A few years ago, when 312photobooth was the rental arm of A&A Studios - before I took over the business - I took a call from a photographer gent in California who told me he had an old metal photobooth in his garage and would like to know more about it and maybe if it was worth restoring.
As A&A Studios is one of the top photobooth restoration & fabrication companies in the world it was only natural that he would reach out to us. I asked him to send me some photos of his booth, thinking it was probably one of the classic 1960's photobooths that A&A Studios restores regularly and I'd get back to him.
Within a few hours I checked my inbox and saw pics of a style of photobooth that I was completely unfamiliar with. I showed the photos to Anthony Vizzari, the founder of A&A Studios (and 312photobooth) and he was just as surprised. We reached out to some of our well learned photobooth aficionados in our network and came to the conclusion that this was a VERY RARE, pre-World War 2, vintage Mutoscope photobooth and at that time there were only five or these things that we knew of. I got back the guy and told him the news. I also offered him our services to restore his booth. He said he'd get back to us.
A few weeks later they guy calls me back and says he talked to the producers of the History Channel Reality Show "American Restoration" and they were super excited to take on the project of restoring his photobooth and he'd given them our info if they had any questions about the photobooth. Soon, Anthony gets a call from Rick Dale, the star of the show American Restoration and then next thing I know, Anthony, his wife Andrea, their new born son Max and I are all on a plane to Las Vegas to help the cast and crew of the show to restore this classic vintage Mutoscope photobooth.
It was a great week. Not only did we get to see how they filmed their show, we also got to be "extras" on Pawn Stars (the same production company makes both shows and the director of our episode told us that her boyfriend was directing Pawn Stars that day and if we wanted to go check it out, she'd hook it up). It was cool experience!
The American Restoration episode aired and we had big viewing party at Chicago's High Dive. It was the first episode of their 3rd season and is called "Photo Finish."
As A&A Studios is one of the top photobooth restoration & fabrication companies in the world it was only natural that he would reach out to us. I asked him to send me some photos of his booth, thinking it was probably one of the classic 1960's photobooths that A&A Studios restores regularly and I'd get back to him.
Within a few hours I checked my inbox and saw pics of a style of photobooth that I was completely unfamiliar with. I showed the photos to Anthony Vizzari, the founder of A&A Studios (and 312photobooth) and he was just as surprised. We reached out to some of our well learned photobooth aficionados in our network and came to the conclusion that this was a VERY RARE, pre-World War 2, vintage Mutoscope photobooth and at that time there were only five or these things that we knew of. I got back the guy and told him the news. I also offered him our services to restore his booth. He said he'd get back to us.
A few weeks later they guy calls me back and says he talked to the producers of the History Channel Reality Show "American Restoration" and they were super excited to take on the project of restoring his photobooth and he'd given them our info if they had any questions about the photobooth. Soon, Anthony gets a call from Rick Dale, the star of the show American Restoration and then next thing I know, Anthony, his wife Andrea, their new born son Max and I are all on a plane to Las Vegas to help the cast and crew of the show to restore this classic vintage Mutoscope photobooth.
It was a great week. Not only did we get to see how they filmed their show, we also got to be "extras" on Pawn Stars (the same production company makes both shows and the director of our episode told us that her boyfriend was directing Pawn Stars that day and if we wanted to go check it out, she'd hook it up). It was cool experience!
The American Restoration episode aired and we had big viewing party at Chicago's High Dive. It was the first episode of their 3rd season and is called "Photo Finish."
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