Eric Edward Michener AKA Fishboy and co. have been putting out lots of amazing videos lately. The video for IMAVOLCANO (embedded above) caught our eye last week and we haven't been able to stop watching it since. We threw some questions Michener's way and he was kind enough to answer 'em. Read on to find out how this pizza and dancing-filled video was created, whether or not they used Beyonce's same choreographer (they didn't) and how many slices of 'za it took to get make it through principal production.
Eric, what's the deal with this video?
This is [a] project I've had in mind for a few years after noticing the large amount of pizza places on University within such a short distance from each other. I thought putting them all back to back like this would be a great visual gag. Our goal was to shoot them all very quickly before we were asked to stop, so we shot all thirteen locations in 90 minutes during sunset from 7:30-9:00pm on June 13, 2013. I wanted to have a third act surprise so we built the pizza volcano.
Who all was involved in creating it?
I did the primary shooting, editing, and graphics animation. David Koen shot second camera. Taylor Van Allen was our production designer and driver. Mathew "Switchblade" Bauman was our actor who choreographed all his own dance moves. John Morley who is the Geographic Information Systems Coordinator for the City of Frisco collaborated with me on making the excellent pizza map.
What pizza places were involved?
Bagehri's, Papa Murphy's, Pizza Patron, Double Dave's, Pizza Hut, Schlotzsky's (they had a sign advertising pizza out front), Pizza Inn, Papa Johns, Little Caesars, Dominos, Luigi's, and Top That were the places we places we shot at. We had an in car debate on weather or not to hit the SAMS snack bar and/or get a mexican pizza from Taco Bell but ultimately, we didn't have enough daylight. Movie Tavern and II Charlie's also serve pizza...and if you include frozen pizzas, you've got a dozen more locations you can add between gas stations, drug stores, and grocery stores. Maybe TWU serves pizza too, my gut tells me they do.
How many actual pizzas were consumed?
We only used four "prop pizzas" during shooting because we knew the editing would be so fast. There were talks about actually sampling every single possible slice and discussing their merits on camera, but for economical and time reasons we decided against it. We went out for tacos afterwards. We are going to have a follow up video with Switchblade talking about his pizza experiences soon. Stay tuned!
Make sure to catch the EP release show on August 3rd at Rubber Gloves; featuring Two Knights, Savage and the Big Beat, and live letterpress printing by Triple Threat Press.
