Collectors look for the ‘uncomfortably familiar’ in old videos

While many people are throwing out their old VHS tapes and trading them in for DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, Nick Prueher and Joe Pickett are making their way around the country collecting videotapes that most would consider trash.

Their goal: To preserve our “VHS history.” To that end, they host a festival at which they show clips of movies and videos they have found all over the world.

“In a way, those unintentional moments on footage give a better picture of who we are as a people,” Prueher said.

UNC Charlotte will host Charlotte’s third look at The Found Footage Festival, put together by Prueher and Pickett, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 11 in McKnight Hall. Tickets are $5.

The university will be one stop on the pair’s 50-state tour, which will comprise about 130 shows. They also visited Europe for a month with their festival.

Overall, the footage for the tour stays the same. But if they have found a video that connects with one certain area, they will add it in for a visit to that specific area.

The focus of the festival is not on popular movies or videos that have circulated throughout the mainstream media, but on videos and clips that very few have seen. Prueher and Pickett agree those moments caught on camera that no one expected show “who we are as a people” better than any other caught moments.

“(We look at) the castoff videos no one wanted, (like) an exercise video your mom used to watch before school every morning,” Prueher said. “I think people find something uncomfortably familiar in the footage we play.”

Besides inviting people out to see what they have created, the creators of the Found Footage Festival hope those attending will bring VHS videos they own or have found.

Because many video stores no longer keep VHS tapes in stock, their work keeps getting harder to carry on.

“We encourage people to bring videos that they found to the show. We can only be in so many places at one time,” Prueher said.

McKnight Hall is on the UNC Charlotte campus at 9201 University City Blvd. Those attending can park in the Cone Deck’s visitor parking.