‘Found Footage’ celebrates video drek

While most people have gotten rid of their VHS camcorders and players, the tapes

are still out there. And that’s funny — according to the Found Footage Festival.

 

Two comedians have combed through a hundred hours of training videos, dance audition tapes and motivational seminars to cull an hour of short clips. The results of their work were shown Monday night in Philadelphia as part of a 70-city tour.

Festival co-founder Joe Pickett said none of the clips in the show were pulled from the internet — all were discovered by watching thousands of tapes found in thrift stores and yard sales.

“We’ve always had lots of hunting videos. But we do a comedy show – it’s not funny to see a turkey get shot,” said Pickett. “But then we realized the part that’s funny is when they are doing their calls. You see doughy guys in camouflage make funny sounds with their mouth.”

Many of the videos feature embarrassing fashion decisions from the 1980s. That’s when video technology first became so cheap that anyone could afford to shoot anything they wanted.

“There was a period in the late ’80s early ’90s where video was becoming really cheap, and everybody was recording everything. There were doing all their training videos, exercise videos were everywhere,” said Pickett.