests such as David Cross and Jon Glaser, it was evident that we had entered a passionate community. Before the show started, they played light-hearted sketches and smaller oddities they had found, encouraging the audience to navigate to their YouTube channel for similar videos. When the lights went down, Found Footage Festival’s founders Joe and Nick stepped in front of the screen and introduced themselves and the history of their project.
Joe and Nick’s collection of 13,000 VHS tapes gives a fascinating and humorous look into the past, from home videos containing sketch comedy to widely distributed exercise videos and fast food training videos. They have been collecting VHS tapes, acquiring them through thrifting or donations from fans, since 1998 and have been touring, showing off the highlights of their collection, since 2004. Each tour changes as they show off their newest finds, making each show a unique experience. Their passion for this project is apparent, as they began the show with a tape that they had been tracking down for a decade: “More Video Dating,” a submission-based dating show.
For some parts of the show, rather than a single tape, they would show a compilation of highlights from various similarly themed tapes, such as in “Exercise Video Montage.” Highlights include Paulette, who lifted crucifix-shaped weights and described her lifestyle as “sensual,” a Navy seal who frequently quoted Austin Powers, and Rock, who smoothly incorporates religious teachings into his workout.
Between each tape Joe and Nick would return to the stage, reacting to the previous clip and giving a brief explanation about the upcoming one. In general, their explanations consisted of providing the context of the tape, but occasionally they would have a personal anecdote about receiving a tape or meeting the creator of it. One such tape was “Life on the Farm,” a series of home movies handed out to the neighbors of the creator, Charles Carson, about his daily activities. It becomes evident that he has a nonchalant perspective on life and death, as the tape consists of him showing off and burying his dead “pussycat” and birthing a calf, displaying the placenta, before cutting to a sketch about him falling off of his lawn mower. After being given the tape by the son of one of Charles Carson’s neighbors, Joe and Nick decided to produce a documentary about the tape as well as Carson’s life.
In the second half of the show, we were shown three tapes — “Erotic Women,” “Males in Motion,” and “How to Have Cybersex on the Internet” — which contained cheesy softcore pornography, highlighting the absurdist humor of sexuality. The show ended with a video titled “Best of Dee,” a tribute to the life and work of Dee Gruenig, an enthusiastic artist whose tapes have garnered a fanbase due to her contagious energy. After the show, they had an extensive merch selection containing both their logo as well as references to the tapes, such as postcards or wallets with misspelled words, an homage to a tape titled “Auction Alley.”
Nick and Joe are also featured in a documentary titled Chop & Steele about their journey performing as a fake strongman duo on various talk shows and the legal repercussions that came of it.
For more information or to see these tapes for yourself, you can check out their YouTube channel here!
Gracie Cole | For Dee Gruenig | KXSU Arts Writer