Say Cheese!
October 2008
Say Cheese
Polite In Public - It Ain’t Your Parents Photo Booth
Ever been photographed grabbing your junk while winking at the camera from a giant genie bottle? What about struggling with a wild but sexy extraterrestrial on her home planet? No one who steps into a Polite in Public photo booth suffers post-party depression. They get to take home magazine-quality shots of themselves doing zany things - for free. The creation of cofounders Joe Rubinstein and Joe Miller turns the old-school photo booth on its head, and the once fledgling, now hugely successful viral marketing idea has become the darling of event planners everywhere.
“We have a large amount of fun poses and ideas in our heads at all times,” says Rubinstein, who not only runs the ever-expanding company that brings the portable photo booths to events across the country, but helps direct partygoers into posing for the PIP camera. “Most of that has to do with the dynamic of two people: one is attracted and ignored; scary and scared. Sometimes it’s that simple to create a little story to play out.”
With custom-created backdrops, props and all-too-willing partygoers-turned-models, PIP has made its way from house party sensation to Democratic National Convention showstopper and the Pineapple Express red carpet premiere (the background was a greenhouse filled with, well, guess which type of plant?) - all in just two years’ time.
“Right after a good picture is taken, people say, ‘It’s a good MySpace pic,’” says Rubinstein, who dreamed up the idea with pal Miller after college. Although the client’s logo isn’t always obvious, companies like Mercedes-Benz and Esurance.com do end up on people’s MySpace and Facebook pages because of the PIP booths at their events.
That’s because PIP photos are dazzling. Many of the backdrops feature stunning street art and retro scenes designed by LA graffiti artists, but that can all vary according to the client’s mission. Rubinstein says the most elaborate was a 15-foot papier-mâché moon scene, which was “like a little movie set.”
People rave about their photos on the company’s Web site. One couple from San Antonio, Texas, had this to say: “ALL of our friends were MAD jealous of the rad photos!!!! They’re framed in our living rooms and it definitely was the icing on the cake of a wonderful night!” Another person noted, “… I’m not sure I’ve taken a better picture! Seriously!”
“People who pose for a Polite in Public photo often say they’ve never looked so good,” Rubinstein says, who points out that the state-of-the-art computer software, which runs on Macs, works by recognizing the difference between hair, skin, clothing and jewelry, and can sharpen or clarify facets of each pic without distorting other parts. A modular terminal prints the photos, which are inevitably bold, artsy and airbrush-perfect. A slew of custom software does in seconds what it takes Adobe Photoshop hours to do, and your average partygoer gets a picture they’ll keep for a lifetime.
Even movie stars and celebs aren’t above getting into the action. Samuel L. Jackson posed in the booth at a Barack Obama event, where PIP created a mock press frenzy - a blue background with the word “Hope” across it, behind a tangled cluster of microphones; singer Lance Bass used his fake locker room scene for a year on his MySpace page.
“It’s really rewarding,” says Rubinstein. “The [people] end up being really happy.” He says that though his company is doing well, it’s not about the money, but great photos people take and keep forever. “That’s why we do it. People really love it,” he says. The next time 944 readers attend a party where a long line stretches into an odd vortex of people hamming it up for the camera, Polite in Public is likely near.
